It’s almost a cliche at this point to talk about how divided our country has become. Equally cliched is the subsequent, impassioned plea for something — sanity, reason, unity — anything to get us back to a place where the national conversation doesn’t feel like a shouting match just before a fistfight. But even if our country wasn’t in the throes of a generation-defining political moment, we as college students, in our capacity and eagerness, would seek out those crises that haven’t yet been named and put our passion and ambition in the service of resolving them.
In any case, there’s no doubt that we are living through a pivotal era in the history of the United States and the world. It’s a deadly serious responsibility. Important moments tend to bring out the best in us, but also the worst; they bring out the parts that are the most gracious and heroic and brave, yes, but also the parts that are arrogant and irresponsible and self-righteous. Needless to say, we have plenty of the last to go around on both the “right” and the “left” — whatever those terms have come to mean.
A theme that — I hope — runs through my columns, is the importance of self-doubt, reflection and humility. These virtues are essential. As our country devolves further into the aforementioned shouting match, they become vital. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you are subject to the disease of the human condition — our fallibility and imperfection. Many of our problems could be solved, or at least addressed, by admitting to ourselves that we may actually be wrong. Not only about trivial things, but about the most fundamental questions that we thought we had answered.
It’s important to recognize our fallibility. Before we try to go out and change the world — or save it — we must also recognize that we ourselves, like the world at large, are a work in progress. There’s evil and injustice out there — too much to bear, at certain points. But that recognition must also come with the admission that none of us are impervious to evil, to mistakes or to simply being wrong about what is true and what is not.
The fight against darkness and falsehood is not just between people — that fight rages within each person. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian nationalist and author who exposed the vast, unimaginable crimes of the communist regime in the Soviet Union, said this about the eternal battle: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
I think about Solzhenitsyn’s quote often — it gets to the core of what it means to be a human being, prone to pride and self-deception and moral blindness. Like that dividing line of which he speaks, change runs through your heart, too. Changing yourself is a difficult thing; changing the world is weightier still. They are connected intimately, and the great moral heroes of our time knew this well.
So, if you’re a college student, and you want to change the world or save it, this column is for you. The things I’ve mentioned here, you should keep in mind. Reflect on your deeply held beliefs and challenge them. If they are that important to you, you’d better be damn sure you have things straight. Recognize that as you yourself are fallible, others are, too, and therefore be forgiving. You will realize, with time, that if you can become a more understanding person, others will recognize it in you and you will lead by your example.
Becoming a better person is a lifelong process — we’ll never quite finish. Subjecting our deeply held beliefs to questioning and scrutiny is difficult and sometimes humiliating. But we have to struggle with it every day — this moment demands it of us.
Aaron Bondar is a junior double-majoring in economics and political science.