This is a superb explication of our present moment in politics and the process in general. If I had the power I'd make it required reading across our country. One of your best.
>Most people are in echochambers, primarily listening to information from their own side, ignorant of basic facts, wholly unable to explain why their opponents believe what they do. But this applies to those who are on your side too!
"Here are two respects in which God’s view must be very different from ours. In the first place, He sees (like you) how all the people in your home or your job are in various degrees awkward or difficult; but when He looks into that home or factory or office He sees one more person of the same kind – the one you never do see. I mean, of course, yourself. That is the next great step in wisdom – to realize that you also are just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.
"It is no good passing this over with some vague, general · admission such as ‘Of course, I know I have my faults.’ It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives the others just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you. And it is almost certainly something you don’t know about – like what the advertisements call ‘halitosis’, which everyone notices except the person who has it. But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn’t ‘take it’. Perhaps a good deal of what you call their ‘nagging’ or ‘bad temper’ or ‘queerness’ are just their attempts to make you see the truth. And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully. You say, ‘I admit I lost my temper last night’; but the others know that you’re always doing it, that you are a bad-tempered person. You say, ‘I admit I drank too much last Saturday’; but everyone else knows that you are a habitual drunkard.
"That is one way in which God’s view must differ from mine. He sees all the characters: I see all except my own. But the second difference is this. He loves the people in spite of their faults. He goes on loving. He does not let go. Don’t say, ‘It’s all very well for Him; He hasn’t got to live with them.’ He has. He is inside them as well as outside them. He is with them far more intimately and closely and incessantly than we can ever be. Every vile thought within their minds (and ours), every moment of spite, envy, arrogance, greed and self-conceit comes right up against His patient and longing love, and grieves His spirit more than it grieves ours.
"The more we can imitate God in both these respects, the more progress we shall make. We must love ‘X’ more; and we must learn to see ourselves as a person of exactly the same kind. Some people say it is morbid to be always thinking of one’s own faults. That would be all very well if most of us could stop thinking of our own without soon beginning to think about those of other people. For unfortunately we enjoy thinking about other people’s faults: and in the proper sense of the word ‘morbid’, that is the most morbid pleasure in the world."
While I don't think it's a hateable offense, there's a reasonable case (for non-utilitarians) that voting uninformed in swing states is pretty bad. If we think that a PA voter has a one-in-5-million chance of swinging the election, and the wrong candidate winning does $500 billion worth of damage relative to the right candidate winning, then voting wrong causes $100,000 worth of damage to the world, which is more than all the goodness most people create by working at their jobs for one year.
If you don't think it's permissible to flip a coin that makes the world either $100,000 better or worse, you shouldn't vote uninformed (or informed but biased).
"hundreds of millions of people on the other side fear that the U.S. will descend into totalitarian dictatorship."
This might be true for this election and the previous two, but I don't think it was so much true for earlier elections that I remember from my lifetime (I'm in my late 50s). People were still passionate in their views, but I don't recall anyone having a serious apprehension that our whole democratic tradition was under threat.
Not even when people were holding protest signs declaring Nixon to be a Nazi? Or how many believed Kennedy would take marching orders from the Pope, turning America into a theocracy? Or how half the country found Lincoln so tyrannical they fought a war against his perceived power-grab?
Declaring American democracy dead is one of the oldest traditions in American democracy.
I don't remember people comparing Nixon to a Nazi. My recollection was Tricky Dicky and Nixon saying "I am not a crook", when everyone knew he was "the One".
Hardly half. The free population of the North was three times that of the South. Where did you come up with half?
Also, back in 1856 the Southern states had already declared they secede if a republican were elected. A republican was elected in 1860 and they were mostly out by the time Lincoln took office in Mar 1861.
I wasn't born yet for Kennedy's presidency, and I was six years old when Nixon was last elected. In any event, my impression (for what it's worth) is that the views you described re: Nixon and Kennedy were not as widespread as the view that Donald Trump doesn't value democracy and is in danger of subverting it for his own gain (which I think is true).
Dude, it is simpler than that. People have different interests and different worldviews. One does not need to be all that smart to make a correct decision based on these things. As a white guy, if I put on the MAGA hat it is a no brainer to vote Trump. Take off that off and put on the Kamala shades and it's a no brainer to vote Harris.
Trumps pretty smart. His over the top attacks on his opponents are riveting and take the scan off him while letting him exercise his ego. Maybe not smart because this is a widespread human behavior. But he's a master.
This is a superb explication of our present moment in politics and the process in general. If I had the power I'd make it required reading across our country. One of your best.
>Most people are in echochambers, primarily listening to information from their own side, ignorant of basic facts, wholly unable to explain why their opponents believe what they do. But this applies to those who are on your side too!
You remind me of a bit C. S. Lewis wrote in his essay "The Trouble with X" (which is a great little essay, I recommend everyone read it: https://www.noeljesse.com/the-trouble-with-x-by-c-s-lewis/ ):
"Here are two respects in which God’s view must be very different from ours. In the first place, He sees (like you) how all the people in your home or your job are in various degrees awkward or difficult; but when He looks into that home or factory or office He sees one more person of the same kind – the one you never do see. I mean, of course, yourself. That is the next great step in wisdom – to realize that you also are just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.
"It is no good passing this over with some vague, general · admission such as ‘Of course, I know I have my faults.’ It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives the others just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you. And it is almost certainly something you don’t know about – like what the advertisements call ‘halitosis’, which everyone notices except the person who has it. But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over again, and you just couldn’t ‘take it’. Perhaps a good deal of what you call their ‘nagging’ or ‘bad temper’ or ‘queerness’ are just their attempts to make you see the truth. And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully. You say, ‘I admit I lost my temper last night’; but the others know that you’re always doing it, that you are a bad-tempered person. You say, ‘I admit I drank too much last Saturday’; but everyone else knows that you are a habitual drunkard.
"That is one way in which God’s view must differ from mine. He sees all the characters: I see all except my own. But the second difference is this. He loves the people in spite of their faults. He goes on loving. He does not let go. Don’t say, ‘It’s all very well for Him; He hasn’t got to live with them.’ He has. He is inside them as well as outside them. He is with them far more intimately and closely and incessantly than we can ever be. Every vile thought within their minds (and ours), every moment of spite, envy, arrogance, greed and self-conceit comes right up against His patient and longing love, and grieves His spirit more than it grieves ours.
"The more we can imitate God in both these respects, the more progress we shall make. We must love ‘X’ more; and we must learn to see ourselves as a person of exactly the same kind. Some people say it is morbid to be always thinking of one’s own faults. That would be all very well if most of us could stop thinking of our own without soon beginning to think about those of other people. For unfortunately we enjoy thinking about other people’s faults: and in the proper sense of the word ‘morbid’, that is the most morbid pleasure in the world."
For a more modern take, see this excellent book:
"Mistakes Were Made (but Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts" by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson
https://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-but-Third-dp-0358329612/dp/0358329612
It's the sort of book you wish you could make all your antagonists read, so that they might, perhaps, see themselves as they really are.
While I don't think it's a hateable offense, there's a reasonable case (for non-utilitarians) that voting uninformed in swing states is pretty bad. If we think that a PA voter has a one-in-5-million chance of swinging the election, and the wrong candidate winning does $500 billion worth of damage relative to the right candidate winning, then voting wrong causes $100,000 worth of damage to the world, which is more than all the goodness most people create by working at their jobs for one year.
If you don't think it's permissible to flip a coin that makes the world either $100,000 better or worse, you shouldn't vote uninformed (or informed but biased).
"hundreds of millions of people on the other side fear that the U.S. will descend into totalitarian dictatorship."
This might be true for this election and the previous two, but I don't think it was so much true for earlier elections that I remember from my lifetime (I'm in my late 50s). People were still passionate in their views, but I don't recall anyone having a serious apprehension that our whole democratic tradition was under threat.
Not even when people were holding protest signs declaring Nixon to be a Nazi? Or how many believed Kennedy would take marching orders from the Pope, turning America into a theocracy? Or how half the country found Lincoln so tyrannical they fought a war against his perceived power-grab?
Declaring American democracy dead is one of the oldest traditions in American democracy.
I don't remember people comparing Nixon to a Nazi. My recollection was Tricky Dicky and Nixon saying "I am not a crook", when everyone knew he was "the One".
Nixon did concede. He was a trickster, never an open opponent to Democracy. Trump is the first non conceding candidate since the Civil War.
Hardly half. The free population of the North was three times that of the South. Where did you come up with half?
Also, back in 1856 the Southern states had already declared they secede if a republican were elected. A republican was elected in 1860 and they were mostly out by the time Lincoln took office in Mar 1861.
I wasn't born yet for Kennedy's presidency, and I was six years old when Nixon was last elected. In any event, my impression (for what it's worth) is that the views you described re: Nixon and Kennedy were not as widespread as the view that Donald Trump doesn't value democracy and is in danger of subverting it for his own gain (which I think is true).
Wow, you are old!
You're only young once, but you can be immature your whole life.
It sounds naive and it is naive
Opposition to Trump isn't about policy; it's about respect for the rule of law. He's a crook who betrayed his sacred oath to the Constitution.
I try to love all my neighbors, but I will love the ones who voted for Trump from far, far away.
Dude, it is simpler than that. People have different interests and different worldviews. One does not need to be all that smart to make a correct decision based on these things. As a white guy, if I put on the MAGA hat it is a no brainer to vote Trump. Take off that off and put on the Kamala shades and it's a no brainer to vote Harris.
Trumps pretty smart. His over the top attacks on his opponents are riveting and take the scan off him while letting him exercise his ego. Maybe not smart because this is a widespread human behavior. But he's a master.
You're talking about Rabbi Akiva of course!