Everyone knows how good it is to jump into a cool pool of water on a hot day. And many times the water is actually not the cool. It is just your perception that it is cool because it is cooler than the air temperature. You jump in and it takes a few seconds to get “use to it”. You perceive it as cool.
Now realistically the water could be cool and you know this because you do not get used to it immediately. In fact, sometimes the water can be cool enough that even in 90-degree heat outside the water stays cool on your body and you get cold.
You are left with deciding if the water is actually cold or just appears cold. Of course, facts help. If someone tells you the water temperature is 60 degrees on this 90-degree day you will state with confidence that the water is cold. Or is it?
When the air temperature has been in the 30′s or 40′s how does 60-degree water feel? Is it warm?
Or why is it when the outside temperature is 100 + and the water temperature is in the 80′s or higher that when you step out of the water and a breeze hits you, it feels cold. You stand there thinking, its a hundred friggin degrees out here, why am I cold?
And the obvious thought is this is all about perception. How does a person perceive the world around them and the answer is yes.
And this same perception exists in people evaluating other people’s political leanings. A very liberal person will say someone who exhibits moderate traits is conservative. And like the 60-degree water and the 90-degree air temperature, there is still some perception involved. Facts exist and are accounted for, but not always completely accepted in a person’s perception.
And this has gone on since the dawn of political thinking. People interpret other people’s beliefs based on their temperature.
As you know I call myself an independent conservative, how you perceive me as a conservative is based on how liberal or conservative you tend to be. And since I incorporate some liberal thinking you may not think of me as a conservative, but throw in some facts and it is more confusing. Some people may say I am classically liberal meaning my roots are from a different era where what I believe was very liberal for the time. I stress my conservative nature by saying I want to conserve those values, hence I am conservative in the United States because I want to conserve the values of the Constitution and our founding fathers. I also value the traditional family, hard work, belief in a higher being or creator and other beliefs that align with what some call the American ethic or more self-centered American exceptionalism.
My concern is right now the perception carries much more weight for a society to be healthy. Perception will always exist, but when a whole country or society is dominated by it and facts aren’t considered anymore then there is concern for the future of that country or society. Are we that far along? Has Trump turned normal hard-working people into a society that has no true idea of the temperature of the water and only perceives it to be what they feel without any regard to the actual temperature and how that should feel?
To me, we have reached this extreme perception and little on the facts tipping point. And I believe that both sides of the proverbial aisle perceive the water is a much different temperature than their air temperature. The discourse and animosity spoke daily display this paradigm. My hope is that I have stepped out of warm water into warmer air and the only reason I am feeling this coldness is because it is a breeze hitting my skin and that will die and the real temperature will be felt and things will normalize to at least some historical averages.
Cheers
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