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English Phrase: Dig your heels in
Digging your heels in is not always a sign of stubbornness.
I need to make that point clear before we go any further.
To dig your heels in means to refuse to change something, such as your ideas, thoughts or plans, especially when someone else is trying to convince you to do otherwise.
We have to dig our heels in and refuse to accept negatives such as inequality, racism and misogyny.
There should be no compromise on these.
In other areas of concern, compromise is not only preferred, it’s required.
These days, liberalism values the ability to open yourself up to new experiences and ideas and to continually progress.
In contrast, conservatism is fighting to get back to the way things were.
Neither side has shown itself willing to look at the benefits of the other.
The result is an impasse.
Both sides have dug their heels in and refused to consider what the other side has to say.
While each says the other is just being stubborn, I believe it’s not as simple as that.
Conservatives believe liberalism has gone too far, and as a result of that, our societies have lost their identities.
Who we are now as a people is a product of who we were in the past.
The past is what created the present.
So, they have a point.
On the flip side, liberals feel conservatives are trying to undo the hard-fought gains in freedom and equality we now have and drag us back to a romanticized time, which was somehow better.
The question is, better for who?
By looking at the past through rose-coloured glasses, we are only fooling ourselves.
By digging their heels in, they have both refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other’s thoughts and feelings.
Digging in your heels is not necessarily a negative thing, but if it’s done just because, then it’s merely stubborn.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 68.
The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.