Wow.
Sorry about that rant yesterday. I mean, I'm not sorry sorry -- I still wish everybody would stop using those retarded buzzwords. But I understand that you come here looking for a little light humor, and you don't expect to get blindsided by a tirade about abortion and family values. So... sorry about that.
The point, on this 7th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, is that if we, as a vast and diverse people, are going to have any chance of understanding and getting along with each other, we have to avoid using words that deliberately label our opponents as stupid or evil.
I've known nice, perfectly reasonable people who are anti-abortion and nice, perfectly reasonable people who are pro-legalized abortion. I can't tell which is which just by gaging how big an asshole the person is. This leads me to believe that neither being anti-abortion nor being pro-legalized abortion is the result of some kind of fundamental character flaw. I have to believe that these people just have different ways of looking at the world, and that maybe if they didn't immediately assume the other is stupid or evil, they might have a chance of understanding where the other is coming from.
The risk inherent in understanding someone else's point of view if, of course, that you'll be converted to that point of view. So it's much safer to label yourself and your allies with a codeword like "pro-choice" or "saved", or to label your opponents as "evolutionists" or "homophobes."
Anyway, when I come across these words on someone's blog, I think, "Well, I don't fit into that category, so I guess I'm not welcome here." The other possibility, of course, is that the blogger doesn't mean any harm, but just hasn't thought very much about what the use of those words imply. So consider yesterdays' post an opportunity to put some more thought into the words you use. If you really want to exclude people like me, who don't fit nicely into most of those prefabricated boxes, then keep using those words. I'll get the hint.
Just for today, let's try thinking the best of our fellow Americans (and Canadians, and Brits, and Australians... hell, maybe even the French). Let's try assuming that they have some halfway decent reason for their crazy, mixed up opinions.
Even the guys who flew those planes into those buildings had some kind of reason. I'm not saying their actions were in any way defensible, but it can't hurt to try to understand why the hell someone would do something so horrible. The other option is to just label them as evil and eradicate them as if they were gnats or gophers. That was certainly my gut reaction after the 9/11 attacks, but maybe after 7 years we need to start reassessing things. How is that strategy working out for us? Are they all dead yet?
The fact is, I'm not an idiot and you guys aren't dumb. We just have different ways of looking at things. Let's not let that stand in the way of begin decent to each other.
Shalom,
Rob "Diesel" Kroese
Sorry about that rant yesterday. I mean, I'm not sorry sorry -- I still wish everybody would stop using those retarded buzzwords. But I understand that you come here looking for a little light humor, and you don't expect to get blindsided by a tirade about abortion and family values. So... sorry about that.
The point, on this 7th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, is that if we, as a vast and diverse people, are going to have any chance of understanding and getting along with each other, we have to avoid using words that deliberately label our opponents as stupid or evil.
I've known nice, perfectly reasonable people who are anti-abortion and nice, perfectly reasonable people who are pro-legalized abortion. I can't tell which is which just by gaging how big an asshole the person is. This leads me to believe that neither being anti-abortion nor being pro-legalized abortion is the result of some kind of fundamental character flaw. I have to believe that these people just have different ways of looking at the world, and that maybe if they didn't immediately assume the other is stupid or evil, they might have a chance of understanding where the other is coming from.
The risk inherent in understanding someone else's point of view if, of course, that you'll be converted to that point of view. So it's much safer to label yourself and your allies with a codeword like "pro-choice" or "saved", or to label your opponents as "evolutionists" or "homophobes."
Anyway, when I come across these words on someone's blog, I think, "Well, I don't fit into that category, so I guess I'm not welcome here." The other possibility, of course, is that the blogger doesn't mean any harm, but just hasn't thought very much about what the use of those words imply. So consider yesterdays' post an opportunity to put some more thought into the words you use. If you really want to exclude people like me, who don't fit nicely into most of those prefabricated boxes, then keep using those words. I'll get the hint.
Just for today, let's try thinking the best of our fellow Americans (and Canadians, and Brits, and Australians... hell, maybe even the French). Let's try assuming that they have some halfway decent reason for their crazy, mixed up opinions.
Even the guys who flew those planes into those buildings had some kind of reason. I'm not saying their actions were in any way defensible, but it can't hurt to try to understand why the hell someone would do something so horrible. The other option is to just label them as evil and eradicate them as if they were gnats or gophers. That was certainly my gut reaction after the 9/11 attacks, but maybe after 7 years we need to start reassessing things. How is that strategy working out for us? Are they all dead yet?
The fact is, I'm not an idiot and you guys aren't dumb. We just have different ways of looking at things. Let's not let that stand in the way of begin decent to each other.
Shalom,
Rob "Diesel" Kroese
| posted by Diesel at Thursday, September 11, 2008 |
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