We need to cool our political tempers - and we can

Most Americans would be overjoyed if politicians and political activists would cool their rhetoric.

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Despite the claims of activists on both the left and right, all policy questions aren't "life or death," and those on the "other side" aren't necessarily ignorant and evil.Although political conflict is inevitable, we each have the power to steer disagreements away from name-calling and rhetorical headbutting. If we want the activists and politicians to behave differently, the citizens need to behave differently as well, according to the Tribune News Service.

First, we need to grow personally and make sure our school-age children do the same. Some argue we are experiencing the dawn of a post-literate society, where reading and writing are being made redundant by primarily passive communication methods. Artificial intelligence tools are relieving us of the active search for knowledge and can even write persuasively on our behalf with a few key prompts.

To have better, fuller, more informed interactions with others, we need patient temperaments and interesting ideas. You can't obtain these through doom scrolling - only through new experiences in both the world around us and in our own minds.