Left to Right — My Political and Intellectual Journey

I’m an Indian and discovered American entertainment a little late in life via Hollywood movies moved to TV shows then some reality shows and late-night talk shows to news media like CNN, NYT, WP, etc also to online counterpart like BuzzFeed, Vice, Slate, etc. Every celebrity or personality I encountered on the above media seemed smart, articulate, compassionate, moral, liberal, and yes, democrats. And everything opposed should be immoral, dumb, bigoted, illiberal and yes, republican.

This is all of the American pop culture, politics, news, and narrative to me and I thought Isn’t it obvious that health care should be free to everyone in a rich country like America? Isn’t it obvious guns should be banned? Isn’t it obvious all big corporations are bad? Why should billionaires exist when there are homeless? Isn’t Feminism=Equality?

Being a young rebel I was an Athiest, discovering philosophies like rationalism, trying my best to understand each and make sense in my own limited vocabulary. Entering the internet rabbit hole of wikis and subedits, reading the night and days, I discovered personalities like “Sam Harries” and other Horsemen of Atheism. Was like finding a guru in Sam Harris. I’m not a great reader of books, but Youtube was around and though I could understand only a few parts, I enjoyed debates of Sam Harris vs creationist, evangelist, religious figures.

Thanks to Sam Harris, I discovered Joe Rogan, and thanks to Joe Rogan, I discovered 100s of alternative viewpoints for every topic above. It was like discovering a mine of knowledge, got introduced to some of the brilliant thinkers, philosophers, scientists, politicians, etc etc. and the best, Jordan Peterson! I’ll be forever grateful to Joe Rogan for all the mind-bending, informative, fun, perspective-changing, motivating conversations.

While I learned a lot and still learning, I’ve some minor conclusions, all republicans are not bad, all democrats are not good, left doesn’t hold the moral high ground. Progress is not about changing everything, it’s about keeping good things and change things which are problematic to this day and age. And it’s a process which is complex which needs both progressives and conservatives play tug-of-war moving at the right place.

I understand the importance of Freedom, Free Speech, and Expression. At least I think I do. One of the most important lessons I learned is to always listen to both sides of the argument.

Live Free or Die -General John Stark