Re: Like ( and i think this explains message board hatreds) -- Margaritaville NFL Forum

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Date Posted: 14:37:37 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 13:30:45 11/03/14 Mon

>>>>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. People�s
>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, they�re
>>>>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 can�t 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 you�re 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.
>
>If you were my friend you would have never, ever have
>called me a racist. That hurt my feelings worse than
>you could ever know. My friend would never say
>something so vile to me.

Without knowing the context of the discussion, I cannot comment why I said that (if I even did). I can say that is how many conservatives or, as in my case, conservative leaning people feel when labeled as such by the left. And it happens almost daily.

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