John Archibald finds 'reason in an unreasonable world'

In a world full of divisive politics and name calling, sometimes it can be hard to find any reason in what seems like an unreasonable world, Alabama Media Group columnist John Archibald told the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce at its Oct. 18 luncheon.

Nationally, one of the biggest topics recently was whether U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, was Native American enough, and the president of the United States got into a public name-calling dispute with a porn star.

“Every big and little moment in politics has become a competition and sort of a war,” Archibald said. “It’s become a battle of insults, and it wears on me.”

The war is waged by both Republicans and Democrats, he said.

“People pick sides and they cheer at cheap shots when their own team commits them, and they boo when the flag is thrown on the other team, and here we are rooting for sides rather than rooting for America,” Archibald said. “When we reach the point that politics are more important than America, then I just don’t think that we’re American anymore.”

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that fewer than 50 percent of Republicans and fewer than 50 percent of Democrats like elected officials who compromise with people with whom they disagree. Archibald said that attitude just makes the battle rage on forever.

“We stare across the aisles and make enemies of each other, and we stare across the street and we make enemies of ourselves,” he said.

Archibald recently agreed to write a column about finding reason in an unreasonable world but was having a hard time doing so. One particular day, it hit him.

A woman at the YMCA pool gave up her swim lane for him, an older man in the whirlpool entertained him with old hymns on a harmonica and a troubled government employee who had just had cancer surgery took time to try to cheer him up with magic tricks and a “three-piece chicken dinner” joke box.

Then he received a note from a 96-year-old woman begging him to be careful because she was concerned for his safety. And while he walked his dog that evening, he noticed the drivers who pulled on the other side of the street to avoid him more so than the speeders he frequently thinks will run him over.

“All these things are tiny, little things, things you don’t notice, things that happen every single day,” Archibald said. “It’s not on CNN or Fox or Twitter or Facebook or AL.com or on the anonymous comments on AL.com, but if you look around you, it’s right there all the time.”

There are small acts of kindness and people who find and share the joy in life even as they ace tremendous difficulties themselves, Archibald said.

“I urge you to look at real people every time you stop to worry about the state of our world,” he said. “Real people, I promise you, are good, and I’m going to stick with that.”