"So my slightly more realistic hope is that we learn to judge each other based on meaningful qualities. Things like shared values and a common sense of decency and a willingness to stand up against injustice"
Agreed, although I'm writing an article right now about someone's challenge last year on Medium just before I got kicked off. One o…
"So my slightly more realistic hope is that we learn to judge each other based on meaningful qualities. Things like shared values and a common sense of decency and a willingness to stand up against injustice"
Agreed, although I'm writing an article right now about someone's challenge last year on Medium just before I got kicked off. One of Medium's very good, but too-woke-for-her-own-alleged-feminist-good writers (and now a super-woke Medium staff member) and I were debating trans issues, and she fell on the 'transwomen are women' side. She asked where my compassion was & I asked where her brain was. The article is about the thinking I've done about compassion since then, and how easy it is to be compassionate toward people you like, and less about Those Other People (the ones you don't).
The ones I'm less compassionate about are the 'acceptable' Thems on t'other side - the people who belong to fundamentalist religion, MAGAs, white supremacists, etc. It's not okay to discriminate against people who were born with a particular biology, but it's okay to discriminate against those with bad values, hateful creeds, etc.
Why are we less compassionate about *them*? They may not have been born into a particular biology but they were into a certain family, community, culture, etc. and may not know any other way. The ones who think critically may leave that unhealthy mental prison but others may not; I'm reminded of a book written by a woman who escaped a fundamentalist Mormon polygamous compound out West who described in detail why so many women never questioned or challenged the notion that they had to be held essentially in bondage to male whims and sexual desires. A fundamentalist Christian friend I had years ago - someone who wasn't very worldly or bright and with some likely brain chemistry-related emotional regulation problems - told me when she was three her mother told her Jesus loved her and always would and she believed it, and stuck with her birth religion without ever questioning it.
She was a very kind and sweet person which made her fundamentalism easier to overlook than if she'd been a hateful Republican (which, back then, over 35 years ago, they weren't nearly as bad, but Ronald Reagan was setting the scene for the mess we're in today).
I'm working slowly toward trying to engage with Those People in dribs and drabs to try and understand why they think as they do, and whether there are ways to get through their muddy thinking. And who knows, maybe I'll find something to challenge my own muddy thinking at times ;)
Some ask, 'What would Jesus do?' I ask myself, 'Who would Buddha hate?'
"Why are we less compassionate about *them*? They may not have been born into a particular biology but they were into a certain family, community, culture, etc. and may not know any other way."
I think there's a difference between having compassion for people and considering them part of "your tribe." Again, this under the assumption that tribal thinking is too ingrained in us to just eliminate.
I don't really buy the "they had no choice because of the environment they were born in" argument. It applies perfectly well to children, but not to adults. The world is too interconnected that you can innocently hate entire groups of people unless you choose, at least to some degree, to remain ignorant.
I don't consider many (if any) people "the enemy." But there are people who I think are wrong. I can still have compassion for these people. I'll still give them the benefit of the doubt if they want to have a conversation (that's kind of my whole schtick, in fact😄). I'll still try to understand where they're coming from. But there are certain values and principles of decency that I won't give ground on. And while I strongly advocate a "live and let live" mentality, that can't apply to people who don't let *others* live.
You can try to understand someone without excusing or condoning their toxic values, beliefs, practices, etc. Kind of like the difference between 'explaining' and 'excusing': "Here's why I did this bad thing, here were my thought processes, but there's still no excuse for what I did."
Trying to understand why people are the way they are isn't to excuse them, the mistake commonly made by some liberals ("Aw, poor baby, it's not their fault!"), but to better understand how we can fight their toxicity. Esp since we all think we react to each other for reasons that are largely hidden from us in our unconscious.
I don't think we should let Trumpers and the woke 'live and let live', but seek to fight their toxicity.
They might even be able to help *us* locate our *own* toxicity...and we all have some, even if it doesn't wear a red cap or a #StayWoke shirt.
Trans-women have a penis, women don't. Acknowledging that is not necessarily an indication of lack of compassion or hate. People can disagree without hate.
I think that your broad brush accusation of conservatives/Republicans is unjustifiable and (I can't read minds) seeming a bit like what you accuse them of. At the very least I see it as a straw man.
I'm pretty comfortable brushing Republicans broadly. At this point, the party is just a human shitshow of bad ideas, bigotry and naked hatred. AFAIC, if you identify as a Republican, you've admitted to being a bad human being. You don't have to be a Democrat or a liberal, but supporting it today as a voter or a politician is being on the wrong side of history, the way a lot of 'good people' (who actually had their good sides, whether we like to admit it or not) joined the Nazi Party 80-90 years ago.
I don't consider all conservatives nasty, just as I don't consider all liberals nasty. Just the extremists, and I will fight them both and their toxic beliefs. Yes, I'm guilty of divisive thinking too which is part of why I do this - searching for my own good self along with everyone else's. Nobody is *all* bad - even the most committed Nazis loved their families (I've read their letters to them).
The trouble is, Republicans say the same about Democrats with the same justification, or lack of it, as Democrats. If I had my way, political parties would be banned, and it would be a capital crime to start one. All political parties are a "𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘴, 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘥." They are the worst-case tribalism and quickest to confirm Godwin's Law.
People who strongly associate things with political parties are the typical extremists precisely because of their broad-brush views. If you look at my views on individual issues, you might think that I am one or the other until you look at all of them and see that I don't conform to either, don't want to be a part of either and they probably don't want me in their tribe except for wanting my vote.
I didn't bother to vote in the recent election. If there was a choice for "no acceptable candidate" and if it got the most votes, they would vacate the office until the next scheduled election I would start voting again. As it stands it is just good cop/bad cop in the interrogation room where neither are your friend. Tired of voting for the lesser of two evils it would be nice to vote for no evil. even if it means no government (I repeat myself). You might think I'm a near anarchist, perhaps I am.
Forgive my rant, I often agree with you and intend no foul, but political party partisanship sets me off since I so firmly see it as destructive.
Ironically, you may have a point. Just this morning I read an AP article about small towners who fear for democracy. It was about people who are regarded as 'far right' and supported Trump, but who are a bit more complicated - one guy supported the civil rights protests after George Floyd and others say they don't want violence. It was an interesting, more nuanced look into them, although it was disturbing that many of them listened to QAnon. (Then again, the far left listens to Pink News).
For sure, people assume I'm a wokie once they figure out I'm on the left (or how far down) or a right-winger if I'm pushing back on the left, as I'm wont to do. I'm not sure it's unrealistic though, to suspect that any Republican with morals has already left the party, however conservative they may be. Maybe that's incorrect, but if they're not that crazy, maybe they might want to think they're known by the company they keep.
I once left a discussion forum a year later than I should have for exactly that reason. It was getting embarrassing to be seen online with people whose cause I supported (being childfree), but who also included a lot of extremist child-haters and parent-bashers.
People are complicated which is why I so often protest tribal politics. I don't subscribe to Fox News and have only seen a limited amount of his stuff. Today I read a piece on Medium going on and on about Tucker Carlson and fear mongering. TC couldn't hold a candle to this dude's fear mongering, hyperbole and outright BS. Medium is the left-wing Tucker Carlson show. I don't hate them for it any more than I hate TC; they are expressing their biased perceptions to their audience. While their audience is not as large as his, I suspect that the average Medium reader spends more time on Medium than TC's viewers spend watching him.
From a Niel Young song, "Ooh, ooh, the damage done"
The extremists are the squeaky wheel that gets attention as they act like they are the mouth of their tribe. Odin help us if they are. Your last paragraph is a perfect example of how embarrassing it can be when people you could agree with jump the shark. All of us here have expressed it.
I don't know if it makes me unique in any way, but I have dear friends and family both left and right whose friendship I cherish and I am comfortable in their company. Some, too close to the edges will hear my opinion of that and so far, we have remained friends. Probably because we go back far before even knowing each other's political views. One internet (Medium) friend who I liked and cared about was a sad exception. Looking back, I should have expected it.
Sorry, I tend to ramble when writing since I don't need to stop and listen. As for conservatives leaving the RP, a number of friends who, like me, don't lock-step with a party started calling themselves Libertarians (a mix of left and right views who made a crossroads deal with the devil and too often vote R) for various reasons. They in no way sit at the feet of Ayn Rand, most libertarians abandoned Objectivism too.
I earned my place in the cult-like tribe known as Marines. If you were vetted to some of our forums, you would find that we are as politically divided as the rest of America. Our terms of endearment for each other sound like hate speech to outsiders. LOL
I wish I could converse with a number of people here at a table with a pitcher and bowl of chips where communication is less difficult. I suspect that your idea of what a conservative is is a bit different from mine.
"So my slightly more realistic hope is that we learn to judge each other based on meaningful qualities. Things like shared values and a common sense of decency and a willingness to stand up against injustice"
Agreed, although I'm writing an article right now about someone's challenge last year on Medium just before I got kicked off. One of Medium's very good, but too-woke-for-her-own-alleged-feminist-good writers (and now a super-woke Medium staff member) and I were debating trans issues, and she fell on the 'transwomen are women' side. She asked where my compassion was & I asked where her brain was. The article is about the thinking I've done about compassion since then, and how easy it is to be compassionate toward people you like, and less about Those Other People (the ones you don't).
The ones I'm less compassionate about are the 'acceptable' Thems on t'other side - the people who belong to fundamentalist religion, MAGAs, white supremacists, etc. It's not okay to discriminate against people who were born with a particular biology, but it's okay to discriminate against those with bad values, hateful creeds, etc.
Why are we less compassionate about *them*? They may not have been born into a particular biology but they were into a certain family, community, culture, etc. and may not know any other way. The ones who think critically may leave that unhealthy mental prison but others may not; I'm reminded of a book written by a woman who escaped a fundamentalist Mormon polygamous compound out West who described in detail why so many women never questioned or challenged the notion that they had to be held essentially in bondage to male whims and sexual desires. A fundamentalist Christian friend I had years ago - someone who wasn't very worldly or bright and with some likely brain chemistry-related emotional regulation problems - told me when she was three her mother told her Jesus loved her and always would and she believed it, and stuck with her birth religion without ever questioning it.
She was a very kind and sweet person which made her fundamentalism easier to overlook than if she'd been a hateful Republican (which, back then, over 35 years ago, they weren't nearly as bad, but Ronald Reagan was setting the scene for the mess we're in today).
I'm working slowly toward trying to engage with Those People in dribs and drabs to try and understand why they think as they do, and whether there are ways to get through their muddy thinking. And who knows, maybe I'll find something to challenge my own muddy thinking at times ;)
Some ask, 'What would Jesus do?' I ask myself, 'Who would Buddha hate?'
"Why are we less compassionate about *them*? They may not have been born into a particular biology but they were into a certain family, community, culture, etc. and may not know any other way."
I think there's a difference between having compassion for people and considering them part of "your tribe." Again, this under the assumption that tribal thinking is too ingrained in us to just eliminate.
I don't really buy the "they had no choice because of the environment they were born in" argument. It applies perfectly well to children, but not to adults. The world is too interconnected that you can innocently hate entire groups of people unless you choose, at least to some degree, to remain ignorant.
I don't consider many (if any) people "the enemy." But there are people who I think are wrong. I can still have compassion for these people. I'll still give them the benefit of the doubt if they want to have a conversation (that's kind of my whole schtick, in fact😄). I'll still try to understand where they're coming from. But there are certain values and principles of decency that I won't give ground on. And while I strongly advocate a "live and let live" mentality, that can't apply to people who don't let *others* live.
You can try to understand someone without excusing or condoning their toxic values, beliefs, practices, etc. Kind of like the difference between 'explaining' and 'excusing': "Here's why I did this bad thing, here were my thought processes, but there's still no excuse for what I did."
Trying to understand why people are the way they are isn't to excuse them, the mistake commonly made by some liberals ("Aw, poor baby, it's not their fault!"), but to better understand how we can fight their toxicity. Esp since we all think we react to each other for reasons that are largely hidden from us in our unconscious.
I don't think we should let Trumpers and the woke 'live and let live', but seek to fight their toxicity.
They might even be able to help *us* locate our *own* toxicity...and we all have some, even if it doesn't wear a red cap or a #StayWoke shirt.
Trans-women have a penis, women don't. Acknowledging that is not necessarily an indication of lack of compassion or hate. People can disagree without hate.
I think that your broad brush accusation of conservatives/Republicans is unjustifiable and (I can't read minds) seeming a bit like what you accuse them of. At the very least I see it as a straw man.
I'm pretty comfortable brushing Republicans broadly. At this point, the party is just a human shitshow of bad ideas, bigotry and naked hatred. AFAIC, if you identify as a Republican, you've admitted to being a bad human being. You don't have to be a Democrat or a liberal, but supporting it today as a voter or a politician is being on the wrong side of history, the way a lot of 'good people' (who actually had their good sides, whether we like to admit it or not) joined the Nazi Party 80-90 years ago.
I don't consider all conservatives nasty, just as I don't consider all liberals nasty. Just the extremists, and I will fight them both and their toxic beliefs. Yes, I'm guilty of divisive thinking too which is part of why I do this - searching for my own good self along with everyone else's. Nobody is *all* bad - even the most committed Nazis loved their families (I've read their letters to them).
"𝘐'𝘮 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘺. 𝘈𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘴, 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘥"
The trouble is, Republicans say the same about Democrats with the same justification, or lack of it, as Democrats. If I had my way, political parties would be banned, and it would be a capital crime to start one. All political parties are a "𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘴, 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘰𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘥." They are the worst-case tribalism and quickest to confirm Godwin's Law.
People who strongly associate things with political parties are the typical extremists precisely because of their broad-brush views. If you look at my views on individual issues, you might think that I am one or the other until you look at all of them and see that I don't conform to either, don't want to be a part of either and they probably don't want me in their tribe except for wanting my vote.
I didn't bother to vote in the recent election. If there was a choice for "no acceptable candidate" and if it got the most votes, they would vacate the office until the next scheduled election I would start voting again. As it stands it is just good cop/bad cop in the interrogation room where neither are your friend. Tired of voting for the lesser of two evils it would be nice to vote for no evil. even if it means no government (I repeat myself). You might think I'm a near anarchist, perhaps I am.
Forgive my rant, I often agree with you and intend no foul, but political party partisanship sets me off since I so firmly see it as destructive.
Ironically, you may have a point. Just this morning I read an AP article about small towners who fear for democracy. It was about people who are regarded as 'far right' and supported Trump, but who are a bit more complicated - one guy supported the civil rights protests after George Floyd and others say they don't want violence. It was an interesting, more nuanced look into them, although it was disturbing that many of them listened to QAnon. (Then again, the far left listens to Pink News).
For sure, people assume I'm a wokie once they figure out I'm on the left (or how far down) or a right-winger if I'm pushing back on the left, as I'm wont to do. I'm not sure it's unrealistic though, to suspect that any Republican with morals has already left the party, however conservative they may be. Maybe that's incorrect, but if they're not that crazy, maybe they might want to think they're known by the company they keep.
I once left a discussion forum a year later than I should have for exactly that reason. It was getting embarrassing to be seen online with people whose cause I supported (being childfree), but who also included a lot of extremist child-haters and parent-bashers.
People are complicated which is why I so often protest tribal politics. I don't subscribe to Fox News and have only seen a limited amount of his stuff. Today I read a piece on Medium going on and on about Tucker Carlson and fear mongering. TC couldn't hold a candle to this dude's fear mongering, hyperbole and outright BS. Medium is the left-wing Tucker Carlson show. I don't hate them for it any more than I hate TC; they are expressing their biased perceptions to their audience. While their audience is not as large as his, I suspect that the average Medium reader spends more time on Medium than TC's viewers spend watching him.
From a Niel Young song, "Ooh, ooh, the damage done"
The extremists are the squeaky wheel that gets attention as they act like they are the mouth of their tribe. Odin help us if they are. Your last paragraph is a perfect example of how embarrassing it can be when people you could agree with jump the shark. All of us here have expressed it.
I don't know if it makes me unique in any way, but I have dear friends and family both left and right whose friendship I cherish and I am comfortable in their company. Some, too close to the edges will hear my opinion of that and so far, we have remained friends. Probably because we go back far before even knowing each other's political views. One internet (Medium) friend who I liked and cared about was a sad exception. Looking back, I should have expected it.
Sorry, I tend to ramble when writing since I don't need to stop and listen. As for conservatives leaving the RP, a number of friends who, like me, don't lock-step with a party started calling themselves Libertarians (a mix of left and right views who made a crossroads deal with the devil and too often vote R) for various reasons. They in no way sit at the feet of Ayn Rand, most libertarians abandoned Objectivism too.
I earned my place in the cult-like tribe known as Marines. If you were vetted to some of our forums, you would find that we are as politically divided as the rest of America. Our terms of endearment for each other sound like hate speech to outsiders. LOL
I wish I could converse with a number of people here at a table with a pitcher and bowl of chips where communication is less difficult. I suspect that your idea of what a conservative is is a bit different from mine.