Avoiding the Poles: Lifting Society through Service, Dialogue, and Understanding
By: Elder Patrick Kearon
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If we use politics as an example, one thing you could do if you acknowledge that you're out near one pole or another to move inwards from those poles, is read the point of view of the other people. If you have been, for instance, reading a particular publication or strands of information delivered to you through social media or through other sources, deliberately go and read the point of view that some of your friends are being delivered through their own media channels or publications. The value of doing this is greater now than it ever has been before because as we're learning, one of the ways that our media gets delivered to us is that it constantly hones in on the things that we're already looking at. So, it gives us more and more, an ever-greater diet of the thoughts and ideologies that we already adhere to. When it would do us very well to turn, read, and listen to the ideologies, thoughts, and concepts of those we currently may disagree with. If we do that with an open heart, we'll be blessed to understand the people we disagree with and become a force for peace. And goodness knows, we need greater peace in our public and private life....
Again, we need to listen. We need to watch it. We need to talk to those who don't share our ideas, come to an understanding with them, and recognize step-by-step that above all, they are children of God too. They want happy lives for themselves and happy lives for their children and grandchildren. You must be examples of this. You have the gospel as your foundation and have been taught that we must be peacemakers. This is work for you to do. And to continue on that, perhaps while you're still studying and beyond, I would encourage you to take your place in contributing to society in governments of various different forms....
But as you remember who you are, you will be blessed as you become a depolarizing voice and as you train yourself to become such. If you've got over dug-in in your points of view, and if you can't see it, ask a friend if you've become so, and then go to work and watch your rhetoric, and be calm, considerate, and thoughtful as you consider the ideas of the ideology and positions of others.
Come close and understand them. You may never fully agree, and that's okay. But be a voice for peace and get involved at suitable points in your life in the leadership of schools, universities, cities, counties, states, and nations. We are a people who thrive on opposition. Again, we don't seek it, but we must now be people who thrive in union and unison with others. We must find others with whom we haven't always agreed and get closer to them and find common cause with them, find things that we can unite around and build a better town, better city, better world with them, and build happier families at the heart of all of that.
