I can't imagine anyone saying it better than did Mark Twain: "All generalities are false, including this one."
Painting with a broad brush too often amounts to painting with a bad brush, when the breadth of the brush stroke covers irrelevant areas.
For example, the word "the," arguably among the most innocuous utterances in our native tongue, becomes a weapon of mass diistraction when coupled with a catch-all noun, as in "the" problem, or "the" solution, or "the" men, or women, or children, Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, races, religions, partisans, or people who differ in any way from the utterer.
When politicians, pundits, pulpiteers, power brokers or positors of any strongly held point of view lead off with a conclusive preface like "the problem is," you can usually bet your "buts" that they have foreclosed their minds to everything outside the parameters which they have defined - yours included if you don't go along.
That is to say, they have chosen not to employ a modifier such as "one of the problems," or "in my opinion," or, "I may be wrong, but." They have, instead, generalized that "this is it," and have excluded all conflicting concepts. ("My mind is made up; please don't muss it up with challenging facts.")
Likewise, they firmly advertise that those who disagree "are," ipso facto, a this or a that, specifying the label of their choice.
Aside: I'll shout a huzzah for the next passionate partisan who says "tend to be," or who concedes that the opposition has made at least some good points, but I hold little hope of ever finding one.
Implicitly, in minds that are enclosed within hard heads, those unenlightened wretches who take contrary positions on a given subject should not even be heard, much less heeded.
Sadly, that is the basis of what passes for political debate and due deliberation from Clown Halls to Crapitall Hill in American governance.
With few exceptions, our elected reprehensibles - like elephants parading trunk-to-tail under a circus tent - latch on to carefully crafted "talking points," which they ferociously defend, while demonizing the opposing views of the animals in adjacent rings.
Anyone who says that "this" (no matter what "this" happens to be) is "it," is blind to the probability that their "this" is only one part of a larger picture.
Bigots are people who hold inflexibly and intolerantly to a narrowly-defined belief or opinion; thus, some of the "nicest" as well as the nastiest individuals on the planet can also be the most bigoted.
"The-ism" (and please note that hyphen, churchfolks) polarizes otherwise reasonable people and is a formidable barrier to the discussion and compromise which are necessary to an orderly society.
It is certainly okay to believe that something or somebody is right or wrong, but it is destructive and counterproductive not to allow room for honest disagreement, a concept that is totally foreign to most of the talking heads in the public eye and ear.
As this is written, the dung of rhetoric is being flung across the aisles and in the dark alleys of government, as our leaders grapple with such ponderous problems as war, poverty, deficits, oil prices, global warming, national security, illegal immigration, creeping inflation and - regrettably topping the agenda - their desperate need to either gain or retain the reins of power.
The most likely result is that little of lasting value will be done about any major problems facing our nation, largely because, like the nine blind men describing an elephant, the potential solvers thereof will be unable to agree on what each of "the" problems really is.
Correction: Each of them will "know" EXACTLY what each problem is and exactly how to solve it.
What they are least likely to know is how to agree on the single solution that best minimizes or removes each problem, regardless of the short-term cost to themselves in political popularity or to the backers who either got them where they are or can get them where they want to be.
Next time you pair up a "the" with a dead-end generality about people or things, ask yourself if you've given enough consideration to viewpoints that you hadn't considered, or that you, perhaps, considered unworthy of evaluation.
Understand, that sort of tunnel vision is very much a part of human nature.
But it also might be, if you'll forgive me for deviating from the theme of this column, "the" problem.
Freelance wordworker Joe Klock, Sr. (joeklock@aol.com) is a winter Floridian and summer New Hampshireman. For more of his "Klockwork," visit www.joeklock.com.
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