The Fault In Our Stars and Stripes

“the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to talk about” 

-David Foster Wallace

Unfortunately for us, Wallace’s quote proves to be true. Even though it is obvious that we should be unified, Americans often find themselves very conflicted. Whether it be over the latest news report or that penalty that shouldn’t have been called, we find conflict in everything. Even though the right answer may be obvious, we are too stubborn to admit when we are wrong. Bouncing off of Wallace’s idea of “natural, default thinking”, it seems America has swapped the thinking aspect for conflict. No matter what the issue is, Americans are always conflicted. Instead of escaping “default thinking”, we as Americans need to escape “default conflict”. We need unity. 

Honestly, I believe that all Americans know that we need to unify over serious issues and abandon our stubbornness. However, I also believe that we all have fallen victim to the ‘leave it to someone else’ mindset. In other words, some may feel like the problem will resolve without their help because someone else will resolve it instead. In our case, this simply will not work. 

Although abandoning our default setting would require a lot of work, it would heavily impact this country for the better. I mean, think about it. No more useless arguments that leave us questioning our sanity. Think about politics! No more saying “no” just because you don’t like the person who said it. As a country, we would get so much done if we would make an effort to escape the defaulted conflict. And of course, as the famous quote suggests, “Teamwork makes the dream work”.