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Date Posted: 12:22:17 11/03/14 Mon
Author: Buc2
Author Host/IP: 23.25.106.209
Subject: Re: Like ( and i think this explains message board hatreds)
In reply to: Stacey, FFF 's message, "Re: Like ( and i think this explains message board hatreds)" on 16:31:17 10/28/14 Tue

>>Politics is obviously a passionate activity, in which
>>moral values clash. Debates over Obamacare, charter
>>schools or whether the United States should intervene
>>in Syria stir serious disagreement. But these studies
>>are measuring something different. Peoples essential
>>worth is being measured by a political label: whether
>>they should be hired, married, trusted or
>>discriminated against.
>>
>>The broad social phenomenon is that as personal life
>>is being de-moralized, political life is being
>>hyper-moralized. People are less judgmental about
>>different lifestyles, but they are more judgmental
>>about policy labels.
>>
>>The features of the hyper-moralized mind-set are all
>>around. More people are building their communal and
>>social identities around political labels. Your
>>political label becomes the prerequisite for
>>membership in your social set.
>>
>>Politics becomes a marker for basic decency. Those who
>>are not members of the right party are deemed to lack
>>basic compassion, or basic loyalty to country.
>>
>>Finally, political issues are no longer just about
>>themselves; they are symbols of worth and dignity.
>>When many rural people defend gun rights, theyre
>>defending the dignity and respect of rural values
>>against urban snobbery.
>>
>>There are several reasons politics has become
>>hyper-moralized in this way. First, straight moral
>>discussion has atrophied. There used to be public
>>theologians and philosophers who discussed moral
>>issues directly. That kind of public intellectual is
>>no longer prominent, so moral discussion is now done
>>under the guise of policy disagreement, often by
>>political talk-show hosts.
>>
>>Second, highly educated people are more likely to
>>define themselves by what they believe than by their
>>family religion, ethnic identity or region.
>>
>>Third, political campaigns and media provocateurs
>>build loyalty by spreading the message that electoral
>>disputes are not about whether the top tax rate will
>>be 36 percent or 39 percent, but are about the
>>existential fabric of life itself.
>>
>>The problem is that hyper-moralization destroys
>>politics. Most of the time, politics is a battle
>>between competing interests or an attempt to balance
>>partial truths. But in this fervent state, it turns
>>into a Manichaean struggle of light and darkness. To
>>compromise is to betray your very identity. When
>>schools, community groups and workplaces get defined
>>by political membership, when speakers get disinvited
>>from campus because they are beyond the pale, then
>>every community gets dumber because they cant reap
>>the benefits of diverging viewpoints and competing
>>thought.
>>
>>This mentality also ruins human interaction. There is
>>a tremendous variety of human beings within each
>>political party. To judge human beings on political
>>labels is to deny and ignore what is most important
>>about them. It is to profoundly devalue them. That is
>>the core sin of prejudice, whether it is racism or
>>partyism.
>>
>>The personal is not political. If youre judging a
>>potential daughter-in-law on political grounds, your
>>values are out of whack.
>>
>>NY Times. David Brooks 10/27/2014
>
>You bastard, I thought you wrote this and wanted to
>hug and kiss you for your astute understanding of the
>human condition in the USA's 21st century! Oh well, it
>was great whomever wrote it.
>
>I must say, I think that's why I love Phan so much...
>He has his views, I have mine, but he's never called
>me a dim, or a demonrat,. I did call him a Jesus freak
>once, but I think he loves me, too.
>
>That's why I stay away from the new board. All people
>do there all day is repost hate, call people names,
>and lament how horrible everything is. Gross. I'm too
>happy for that shit, man!

I'm still trying to figure out why you unfriended me on FB. Not sure that I've ever done anything to personally offend you, at least not intentionally that is. But, hey... It's all good.

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