Open Your Mind & Engage The Other - Editorial from Chris McCahill
I make the point of not doing your usual, run of the mill editorials, it’s simply not who I am. I was never one for talking about myself, what I did, what I’m doing and so forth, so those editorials always bored me, and I never really saw the point. That’s why I prefer to talk about the big issues out there. In the first edition I wrote about taking offense, and this time I’m writing about being close-minded, as the two can be very related issues. For example, think of a few of the current or recent political events: with Brexit we saw on social media and in traditional media, almost a disbelief by the Remain side of how people could be voting to leave. Some supporters of the remain side were so assured of their own beliefs & opinions that, instead of tackling the issues of leave side, chose to insult and attack leave voters. This essentially left many remain voters so close minded that they could barely believe it when the vote went against them. We can see a very similar and worrying trend developing at home with the Repeal the 8th movement; many of its supporters, and those campaigning for it, often too easily dismiss the pro-life side of the debate and fail to properly engage with the issues raised by that side. The pro-life side too is often guilty of this. It’s that level of close mindedness on a political level that is a worrying trend for the future, it means we could continue to fail to engage with the big issues & questions we are faced with and then, as a result, a continuation of people becoming disenfranchised and disengaging with politics and political issues. This only serves to worsen the situation. It’s one of those issues that could probably be easily solved by people playing the devil’s advocate on big issues, such as the 8th Amendment, to better understand the other side of the debate.