People will never agree. Especially not on standards. People will argue about the verdict in a courtroom, the flaws of the SAT in providing a standard for college admissions, even the 'accuracy' of a history textbook that is too left-leaning or right-leaning. When these standards are taken to a national scale, these disagreements become huge as well. And ugly.

There is no correct way, no one Truth; at least, even if there is, there are few people who can figure it out in their lifetime. It's impossible in such a short amount of time, with millions of different and unique viewpoints, to set a perfect standard for what should be taught in history classrooms. I do think we should not teach history that is biased, but I also believe we shouldn't make a conscious effort to 'balance the playing field'. All right, so people say we should keep it perfectly in the middle, make sure no one bias pulls our history textbook too far to the left or the right. But how?

There will always be biases, and events will never be perfectly recorded. No one can ever tell what every single person directly related to the incident was thinking or what led to their thoughts and actions, much less know what every single person not directly related to the incident was thinking. It's impossible. It's impossible to have a perfectly objective history, a perfectly objective viewpoint, a perfectly objective government.

Nor should we try. Yes, some of us have extreme viewpoints on some subjects, but we should not, contrary to what most believe, make a conscious effort to lean toward the other direction. That's lying to yourself and that's something that will fail. Look at affirmative action. Look at where a conscious effort to force ourselves away from race biases to "make things fair" led us. Were things fair? No.

But, if we have extremists and we discourage them from trying to push themselves toward the center, what should we do? I believe that rather than force ourselves to believe something we don't believe in, we should instead stay true to our beliefs, but understand that others have other beliefs and be willing to accept them.

That's what it means to keep an open mind. Not forcing yourself toward the left or right.

Note: On advice from a trusted friend, I have disabled comments for fear of said comments becoming too political in nature. If you have something to say in response, please post a blog entry (keep it within Blog guidelines though) and direct me to it via PM.