Drowning In a Sea of Information

Politics are everywhere in today’s world. From social media to T.V. shows and movies, it is swimming in our everyday lives. Sometimes, to a younger, possibly easily influenced person, this constant pelting of political ideals can seem suffocating and overwhelming. Often it is hard to distinguish our own ideas from the ones pushed into our lives.

“The media tells them what to think… because they only talk about one thing to stick that into people’s brains,” Maddie Fagan, a Deer Park High School sophomore said.

Many times, it isn’t just politics in the media working alone that can provide that hard to breathe environment, but also peoples personal opinions on social situations and issues. These opinions constantly thrown at individuals can stop the voicing of their views under fear of being attacked for their beliefs that might not be precisely cookie cutter. Not to say that we should not be allowed to voice our opinions, but they should be voiced in a way that isn’t violent or conniving.

“You should explain your points, but make sure you point to the good of both [sides], also always be willing to listen actively, and then end in a positive manner,” Jerry Hurtado, an economics teacher at Deer Park High School said.

Knowing how to voice opinions and how to get your point across in a non-attack based way is a very important skill to have. But more and more in this day and age we see this skill falling onto the backburner in exchange for voices becoming louder and more widespread, just not in a particularly positive way.

“I think anytime fear sets in to us trying to agree or disagree, it becomes a barrier that we can’t deal with… Okay, and so our best way of dealing with it is to either shut up or become louder or even more violent. And that can be the problem with it all, I think that what you’re seeing in this country is you’re seeing that violence itself seems to be becoming an idea for people to make their points,” Hurtado said.

Today, we find not only people forcing their political agendas in everyone’s thoughts, but also, TV shows. “American Horror Story“ is a TV show that has a different story line each season, revolving around some aspect of the horror genre, this is season seven, and revolves around cult like followings. Something that isn’t far from being very current. The season has very obvious political undertones, and many people have extremely varying opinions on where exactly this season is headed and what it is trying to accomplish. But “American Horror Story“ is not alone in that they focus on an aspect of politics and exaggerate either to make a point.

“There are three sides to every story and unfortunately the media only portrays one side. It plants an idea in the heads of today’s youth and forces them to unconsciously stem off of one-sided ideals and opinions,” Skylyr Wells, captain of the debate team and senior at Deer Park High School said.

It is impossible to leave politics out of our day to day lives in this day and age, so the best we can do is embrace it and begin to teach younger generations how to separate others thoughts and opinions from our own. Having a different political standing, as long as it doesn’t hurt someone, isn’t something to be attacked or berated for. It is something people should begin to embrace, because without conversation and debate our world would be a very, very boring place.