In the overwhelming world of today’s news and media, where false information spreads like wildfire and the narrow minded are given a platform to spew their nonsense, it can be so easy for us to jump to conclusions on that which we truly know very little about.

Now this is not entirely our fault, as humans we are hardwired to favor conclusive opinions— people do not feel comfortable when they are undecided. As social psychologist Arie Kruglanski puts it in The New York Times article “Why We Need Answers,” “[people] want to achieve ‘cognitive closure.’” That is why the black-andwhite nature of today’s media and society has thrived so expansively in our society.

For example, in the case of the 2024 presidential election, many U.S. citizens are stubbornly committed to one of two distinct political parties with no room for overlap. A family member once said that he found former president Donald Trump to be “a very bad person and politician,” but that he was “a strict Republican,” and would “vote red no matter what.” As shocking as this may be to hear from the fairly progressive outlook of urban Minnesota, it’s a common experience in many conservative rural communities and in some extremely liberal communities as well.

However, just because these situations more commonly occur away from the Minnetonka High School community does not mean that the uncompromising effects of news and media (especially within politics) are nonexistent in our proximity. An anonymous member of the student body said that the political divides in media have “made [them] more judgmental”, specifically after learning of another’s political beliefs. Similarly, when MHS student Sophia Zhang, ‘26, was asked why she believes this division has occurred, she expressed that “the way our system works makes it basically impossible for third parties to win… [political labels] just seem very black and white with no fluidity.”

Mankind’s inability to compromise with itself has always been its greatest downfall, forever choosing self destruction over consensus. However, we are educated, we are young, and we are the future; we get to decide what comes next. The black-and-white sentiments of our society are not indestructible. Unity can be achieved— and all that we need to do is to choose the gray