dagblog - Comments for "My Latest for Faithfully Magazine "

ocean-kat, one other thing:

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 29 May 2018 18:20:50 +0000

In reply to Well Dreamer, I wonder what

ocean-kat, one other thing: re laughing at ridiculous things.

Just a personal habit I have for the most part adopted, I suppose, but I usually do not laugh at other people when I disagree with something they are saying, including when I think what they are saying is ridiculous. (I treat something I write to someone on the internet the same as something I would or would not say to that person if we were speaking FTF.)

My experience is that many people, not just online (and folks here seem to me to understand this more so than at many other sites on the web where the degree of incivility is severe and people can be horrible to one another), seem to have difficulty distinguishing between laughing at what they have said, versus laughing at, and perhaps ridiculing, them.

I don't like to leave other people with a feeling of being ridiculed or demeaned. A major exception is with some things that I write online about public figures which are meant in some instances to ridicule, all fair game as I see it. But by and large, I try to avoid treating other people in ways they may well experience as demeaning, feeling as though there is far too much incivility, disrespect and much worse in the way I see people interacting with one another. I don't want to contribute to that.

And frankly, in my experiences, ridiculing other people with different views from mine does not appear to work often. Although granted it is difficult to tell what modes work because usually the other person does not tell you you won them over, in that moment. They may be especially unlikely to do so if they feel you don't respect them.

If I am engaged in a conversation (verbal or online) with someone and they say something I disagree with, and I decide that I am going to communicate that I disagree with them, one question for me is usually how am I going to disagree with them in a respectful way. I usually find myself wanting to maximize the chances of some sort of non-hostile exchange (maybe even one that feels productive in some way) that doesn't just leave us disliking one another or worse.

Once, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I worked for a US congressional committee. That sometimes left me feeling as though I was in a Star Wars bar scene. In that sort of setting it was in the air that one might not want to burn bridges with another one might otherwise possibly find some common ground with down the road. In politics they say there are no permanent allies or permanent enemies. At least that was something that used to be said. Gingrich and "politics is war by other means" had not yet arrived on the scene. This was in the late 1980s. It was a valued civics lesson, being in that Star Wars bar.

That's just me, though.

Well Dreamer, I wonder what

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 29 May 2018 17:25:01 +0000

In reply to Well Dreamer, I wonder what

Well Dreamer, I wonder what kind of evangelical your friend was, because they're not all the same

Yes, that was the point I was trying to make.

My friend may well have held some irrational beliefs, as probably most of us do about one matter or another. In our conversations he did not say things which struck me as irrational at all. We talked very little about religion. This was a long time ago--either I had already decided I wasn't interested in going there, or else based on a few things I may have heard him say I decided early on that I wasn't interested in further discussions on that topic, and he got the message.

He was preparing to be a patent lawyer. He had good knowledge about, and much respect for, science and for people who did stuff with it.

His parents were missionaries in the Middle East. He may have felt pressured into evangelical efforts by his parents although he did not suggest or hint at that in our conversations, nor did I ask him. He was somewhat tentative in his evangelizing efforts with fellow students. Perhaps he sensed he was likely to be met with reactions along lines of...the reactions he was met with. He had a relatively shy, introverted personality.

My impression was that on engaging other students he was not citing the Bible. If his own beliefs and arguments were biblically centered or grounded, he probably knew better than to believe that source would be persuasive with that crowd. But I don't know this. I did not participate in those lounge debates as I was not interested. He never cited the Bible in conversations about ethical or public policy issues with me, understanding that to a non-fundamentalist like me, this was not going to be effective and might be counter-productive.

I did not ask him if he considered himself a fundamentalist as well as an evangelical. Probably yes, was my sense. He was learning how to interpret secular texts in alternative ways in his studies and certainly had the ability to do the same with the Bible so as to embrace conclusions that felt right to him and reject ones that didn't.

Unlike many of our fellow students, some of whom probably already had it in their heads at that point that they were likely to run for office down the road, he was not at all a political person. I never had any sense he was going to run for and perhaps win office and use his position to urge or try to coerce others to live by his interpretation of the Bible using his interpretation of the Bible as his justification. If I had any such sense, I can't imagine that I would have wanted to befriend him. My own views on the role of religion in public life were unconsidered and I had done little or no reading to speak of on that topic at that time. I don't recall any conversations we had on that subject.

Well Dreamer, I wonder what

ocean-kat — Sat, 26 May 2018 01:04:07 +0000

In reply to Thanks, Danny. I like what

Well Dreamer, I wonder what kind of evangelical your friend was, because they're not all the same. Most are astonishingly irrational. How one deals with the irrational is a sticky proposition. Some times ridicule is the appropriate response. Sometimes irrational people are so ridiculous it's hard not to laugh. That's not ridicule, it's a spontaneous respond to "stupid humor." The type of humor Steve Martin was famous for.

It's not prejudice to laugh at ridiculous things. Your friend decided to come into a public space and announce his desire to discuss the subject of his beliefs. Fine and dandy if he wants to do that here, there, or anywhere. I'm up for a debate on almost any subject almost anytime. But you should expect to defend them with rational arguments and to be challenged on your bullshit. That's not prejudice. Some people believe Elvis is still alive, others think Jim Morrison is. If they decide to come into a public space and attempt to convince others to ask for proof or at least a convincing argument isn't anti-Elvis prejudice. It's not prejudice to laugh at their answers. With most evangelicals laughter is an involuntary response. The anger comes later when they attempt to base public policy on their irrational beliefs.

Thx

rmrd0000 — Fri, 25 May 2018 21:19:36 +0000

In reply to Curry is referenced in this

Thx

Curry is referenced in this

AmericanDreamer — Fri, 25 May 2018 19:49:44 +0000

In reply to Bishop Michael Curry and

Curry is referenced in this Wednesday, 5/23 WaPo E.J. Dionne, Jr. piece, "Christian leaders call out the heresy of Trumpism": https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/christian-leaders-call-out-the-h...

Bishop Michael Curry and

rmrd0000 — Fri, 25 May 2018 19:41:54 +0000

In reply to My Latest for Faithfully Magazine

Bishop Michael Curry and other Christian participated in a march past the White House. The March is part of a movement to “Recuse Jesus” from the wingnuts

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bishop-michael-curry-joins-christian-march-to-white-house-to-reclaim-jesus_us_5b07261ae4b0fdb2aa51b060

Arendt was talking about a

moat — Fri, 18 May 2018 23:57:07 +0000

In reply to and I think this is different

Arendt was talking about a straight up Nazi in that book. Her observation about how "ordinary" he was is that "brainwashing" is a separate activity from establishment politics that encourage people to adopt prevalent social norms. She was militating against a desire to combine qualities, not putting forward a general theory of why what happened happened.
Her efforts to make distinctions on these matters is parallel to her efforts to distinguish antisemitism from racial hatred per se. That sort of thing requires a theory to even express. It is not presented as a complete explanation.

and I think this is different

artappraiser — Fri, 18 May 2018 23:24:42 +0000

In reply to Luzzatto is making a deeper

and I think this is different from that, Arendt on that, she's talking about the average ordinary everyday man who can end up being evil without being part of the actual brainwashed cult or tribe.She's making a point about someone with the supposed thing called common sense, someone not caught up in dreams of a cultish tribe (like Nazism or End Times Rapture Christians or Rebbe Schneerson fans or Jim & Tammy Bakker fans or L.Ron Hubbard...) can still be evil.

You keep expanding my reading

rmrd0000 — Fri, 18 May 2018 22:45:45 +0000

In reply to I don't think of it as tough

You keep expanding my reading list. Thanks.

I don't think of it as tough

AmericanDreamer — Fri, 18 May 2018 20:27:10 +0000

In reply to I very much admire your goal

I don't think of it as tough for me, just part of trying to do as good a job as I can preparing them for the world they are entering more deeply by the year. They need to know how to protect themselves as all of us do, of course, but I want them to be limited as little as possible by unfounded fears and prejudices towards people who are different from them. To the degree they are so limited, this will limit the richness and quality of their lives as I see it.

At any rate, that is the thinking. To paraphrase my late grandmother, we are all works in progress (at best), present company very much included.

Many other among my better half's influences on them will probably leave our kids much better off.

And then, of course, there are the ways in which parental wonderfulness somehow, inexplicably, does not get passed along to our kids. But I won't go there. Writing this makes me think of one of the Progressive or GEICO insurance commercials on TV these days where the tag line is something like "Progressive can't keep you from becoming your parents. But we can save you money on car insurance."

I've noted a bit of an uptick in attention to understanding and trying to deal with consequences of tribalism in recent years. Amy Chua's Political Tribes and Joshua Greene's Moral Tribes are two works that have come out on this topic. It comes up in stuff I read on identity politics as well, for example, We Who are Dark by Tommie Shelby (he co-edited the book on MLK To Shape a New World, that you mentioned, rmrd0000).