A Better Question

The advice columnist at Salon receives a letter from a woman worried about her father’s conservatism:

This is not the man I grew up with. I think he fears a future he cannot control, and longs for a past that never existed. He is responding to this existential crisis with fear, anger and paranoia. I feel for his situation, but cannot respect the viewpoint it generates. We are at a point where we can barely speak about current events or politics without deeply offending one another. I feel I cannot reconcile myself to his beliefs, and I know it is profoundly changing our relationship. How can I help him embrace a progressive, inclusive future? How do I bring back rationality, sensitivity and temperance into our discussions?

And the advice columnist in reply does plenty of preaching to the choir about how that evil Fox News is destroying America by leading into darkness people like this old man.

But interestingly, the columnist also, and primarily, writes:

I think a better question to ask is, “How can I be closer to my father?”

A lesson and a reminder.