Read, pray, and experience. These seem to be the missing ingredients in today’s society. People are feeling the need to pontificate or hold fixed opinions on things they have not read up on or have only read things that support how they think. We no longer read widely about anything but only narrowly. We also munch on shallow exposure and not deep exposure. Yet we talk as though we wrote the book on the subject. I have been told by people living in a gated community I did not understand the poor community I lived in for five years. I have been told by people who only have passing acquaintance with a gay person that I do not understand the gay culture when some of my oldest friends are gay. Too many people believe that they do not need contact with the subject matter to express ideas about matters. Yet study after study shows that experiences with people who are different from you make you less homophobic, racist, or classist. Reflection is a tool of the past. People used to sit and gaze at the stars, watch the sunrise or sunset, sit in quiet in church during the week. Nowadays you cannot see the stars or sun from your backyard and the church doors are only open during services. Yes people live in the country but seeing the stars and sunset use to be part of the routine; nowadays for most it is an event. And when they do reflect it is on small things. No one spends time in thought on the deeper aspects of life. But we all seem to feel comfortable talking with non-reflective concepts. So even though we are exposed to more information in our ‘information age’ we are shallower. Used to be you kept your opinions to yourself and only spoke on things you were familiar with. But so much is politicized these days, you feel a compulsion to stand up for what you believe. We see talking heads, listen to talk radio, read opinion pieces and snarky blogs. Everyone is speaking on everything all day long and we just want to join in the party. Read, pray, experience is my response. I do not want to hear your opinions that you have not fervently read about and followed your reading with reflection. I do not want to hear your ideals about things you have not experienced. And more importantly I would rather you show me through your actions and life what you believe. The only other way to learn besides read, pray and experience is to listen. And you cannot listen if your mouth is open or you’re thinking of some snappy comeback while the other person is talking. Maybe we need some listening heads and listening radio. Maybe we need not opinion pieces but questioning pieces. Maybe instead of snark, we offer understanding. Of course what would be the entertainment in that?
0 Comments
The inability to see ourselves as capable of evil is the way to blindness. I am amazed at how many people lose themselves in their goodness. It is flawed Christian theology to think that we are perfect. There is but one who is perfect. The rest of us must stay vigilant to our own capacity to do evil. I am convinced that part of the problem with dealing with racism is that so many people think they are incapable of doing wrong. If I thought that, I can only imagine who I would have turn out to be. But it was the knowledge of my capacity to do wrong that opened the door to listen to my critics. Listening to my critics informed me about where I might be wrong but also how I might express myself differently. So many times we say things that are offensive because of ignorance, intellectual laziness, or lack of spiritual discipline. I am sure if you can obtain perfection it will involve being diligent, disciplined, thoughtful, and constantly learning new things and ways of being. I am amazed that people who have no experience with people who are different from them can have such formed opinions of them. If you do not want to be racist I would assume the first thing you need to do is live and be amongst people of color. In fact studies have shown over and over that people who know someone of another race or sexual orientation are less likely to hold racist or homophobic views. I would also think that you would have to read people of colors’ writings, listen to their music, and participate in their cultural events to escape racism. But to be willing to do this two things must occur. First, you must have a willingness to learn and a loving heart that wants to know. Second, you must realize that you and your own culture are capable of being wrong. The famous Roman Road to Salvation starts with the premise ‘For all have sinned and fallen short of what they were created for (the Glory of God)’. Accepting this is the beginning of the path to salvation according to the Evangelicals. But the Evangelicals only apply this principle to Salvation in the eternal sense and do not realize it in the sense of the day to day living. So they become strident and judgmental to those who are different from them or their way of thinking. The pastor of my church growing up said ‘we can become so heavenly minded that we become earthly useless’.We think we have reached our heavenly perfection when we are still pretty damn earthly. So my request is that everyone take a deep breath and recapture their imperfection and maybe we can save this world we live in. Obnoxiousness makes most reasonable people retreat. The loud voice with invectives makes it impossible for dialogue that is not more than one-sided. So most will decide it is not worth the engagement. This is the methodology of the right (and some on the left): shout with passion and act as though that makes you right. Gather up dialogical tricks to win an argument; shout: you are using the race card, I am the true patriot, I am the most connected to God, and so forth, while the Left is determined to win the other sides’ minds and hearts (let them be heard, every opinion matters, etc.). Race is a problem in this country. The race problem becomes more exasperated in a divided country. But we are not as divided as some would have us believe. One side of the arguments is 18 – 20 percent of the country. There is 55-60 percent of the country on the other side. There is a changing or non-ideological group of 20-25 percent. But the majority of us have similar views. Certainly there are variations here and there but more gun control is desired by 55 to 67%, gay rights are approved by 70%, DACA recipients should be allowed to stay in the country 80+%, over 60% think the wealthy and corporations should be taxed more, even abortion rights is supported by 57%. So a significant majority of the general population are in agreement on most issues. This becomes even more pronounced in the next generation and the minority populations that are becoming a majority in another forty years, as all of the above numbers are increased. So at this point in history we are in the majority and we are moving toward even greater majorities in the future. So why is the minority view holding so much sway? There are three reasons. 1) the now defunct false equivalencies philosophy 2) the right’s what I call win at all cost and whatever it takes philosophy 3) the left criticizes sometimes mercilessly their movements. The right let their leaders shoot people in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not a peep from their followers would be heard, So we feel a need to provide platforms for even the vilest opinions of the right. The Nazi opinions do not have to be included alongside other opinions on national television. It is okay to marginalize their voices. Because in truth they are a very small population in our country. And put that alongside of the fact their message is against the basic tenets of our society. I should not see them on television or any other media as much as I do. And they definitely should not be put in situations that make it look like their views are on a parity as civil rights leaders. The same goes for deniers of climate change, deniers of evolution, or any other debunked pseudo-science. To create a debate when there is no debate is not freedom of speech. I do not need to hear or see a debate on if the world is flat. The second reason is the value of [is this the correct form of the word? Is there pugnacity?] pugnacious. It is using shouting pejoratives and constantly claiming you are more patriotic, more Christian, more everything that is good than the other side. The shouting is also mixed with a zealous passion. There are no flat affects here. We can never give ground because our cause is so pure and the very world is depending on us for salvation. Hard to argue with that. They are not about creating community. They are about winning. The third reason is the left criticizes their movements and leaders mercilessly. We want perfection. That is in the utopian DNA found in the left. Our leaders must agree with us on every issue. Our movements must be flawless in every action. While I generally agree with this I disagree with the idea that we are choosing between the lesser of two evils. This kind of talk causes a slow deterioration of our cause. So how do we engage with all the rancor that only cares about winning and not concerned about creating community? We organize our superior numbers into a community. This is what the recent Parkland student-led gun regulation march and the Women’s March on Washington were about. Secondly, we vote our superior numbers even in states such as Alabama where we may not have the majority. But know this: the demographic and philosophical changes to our way of thinking is growing. Thirdly, we do not engage in debate with ideas that have been debunked. We get our message out and debate how evolution happened and not if it happened. It is true: in the end we have to respect the right of minorities and at the same time promote our agenda. But we do not have to over-expose minority opinions for the sake of interesting television. We need to stand by our man or woman until they cross the line of no return. But mostly we need to rejoice in community, creating it wherever we can and know that in the end at least for the near future we are the majority. Dreams of yesteryears can become today’s greatest fears. That was an early motto I developed and lived by. It kept me on the straight and narrow. But it was said in the optimism of youth and not the experience of age. No matter how hard you try to live your dreams the chaos of the world can sometimes take those away from you. The world does not guarantee it will cooperate with your dreams. So the dreams have to be refined or started over again. But as time goes on it becomes harder to have the faith to refine and start over. So you quit or wear out and give into the chaos. It is said that we are dreams emanating from God’s heart. Which makes me wonder if God too must constantly refine and start over the dreams. The flood and Noah were one such starting over. Destroy all that is in one’s path and keep the one thing that is true. But Noah is not only about starting over but refining too. One such refinement was the dream of humanity living at peace with the rest of the animal kingdom was given up. It is after the flood when God for the first time allows the consumption of meat. Previously in the Garden, meat was not offered but now in the fall out after the flood it is allowed. The prophet Isaiah will revive the dream in the famous peaceable kingdom vision. The lion and the lamb shall lie down together. And a child will lead them. And for many, this is what we do with our dreams we cast our bread on the water in our children. To ask your children to take on your dreams and forsake their own is wrong. So we tie our dreams to theirs. What a responsibility and burden to place on their shoulders. It is an impossible dilemma we give our children. The fear of never living out our dreams can be a great motivator or a great paralyzer. But fear is probably never the best motivator; something more powerful is to be motivated by love. But to extend love beyond the walls of our habitats we live in each day is hard. We can barely keep our own world intact and moving toward our dreams to think of pushing beyond our worlds into the world at large. We are living in an age full of fear and dreams that are vanquished. We have had huge marches on Washington by women and children. They are calling us to live a dream that an assassinated prophet from old once called us to. A dream that has been distorted by many. The distorters look not to end poverty or racism but are choosing to refine these things to make them more palatable for their divisive visions. After all, the great fear is our world is nothing more than chaos and we cannot ever hope to end the nightmares we have created along the way. So why am I talking about dreams deferred? Because all indications are that the November elections will bring a reckoning on the destructive policies of Trump. We should all be working to make sure that we give this dream a chance. But in truth we can never know what the future may bring. The dream of a total comeuppance to Trump in November may not happen. How much better Pence will be policy wise is he may be worse. It is then that we do not stop dreaming but we refine and update our dream. But until then we need to keep a steady hand on the plow so that November is as dreamy as possible. I do not believe the world is for the young. I never believed this even when I was young. You are not young forever they tell you but the same can be said for being old. Yet having said this, the Parkland shooting survivors are amazing. They have taken their grief and channeled it to challenge the world of guns the adults have left them. The gun rights advocates have attacked these kids in various ways. Probing to find the weakness of this new thing that challenges them. The use of conflict to chase others off the field is common. The constant attacks and ridicule are designed to clear the field. But this tactic looks so crude and even evil when it is being used against youth who did not ask to be on the field. But thrust there the youth are speaking with knowledge, elegance, aplomb, and charm. So that is why the rights voices seem so whiny and tired. Poor ole Tucker Carlson Fox News Host. He is having a fit over the Parkland youth. He is not the cool bright young kid on the block anymore (which of course he never was). So he resorts to the diatribe ‘They are too young to be telling me or others what to do’. So now baby face Carlson is using the argument of age against the Parkland Kids. Which is humorous to watch Carlson is like the beauty queen who has lost her looks. They resent the younger women using their looks to get ahead. Carlson resents anyone else using youth as a charm. And of course these youth are saying informed things. Maybe it is time for a facelift Tucker. Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh plays his usual coy game (which is really only bullying) of saying we cannot attack these kids that would not be right. And then with a wink wink he proceeds to do just that. He proceeds with his intellectual bullying which it really is not because he is not an intellectual. He is not dumb but he has never worked in a discipline to be an intellectual. He is a street fighter. Dropped out of college and spent a good bit of time doped up on drugs thereafter. Rush is a verbal bully. He knows how to ridicule and claim he never did. Retract statements only to say them later. And you know the routine. Maybe it is time for a new and more sincere act Rush. Ex-senator and GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum is saying they should not be changing laws because they do nothing. Instead he offers the sage advice of learning CPR. This is the proactive action they should take. Strange coming from someone who thinks it is so important to change laws around abortion, homosexuality, and religious freedom. Maybe it is time for Santorum to stick to CPR. A NRA TV show host, tells the Parkland kids they would not even been known if it were not for the shootings (being the sensitive guy he is). But of course no one knew who he was until he ranted about the Parkland kids. And they are forgetting who he is already. Some are slinging insults such as you are a commie lesbian which most youth do not necessarily consider an insult. Some have taken to twitter and have been out-twittered by those who grew up with that medium. And then there is the one conservative teenager who is being used to try to mount an offense against these Parkland kids. They know they are in a very small minority especially on the gun right issue. Even conservative teenagers do not want live in fear of gun assaults or be shot. So the ones who are left have to bully to get their opinion heard. Thus they begin to fit the profile of the shooters which leaves them exposed. The NRA has a thirty something attractive woman as their firecracker spokesman. She even has a television show on NRATV. But thirty seems very old when next to the Parkland kids. And her words are the same old tripe the NRA always uses. Yet when the Parkland kids use some of the old tripes of the left they come off fresh. Laura Ingraham is close to losing her Fox TV show because she chose to ridicule one of the youth because he was rejected by a few colleges. Not a smart move. Who among us do not find ridicule of what college we get into or not get into fair game. The young man for his part tweeted her sponsors and suggested a boycott and the corporations did and now she is on leave and may not have a show. It is a new age. Hypocrisy of course is not new and has always been stupefying. Of course in the end the adults do have the power and authority. And they will be the ones making the decisions. But as David Hoag said we may have to outlive you but we will get it done. Hopefully, the adults can find their long lost youth inside and vote the way of the youthful voice of hope and not the cynical voice of old age Power is a funny thing. No one claims it but few are totally powerless. It is thought to be bad form to say you have power. But to me this is the first step toward abusing it. The poor and middle class white population in America does not feel as though they have power. Yet they have more than the minorities. In fact they wield their power over minorities to maintain their position in America. The wealthy and elite wield their power over everyone. Currently in this country the middle class, who feel as though they have no power, ceded their power to the rich. This is essentially the story of the election of Trump. We of the middle class do not feel we have power over the changes the minority population is wielding in America. So in a gamble they have elected someone with the worst power characteristics of the wealthy and elite in the hopes that this will allow them to regain some control. But the problem is Trump sees only green according to his son. And he brings to the table things such as racism, sexism, and classism. And what he also brings to the table is anti-intellectualism especially concerning higher education, science, and the government workers. These are the people who are challenging the poor and middle class workers to make the cultural changes to allow room for the evolving and growing minorities. More rights for women, immigrants, blacks, gays and others have left the white middle class who have more in common economically and in their lifestyles with the lower classes are choosing to vote for the wealthy. Of course this is ludicrous. Trump and the wealthy elite will only give crumbs off the table to the other classes. They are very attuned to class survival. Yet a recent article said that the group that is most responsible for not allowing changes to immigration, minimum/living wages, issues around poverty, is the middle class. This can be seen in the concepts of school vouchers for private schools, less taxes, voter restriction laws and etc., It turns out the middle class is all about class survival too. They are afraid to expand the benefits to the lower classes this might contribute to their upward mobility and would challenge their class status. So they side with policies that are detrimental to the lower classes but enhance their class. Recently, we were surprised that a majority of white women voted for Trump in the last presidential election. But in a new book by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae called Mothers of Massive Resistance that tracks white women’s role in maintaining segregation from the 1920s to the Boston school busing riots we see white women have always had a strain of what is being called Trumpism today. They have always voted and advocated for their racial class. This could be further seen in the feminist movement of the sixties and seventies. It was primarily a movement of white women, and a womanist movement of people of color was formed to address the NOW movement’s lack of understanding and care for black women’s needs. So in a sense if we had been paying attention we should not have been surprised that the majority of white women voted for Trump. So what does all this mean? Until the middle class becomes less concerned about maintaining their class status in policies toward the poor and lower classes, they will be at the mercy of the elite classes. The wealthy will continue to shape policies that benefit them as opposed to all other groups. They will show for the most part a class unity in dealing with the middle classes. That is why Amazon and other corporations thought to be liberal after the passing the Trump tax laws gave their employees raises and bonuses. While these corporations may be liberal they show unity in assisting the wealthy elite to making their policies look good to the general public. After all the green line of the wealthy elite must not be passed. It is romantic idealism to think the poorer classes or the middle classes can fight the elite wealthy classes without each other. The power of the wealthy elite is too great. Only together can the middle and lower classes exert their one essential power over the wealthy class overwhelming numbers. That is why the elite right spends so much time igniting the lower classes over issues of abortion (while they still have abortions) or gun control (while their children are in gated private schools and communities). These issues become greater than the economic and class issues and allow other agendas that work against them to be ignored. That is why the wealthy elite class pushes the concept of the American Dream: you will not vote against a class of people who you aspire to. Or as often expressed the wealthy, are our elected and betters. The wealthy elite also promotes the middle and lower class struggles. Keep the riff raff fighting amongst themselves and they will leave us alone. The only hope to make America Dream again is for the middle class to move away from class survival and open the doors to unity with the poor and their causes too. Many times we become so worried about the things we cannot change or influence. We neglect the things we can do at hand. It is said when addressing a huge assignment and we are feeling overwhelmed the best thing to do is take a piece of it that you can do and work on that. We have two sides of one coin when we look at bigness. There are those that think the bigger the better. They hold to this theory no matter what the topic or thing. Then there are those who believe small is beautiful. They purposely sabotage or oppose any attempt to grow a bigger church or social organization. I have come to believe that neither is necessarily better. To everything there is a season. The issue is not bigness or smallness but ‘what is the plan?’, ‘what are the motives of going either way?’. The far right promotes small government. They will say the government that rules the least is the government that is the best. Big governments will impinge upon our freedoms. Yet strangely enough corporations have no limits on their growth. We are to allow them to grow totally without hindrance. The economic invisible hand will adjust any problems that big corporations may cause. So they oppose most if not all government regulations on business. They blindly trust corporations they have no voice in over government which they have some voice in. Now this is the theory. But in practice when the right approaches big government they mean cut social welfare programs. Now they seldom offer solutions to poverty. If you are living in poverty, in order to make themselves not feel guilty of their neglect of the poor, the right will vilify the poor. They are lazy. They are taking advantage of the system. They have no work ethic. They are the dregs on society and cannot achieve anything. With this assuage of their conscience they move to cut social welfare programs. They will offer that the private sector (NGOs) will keep the problem under control. Yet the NGOs for the most part say they do not and will not have the resources to fully address the problem. The only government program they are comfortable with growing big is the military. And when we say big we mean huge. Strangely enough like corporations they see no problem with letting the military grow big. It is as they say ‘we can join hand in hand with the poor to protect my stuff and nothing else’. Yet the primary ones who in the end could take their guns or threaten their freedom is the military. Meanwhile, liberals propose that the social welfare programs of the government is the way to address the ills of poverty. They do not believe the private sector could ever completely address the problem. They do not have the ability to tax corporations and the wealthy. Plus how services are delivered is important to the left. The government will not put religious or moral restrictions for receiving help from them. The government will have requirements and standards but they will not determine that there are worthy and unworthy recipients. The government, to a liberal, is the chief enhancer of the common good. This role is as important as protecting us. They also know that the wealthy as a whole will never give away enough of their wealth to care for the poor. This is always the syndrome of humans. I got mine you get yours. Of course this would be a better philosophy if everyone started from the same place and had the same opportunities. The Year of Jubilee in the Bible addressed this problem. Land is divided up and every seventy years built up debt is dismissed and property returned back to the original family. In Georgia’s early days when property did not go to an heir it returned to the government and was put back in the lottery. This was to keep from having huge landowners and always have land for the new immigrants and those who have fallen on hard times. The government is responsible to create as much as possible a level ground. So you have two opposite views of government. One relies on the goodness of people and the other protects against the evils of people. The right basically does not have a good view of sin. They honestly believe that corporations and wealthy will do good without any checks and balances. The left meanwhile believes one of the best arbitrators of doing good is one that the people have checks and balances. They vote on the policies and programs of the government. The only check on corporations is their stockholders who are a set breed and whose main interest is making money. In a few blogs back I proposed that the good works I did kept the poor form rioting and demanding more. The Carnegies and Gates of the world who work at giving their wealth away. Yet in so doing they make it okay for the rest of the wealthy to be greedy and keep their money at the expense of others. The wealthy will use their money wisely and for the betterment of society look at Carnegie and Gates. So here we are: the far right ask us to believe in invisible hands to make our economy do the right thing. They ask us to believe that people will do the right thing without any checks and balances. The left believes that the economy must be monitored and checked to ensure it does not abuse the public. Nothing Invisible. They believe that people need to be taxed to provide for our common good. They know people will not sacrifice enough on their own to create the best common good possible. They will always offer explanations of why they cannot give or why the other is not worthy of their time. So I say to the right whatever happen to your belief in sin. A sinful nature will always needs checks and balances. And have you forgotten the concept of corporate sin? Because you are so caught up in the idolatry of ideology, the judgment of others, and greed you have left the common good disappear in your thinking. They have more guts than us. Trump would enter a building without a gun to take down a mass shooter. This has been a theme for years now of the far right. They are worried about the demanning that is going on in our culture. They believe the rules in lieu of the new research concerning concussions in football to be an example. They have been worried about this since Hawkeye played by Alan Alda in the television series MASH. And they are right. There has been a slow cultural change from the masculinity of the old. Or better said there have developed other definitions of manliness that have come to the forefront. Used to be as a guy you were not to cry; now tears are expected. You could not have close male relationships unless you were gay. But as homophobia has lessened it is now okay to have bros and even give them hearty hugs.
They are worried that the aggressive attitude of the male who is forever out to get laid is being made obsolete. As proof of this do you think Dirty Harry played by Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson’s character in Death Wish would be held up as examples of rugged men? Nowadays they may have to put on that persona but this is only because of a threat of violence. But eventually in today’s mentality we are to move away from this violent attitude into a more domesticated one of care. Take Agent Gibbs in NCIS: he bops people on the back of the head; he is a marine’s marine, yet he brings Abby humungous sodas and puts up with her eccentricities; he is constantly showing his need to be artistic with the building of his boats. He is often showing his soft underbelly although it is not his main mode of operation. He is our cross between Hawkeye and Dirty Harry. This is the stereotype of the new masculinity: you can be tough as nails but you must also have a soft and approachable side. But one model is not adequate for expressions of masculinity. The models are as varied as there are men. So you can imagine how they are taking the #metoo movement. The #metoo movement is now challenging men to change their attitudes around sex and their interactions with women. So why is it necessary for Trump to claim he would have gone in? Republicans like to claim they are the rugged individuals who are ready to defend the rest of us. They are the last bastion of manliness. And maybe this is why the Republicans think they have the right to tell us or legislate for us if we can have rights as gay individuals, whether we can have access to birth control, whether we can speak Spanish, whether we can smoke weed, whether we can have food stamps and so forth. If you are going to be rushing into buildings to save us, then you think you have some rights in how we live. They do not want to put their lives into play for just anyone or anything. Listen to the words they use for liberals: nanny state, snowflakes, etc., Yet I have never heard so much whining as I have from the right. The far right might have stood up and yelled ‘You lie!’ during Obama’s State of the Union but ‘our feelings are hurt when you guys did not clap for me’, cries Trump. White Conservative Christians complain they may have to make a cake for a gay couple. Black liberals were beaten up at bus stations, their homes were burned, they were shot, lynched and so on and they did not whine as much as this modern group of conservatives. Talk Radio and the number one news channel Fox complain about how the media discriminates against them. They complain as they all day long ridicule CNN and MSNBC. Someone should tell them they are the media now and have as much if not more control over the message the general public receives than anyone else. The problem is the white right have become so comfortable in their privilege that they become distressed and uneasy whenever they pay any consequence for their antiquated and bigoted actions and words. They do not know about the rugged cross but want to recline in their easy chairs with the rest of us being their Edith Bunker complimenting them and serving them as they tell us what we are doing wrong. Whining, much as my toddler does, is their new tool to get their way. So I call bunk on their toughness. The pre-war Southerners thought they would be able to defeat a bunch of mamby-pamby abolitionists from the North. Yet as I remember it Sherman said he would show the south war is hell and they are still wailing today. Now this is coming from a Southerner. I know that the Mafia and NYPD thought the drag queens could not and would not put up much of a fight at the Stonewall Inn. They were surprised at the week of resistance and the fact they received a butt kicking from the drag queens. But for now we are stuck with Trump-like declarations of manliness. Trump is seventy; by the time he got inside the shooter would be through. I honestly do not know what I would do but I have faced a high drug dealer with a gun and would not let him enter the building to find the homeless man he was looking for. But unarmed or even armed with a pistol what could I do? If I was lucky and the shooter did not see me and I got a good line of site on him maybe I could shoot him. But if it became an OK Corral scene I would be dead (because of the superiority of the shooter’s gun power) and seriously doubt I would have under those conditions hit him with the one shot I might get off. So enough with “I have to have my phallic guns or my masculinity will melt away.” Believe me the more I hear you opine about guns the more I realized your manliness is contrived and perhaps lost forever. So buck up guys, the times have changed and you are looking more and more like posers. Empathy is a part of reason. Reason alone will leave us with only a selfish or an unloving product. You see reason to put it in theological language is in a fallen state. Or to put it in a philosophical way reason is limited. We are limited in our capacity to reason by experience, education, and mental capacities. We are dearth of God’s capacity to know and therefore our capacity to reason is limited.
As a parent I have tried to teach my children at least two things. The first is listening makes you smart. If you cannot hear the other you will never receive what they have to offer and how you are being received by others. The art of listening is a skill set that makes your life less complicated and leads to being smarter than others in the room. You do understand their point of view and in this understanding you can craft your argument to them or revise your thinking in lieu of what they are saying. If you are thinking of what you are saying while the other is speaking you may talk right by them. If you cannot listen to the professor, supervisor, friend, therapist, lover, or even your enemy you will be less intelligent. You will be trapped in only that which you can know and not receive from others that which they know. The other thing I try to instill in my children is that knowledge of the head must be in agreement with the knowledge of the heart. The two ways of knowing should not be exclusive. Most of us agree with this. For example, in the good touch bad touch programs, an emphasis is put on how does it make you feel. Even though it may feel rational to a young intimidated child to allow your family member to touch you we teach if it feels, it is wrong. This is the use of reason and heart to achieve the right thinking. It may feel rationally okay to cut food stamps from folks but most people would cringe at the thought of anyone going hungry. The right will tell you this is a weakness but in reality this is full knowledge not weakness Blaise Pascal once said ‘The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing’. This means that logic of the head needs to be supplemented with intuition and love. Reason is not the only way of knowing. You see logic is only half of the puzzle. The truth is logic is flawed. It can be biased by our class, culture, race, sex, and sexual orientation. This means that we will always need a system of thinking that has checks and balances to our logic. Listening is one of the checks and balances. If we have not truly heard the other side of the argument we speak without knowing the full picture. Another balance is empathy. If we cannot put ourselves in the other’s place we will not be able to understand the wheres and whys of how they think. This is what is meant by they have ears to hear and eyes to see but they do not understand. And more importantly if we do not have empathy with our reason we are capable of justifying anything in the end. This is what happened in the eugenics movement. It made sense on one level but the decision to sterilize, euthanize, or genocide was made without a balance of listening to others and an attuned empathy. So knowledge not only requires facts and opinion it must be balanced out with listening and empathy. In today’s discourse we have half-truths presented as the whole truth. We have people who will say with pious tones, as if that added to their rightness pronouncements, of what others should do. Take the immigration debate over DACA. There is no denying that immigration laws have been broken. So we have the pious right proclaim that the law must be upheld. So they have a fact and they will take that fact and beat it to death. They do not want to hear that for all practical purposes the DACA persons are American. They have never known any other country as home or have any place else to go. They have broken the law. They do not want to take into account that the law was not intentionally broken by them. They have broken the law. They do not want to hear stories of families being broken up. This is emotional hijacking of the debate they say. They have broken the law. This is why you have trouble talking to the far right on this issue. They do not listen because they are convinced they know the truth. And to their way of thinking empathy or love are not allowed to be factored in. So to be quite frank about it, If you do not listen and if you do not balance reason with love you are unreasonable. Reason cannot reach you. You have a smidgen of the truth and you use this iota of information to form your opinion. And that is where we are at today. Unreasonableness rules the day. We can only hope that one day empathy and listening will return and make us all a little more reasonable. There is nothing sacrosanct about the Second Amendment. It is not the infallible word of God passed to us by the Founders. MY God it is an amendment which implies you can make another amendment to change it. In fact we did just that with the amendment on prohibition. We wrote one amendment to create prohibition and another amendment to end prohibition. If it ain’t working amend it that was the genius of our Constitution. They knew that certain things in the constitution would from time to time need updating or changing; they were not gods but fallible human beings. Their knowledge of this lack of infallibility was the reason for the checks and balances of our government. Infallible words smacked of divine kings who they knew all too well were often mistaken and even abusive.
Those who say we need the amendment’s right to bear arms in case our government ever becomes oppressive. I know the militia types are tough as nails but be real; you will never have the fire power of our standing military. It is an obsolete ideal to think whatever arms you have in your arsenal can stand up to the military. That is why the founding fathers did not want a standing army. They liked the idea of men coming out of the fields to protect their country when needed. But reality set in and they knew it would take a standing army to resist and not be abused by the European powers. Hells bells when the colonists arose from the fields and threatened our fledging government as in Shay’s Rebellion or the Whiskey Rebellion, they were put down rather easily by the standing army. Well sweetheart the military has improved since those days. To borrow from John Lennon all we are saying is give some gun control a chance. It is abusive when you claim you are defending an inalienable right which was not listed in the inalienable rights document the Declaration of Independence. You numbnuts are like the fundamentalist pastors who defend Bishop Usher’s [theory that] the earth is only six thousand years old despite all the evidence against it. And those who do not support Bishop Usher’s word you say are misguided infidels. I believe in the Constitution because it allowed for its own fallibility; if not for that it would have run its course a long time ago. AR -15 does not need to be in the hands of any civilian. The majority of us even believe this but we are being held hostage by the tyranny of the minority. I think it may be time to take their guns out of their decrepit hands. We only asked for a bill to limit access to guns for mentally ill persons and as soon as you got the presidency you revoked that bill. Because you could. And now every time a shooting occurs you say piously it’s not the guns it’s the mental health of the shooters. What kind of power tripping sick game are you playing!? Guns are not on the legislative table you say. I agree they are in the hands of sick individuals shooting the hell out of us. Your solution is hilariously demented; everyone should carry guns and that will stop the killings. So let me get this straight. You create a world where people can have access to AR-15 no matter what their state of mind is and this world you have created now home to children being killed in schools or concert goers being killed while listening to music. So instead of taking guns out of the hands of these individuals you say we all need to be armed. And we all know my pistol will not match the firepower of an AR-15. So I will need to carry an AR-15 to be truly safe. The apostle Paul said men will become inventors of evil but I do not think he could have imagined for a moment how creative you could be. Hopefully your gig is up’ if not we are all going to have to wear body armor and have AR-15s strapped across our shoulders. No wonder dystopian novels are all the rage these days. |
Archives
September 2022
Categories |