I recently started following the blog of Rod Dreher, which is its own story (and one I will get to next week).  A few days ago he passed on the thoughts of Brian Kaller, who grew up “next door” to Ferguson and now lives out of the country.  An excerpt:

I live in rural Ireland these days, and can’t vouch for what’s happening on the ground in Ferguson right now; I’m reading the same Rashomon-style reports on the internet like everyone else. As someone who knows the neighborhood and the city, though, I can tell that pundits around the world, left and right, are seeing in this tragedy whatever they want to see. Black activists see police racism, libertarians see a failure of big government, liberals see a need for better social policies, law-and-order conservatives for more … you get the idea. Whoever you are, this tragedy just proves you were right all along. And when the violence in this St. Louis suburb dies down, Americans of all political stripes might walk away having learned all the wrong lessons.

What’s true of big-picture politics is probably true of small-picture politics.  It’s the result of the “opinionization” of contemporary culture.  Everything is a Rorshach test.  Sit in a meeting where decisions are made, listen to adults trying to interpret basic information.  Somehow, almost unnoticed, everyone’s pet peeve or pet project becomes suddenly relevant.  We say our part and pat ourselves on the back and move no closer to real resolution.

I’d like to think I’m above this kind of behavior, but I know that I’m not.  It’s hard not to when everything seems to be at stake all of the time.  What would a better way look like, and it existed, would we even be able to see it?

You can read the full essay here.  And you can read Rod Dreher’s gloss here.