This grayscale is a tool I use when working with my art students.
I have them decipher their levels of anger, joy, hurt, etc… in order to measure their emotional reaction, and see if it is appropriate to the situation. This visual is a helpful tool that embeds in their mind and subsequently sharpens their perception of themselves.
But how can this grayscale help un-polarize our country?… I hear you asking.
Let’s imagine that the FAR-right and FAR-left are on either end of the scale. It doesn’t matter which side. The only thing that matters is that there is a lot of “gray area” in between each extreme.
We all know people who are strictly planted at each end of the spectrum no matter what the issue is, right?They are stuck to the extreme edge, permanently, with their unwillingness to be flexible at all. And I’m guessing you probably feel a bit uncomfortable with that rigid point of view, right?
Because we are at a volatile point in our history right now, it is time to move a bit closer to the center. WHY??? you ask.
There’s a bigger picture at play here. We have a world-wide wake-up call. We need a new level of understanding.
I’m not asking anyone to move to the middle of the grayscale (where I mostly stay, by the way) but to understand that NOW we need to compromise, more than ever.
As Trump said this week:
We need to find “COMMON GROUND”.
…and COMMON GROUND is the color GRAY (and just a bit closer to the middle).
This is how we can soften the extremes and reduce polarization.
NOW is the time.
