I experienced what I consider to be my first political confrontation in a locker room at the age of seven. The topic of conversation had turned to television, a subject about which I—having been raised on a fairly limited TV diet of news and documentaries—knew painfully little.  In a concerted effort to avoid awkwardness I remained silent, at least until someone mentioned Fox. Finally, I thought, something to which I can contribute! I eagerly chimed in:

“Yeah, I watch Fox News! And NBC, and CNN, and ABC, and CBS—60 Minutes is awesome!”

One by one, the other girls turned to look at me. Finally, one of them said, voice dripping with contempt, “What are you talking about? Fox isn’t news.”

In retrospect, she was probably referring to the Fox of Family Guy and The Simpsons. But her passing remark shook my seven-year-old worldview and set the groundwork for what would become an ongoing quest to decipher fact from fiction.  In the murky world of politics, I quickly learned I had to formulate stances independent of both my right-wing family and my left-wing friends.

My parents were and are firm believers in evaluating both sides of an issue before forming an opinion. We had no single news channel of choice; each day we’d flip back and forth between several. To me, Fox was just one of many—I had little to no understanding of bias in journalism and was unaware that, especially in my home state of Massachusetts, admitting to watching Fox News was tantamount to blasphemy of the highest order, worthy at least of derision if not outright vitriol.

As I grew older I grew progressively more reserved about my political beliefs. All my politically vocal friends were liberal; they touted their party of choice as being the party of “tolerance,” while in the same breath mocking and dismissing those with whom they disagreed. It wasn’t long before I began to feel that I had to be missing something: If all my friends, whom I knew to be intelligent and rational, saw the same facts but came to conclusions so radically different from mine, I figured there had to be something fundamentally wrong with the way I was approaching and thinking about politics.

Throughout high school I struggled to reconcile my right-of-center political upbringing with the overwhelmingly left-wing culture of the state in which I was born and raised. As I attempted to break away from both sides and form “my own opinions,” what perplexed me were not the varying stances—each group often made valid points—but the ways in which these stances were categorized. I couldn’t bring myself to agree with the Democratic Party’s big-government philosophy but found myself disagreeing just as much with the GOP’s stances on abortion and gay marriage.  My family’s experiences with communism made me skeptical of big government on all fronts, fiscal and social alike; I couldn’t understand how my friends, so vehement about government non-interference in social matters, could simultaneously advocate enormous government spending and regulation.

College was an exciting transition on a number of levels, of course, but I was particularly excited about the chance to join what had to be an engaging and open political discussion on campus. An institution of higher learning that valued diversity of opinion naturally seemed the best place to hone political beliefs and exchange ideas, and I looked forward to the chance to debate with and learn from my peers.

To a certain extent, I wasn’t wrong. There is a vibrant dialogue on campus on all manner of issues—as long as one’s beliefs fall within certain unwritten boundaries. I’m fortunate enough to have an acceptable, libertarian-esque platform, but the ways in which certain viewpoints are treated on campus, implicitly or otherwise, have made me reluctant to voice my own. Although this is no doubt at least somewhat due to cowardice on my part, the overall less-than-tolerant approach to political discussion has made me question how open and accepting the conversation really is.

Developing a set of beliefs is and should be an ongoing process. Being exposed to perspectives from both sides of the aisle beginning at an early age was mostly a blessing. Although it has caused a fair amount of confusion, it’s also given me the opportunity to evaluate various issues from multiple angles. There is value inherent in diversity of opinion, and shutting down certain perspectives runs counter to a culture that purportedly values tolerance and the exchange of ideas.

I’ll never know if the girl in the locker room all those years ago shot me down out of political conviction or—more likely—simply sciolism. But college is a far cry from a bunch of seven-year-olds, and the stakes of tolerance in conversation are significantly higher here. Allowing as many different viewpoints as possible to participate in dialogue is the best way to learn and grow from discussion—whether you watch Fox for the news or just for New Girl.

Christina M. Teodorescu is a Crimson editorial writer in Eliot House.