Identification reality check

Still reading What's the Matter with Kansas? and I am again simultaneously enlightened and confused. Enlightened, as to what has happened in the US on the grassroots level domestically. Confused, as to how I can understand so little of the emotions and perceptions that have given rise to this backlash and as to how I should relate to that fact. I alternate between a few views that are not very flattering to my claim to being tolerant of others who are not like me. Maybe I am not, actually, very tolerant; maybe I just feel like I can relate and understand most people so that I see very few people as actually not like me. For various reasons, I decide 'similarity' very much based on cultural interactions and/or similarities. If we can share a culture or subculture, third or otherwise, I consider us 'similar.' Of course, this gives rise to a large continuum of how similar, but the basic identification doesn't take that much.

Many of my friends who have some fact about themselves that make them different from me in some way society deems/has deemed significant doesn't really go into the 'similar' calculation, it plays more of a role like clothing choices or what music you like. It is a difference, just not the sort of difference that really matters when it comes to important stuff. Many of the readers on my Friends list may guess that they may be one. (Heck, in an extended way, everyone is. Even gender doesn't really register as an important difference in the sense that I don't see guys as fundamentally different from myself.) If you start saying that people are different from you because of any factual difference you are going to be a very lonely, bitter person. Therefore, it is not difficult to accept that they are not identical to myself - it's rather unavoidable and we're still basically similar, so... *shrug*

However, the people who are really dissimilar to me in the way turks are dissimilar to neonazis in the eyes of the neonazis and gays are dissimilar to homophobes in the eyes of the homophobes I am not so tolerant of; local people who don't care about the global, backlashers, or why not neonazis. Neonazis, however, are a special category, they need special discussion because they're such a test of the value of free speech and how far it should extend. I do not feel too bothered by my lack of tolerance for neonazis. However, people who live in one of Rosenau's Local or Isolated worlds are dissimilar to me in a very important way sometimes - I have trouble putting myself in their shoes. I can't really imagine it very well, especially the Isolated worlds, where it seems that many of the neocons live. In the end, I don't really want to, because if I'm honest with myself, I find it very difficult to respect their opinions enough to bother. I also feel that my reality checks are much better than theirs.

For example, it's difficult to believe in the "liberal media indoctrination" when you've actually seen old propaganda or news you know isn't covering the whole story/and or is propaganda. (Interesting related fact: the Chinese still haven't seen the pictures of the Tiananmen massacre. They know what happened, of course, but they haven't seen the pictures or video.) It's difficult to believe in a left-wing conspiracy when you've lived in one communist country and another so grassroots socialist that some call it the last bastion of communism on Earth. On the other hand, I have trouble believing capitalism is the root of all evil and that the US has a grand plan to take over the world for the same reason. I also know that Americans aren't all fake and shallow the way I know that all French aren't arrogant. I've seen things with my own eyes that keep my feet solidly on the ground - or at least so I'd like to think. I have an obligation to make sure I'm right - or to make myself right if I'm not.