How to Be Impolite

We're told there are two things we should never bring up in polite conversation: religion and politics.

You think the reason is obvious, and that's because it is. People get mad when they talk about those things. "Polite conversation" can't hold up for very long when someone gets compared to Hitler, or accuses someone else of moral relativism and bestiality. Feelings get hurt. Judgements fly. Friendships end.

Why is this? Why do people get so angry and offensive when they talk about this stuff? It's actually a pretty simple formula.

Person A is passionate about Thing X
Person B is passionate about Thing X
Person A and Person B completely disagree about Thing X

X can be anything. The degree to which Person A and Person B will become angry with one another directly correlates with the degree to which they are passionate about the same subject. That is why plugging "politics" into the Thing X variable will almost inevitably start a fire.

This is discouraging, because a conversation in which two people agree with each other about everything won't result in much progress for either of them. No one learns anything unless there are differences of perspective. The paradox is obvious. When people disagree about politics, they get mad at each other, and so, still, no one learns anything.

There are two overwhelmingly common assumptions we tend to make about people who deeply disagree with us about some political point: they are stupid, or they are evil. The "right" tends to get characterized by the former, and the "left" by the latter, but they accuse each other of being both as often as possible. The consequence of this sort of judgement is immediate and devastating. If you've deemed your opponent as either stupid or evil, or both, you will not be motivated to see things from their point of view. Conversely, if you yourself are accused of being either or both of those things, you'll probably respond poorly, and why shouldn't you? After all, it's offensive to be misjudged. You are, in your view, rightfully offended.

How did it get this way? We can blame the media, in part. Our newspapers and network news channels and political commentators have to make a living. People don't pay much attention to dispassionate conversations. The news outlets are all in a desperate struggle to get us to pay attention to things. They compete with each other, and they compete with a multitude of more interesting stimuli. So, they'll do what they do.

But what they do would not work if we weren't already predisposed to regarding those who disagree with us as enemies, and then cramming them into caricatures of themselves. We like to get angry about the things we care most about. It feels good. You might be tempted to think this isn't necessarily true, but turn an emotional mirror on yourself. Take in your mind a subject that matters to you, and one that you've studied to some depth. Now imagine that someone, every day, tells you that you are wrong about it. First of all, you know you're right--being challenged has only made you more certain of it. Second, what does this person even know? After a few days or weeks or years, you would probably feel tempted, eventually, to tell this person exactly what you think, and why he or she is wrong. Imagine how good that would feel.

You probably don't have to imagine it. Most of us have felt it, that satisfaction of cutting down someone's stupid ideas. You know what's even better? Calling someone out who has more sinister intentions, like lining his pockets, or acquiring more power. Those people deserve whatever happens to them. If not for people like them, we wouldn't be in this pile of crap! So let's make them eat it.

If you've engaged yourself in the conversation of politics, if you've begun to form your own opinions about that frustrating, undeniably important subject of statecraft, then you've felt those things. And they have done harm.

I am only one person, and you are only one person, but there really is no hope at all unless you, and I, and people like us, decide we are capable of taking a step back, for just a moment, to consider how we might elevate the way we talk about these things.

There are principles that will help us, little by little, rise above the ugly fray of modern partisanship. They are not complicated, but they take time, and they take a lot of effort. Insofar as you understand their importance, however, you become obligated to do your best to live by them.

1. Be careful about knowing things. This isn't about throwing your hands up in the air with a "Who knows?" sigh; it's about keeping an open mind. This is almost, but not quite, impossible. You know it is because a lot of people claim to be keeping an open mind when it's clear to everyone around them that they are eternally convinced of their own rectitude. Take a hard look at yourself before you dismiss the possibility that you're that guy.
2. Assume people have good intentions. Guess what? Most of the people you will ever talk to about politics are patriots. They love their country, and they want to see it and the people who live in it succeed. They're not just saying that, they really feel that way, just like you do. Also, everyone "cares about people." Don't ever default, in explaining your position on some particular issue, on this response: "Well, I just care about people." Because the inevitable implication is that the person to whom you are responding doesn't give a crap about people, which is stupid.
3. Actually try to understand people who disagree with you. Don't just say you're trying to understand, actually do it. It's really hard. You have to shut up. You have to ask questions and listen to the answers. And you have to work to put yourself in the other person's shoes and try to see things from his or her angle. The magic of this is that as you do, he or she will be much more inclined to reciprocate. 
4. Never, ever, ever attack people. Attacking someone is purely selfish. It accomplishes nothing except to make you feel good and the other person feel bad. When you attack someone, you almost guarantee that they will never agree with you or see your side of things. You become their enemy, at least when it comes to the subject upon which the attack was based. 
5. If you get mad, shut up. The best thing you can do if you feel yourself starting to get angry is to stop talking and get out of the conversation in the most amiable way possible. Perhaps you can still your fury without walking away, but most people can't. Which leads to...
6. If they get mad, shut up. Arguing with an angry person is pointless. It's an absolute, destructive waste of time and energy. 

Did I mention that these are really, really hard? As you read each of them--HA!--as I wrote each of them, I called to mind instances in my own life when I failed to follow the suggestion because the temptation to take the lower road was overwhelming. Or, more often, because it didn't even occur to me at the time. 

But we are agentive human beings. We can decide to improve ourselves. We can try and fail and try again and do a little better. And we have to, because as dismal and soul-sucking as politics are, they are preeminently important. We should talk about this stuff. It matters to everyone. But we can do better.

*****

As always, feel free to leave whatever thoughts you have in the comments. Specifically, for this post, are there any principles of good political conversation that you abide by (or try to) that didn't make it onto my list? 

Our Loss, Our Peril

I come from a long line of divorce. My parents were divorced when I was two (or younger--I don't remember, it was a long time ago), and both of my sets of grandparents were divorced. And though I don't have a firm grasp on the more distant roots of my family tree, I know that at least one of my sets of great-grandparents were divorced before them.

You probably already know where this is going, but please lend me your attention anyway. I promise I won't preach at you or repeat the worn cliches that have blunted all of our dialog about the American family.

I love my parents. Both of them. And I love all my grandparents, living and dead. I think they are all good and admirable people. Their failure to sustain their first marriages does not make them failures as human beings. But here is a truth: their children have suffered. It is an inevitability, when two people who got married and had kids decide they can't wait till death do they part, that their offspring will pay dearly.

This is an obvious truth, but it is so buried in the terror of offense that it seems almost impolite to say it. Divorce sucks. It's stupid and wrong and it represents a crumbling of health and holiness. In retrospect, it is easier to see the costs of failed marriages in the repercussions that manifest in the lives of those who are totally blameless; no child ever caused his or her parents to split up, but they bear the heaviest cost.

As horrible as divorce is, however, it has become the norm. There is a popular line of humor, lately, suggesting that marital longevity is some sort of torturous feat. That if two people have been together for more than twenty years, it's almost a given that they're miserable. The people who preach this stuff seem to think they're cutting into fresh and necessary truth, but in fact they have been blinded by misery. It's easy to look around and see what's done the blinding. Lots of married people are unhappy.

This presents us all with an important question: Should we accept something on the basis that it has become status quo? I hope that sounds familiar to you, because its answer has motivated every socially progressive agenda ever. We are not tolerant of hopelessness, nor should we ever be. And yet the received wisdom of our era is that marriage is a fleeting institution of mutual gratification at best, and a nightmarish consensual prison at worst.

Last week, I asked the question, "What one thing poses the greatest threat to the future of the United States?" What is the United States? Is it the institution of our federal or state governments? Is it the physical territory that occupies the bottom half of North America? Is it the founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the current fifty-mile ream of active legislation?

Some wise people have described our nation as a set of ideals, and I like that. But the thing about an ideal is that it only exists in the mind of a person. Principles, truths that dictate human behavior, wisdom distilled from ages of hard learning--these are things that evaporate into nothing if they are not held in the minds and hearts of a people. But what holds them there over generations?

Our answer has always been education. That's fair, but we seem to be doing a pretty lousy job of it lately. Lots of people have lots of ideas as to how we can do better, but there are only a comparatively few lonely voices suggesting the painful notion that perhaps the youth of this country are too busy paying the high cost of their parents' mistakes to have the time or energy to absorb the sorts of principles upon which this great country was founded.

There is, of course, endlessly more we could and should say about marriage--what it's for, and what we lose when it fails--but for now, I'll try to summarize my ramblings thus far. The family is the only institution capable of deeply educating the nation's children to become powerfully contributing citizens. We don't want to believe this, because the ideal nuclear family, that bastion of love and learning, has become so rare. Easier to claim that it is outdated, and that our society has "evolved" beyond that simplistic model. And so many of us have ceased to strive for it.

In so doing, we have opened the gates of catastrophe. How, in our dust-speck efforts, can we close them up again?

After some years, some thoughts

I should have waited another couple of weeks to make it an even three years from my last post on this blog. 

Anyway. I created “That Hideous Strength” because I needed a medium through which to express some of my passions more tangibly. Words are a powerful tool for organizing thoughts to be reviewed and responded to. Periodically, I rant about things to friends (and unfortunate acquaintances), but verbal diatribe are disorganized and ephemeral. It’s actually pretty tough to really exchange ideas in such a haphazard way. 

I’ve been passionate about politics for at least the past six years or so, but it’s only been recently that my failure to record some of my thoughts has become painful enough to motivate a resurrection of this abandoned blog.

Four years ago, I looked around and despaired as I perceived a broad apathy. It was to this that I ascribed the title. Now, however, I feel somewhat differently. I think there’s still plenty of apathy, but now the dominant sentiments seem to be either frustrated resignation (politics are horrible), or ignorant passion (close-minded antagonism). Of both, I have been and am by turns guilty. But they too are hideous strengths, just as dangerous and destructive as apathy. 

Passion is great, but let it be informed. Let it be arrived at by reason and great efforts toward understanding. Let it be charitable. I won’t promise not to rage and rant, and I expect to be called out when I’m being intolerant, close-minded or boorish. It’s OK, I have thick skin. But I will promise to do my best to present my arguments, opinions and ideas coherently, and with as much understanding as I can bring to the table. And I promise to speak as charitably as I know how. I won’t attack people, mostly (Harry Reid is one obvious exception). 

That said, here are the topics you’ll likely see me cover in near-future posts, some of which will receive treatment, I’m sure, in multiple posts:

• The philosophical foundations of the left
• The philosophical foundations of the right
• Gay marriage
• Welfare
• Financial policies
• Founding doctrines (how our government got started)
• Communities
• Families
• Capitalism, Socialism, Communism...Darwinism(!)
• Politicians and pundits I hate (there are plenty)
• Politicians and pundits I love (there are some)
• Lying
• What “Republic” means
• What “Democracy” means
• Racism
• Religion
• Et cetera!

Pretty much none of those things, I realize, are specific. The posts themselves will be, sometimes. BUT! I really want to know what kinds of things really fire YOU up. What kinds of conversations would you like to see me start? I can keep soap boxing forever on my own (if you’ve met me, you know this totally), but it’ll be more interesting, maybe, to respond to some specific topical interest. So if you’ve got one, leave it in the comments. 

As an end to this re-introduction of my political blog, let me pose this question: What one thing, in your opinion, poses the greatest threat to the future of the United States? I suppose that would be as good of a place as any to start, so I’ll answer my own question in my next post. 

Until then.

Staying Awake

It's been a while since I've posted here, and I figured that the best excuse for getting back to it was the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

So where are we right now? Does it ever strike you as interesting that the very reason some people cringe a little bit when people get emotional about that event is because it hasn't happened again in eight years?

Let me explain what I mean. To talk a lot about the importance of 9/11 seems a little bit heavy-handed these days, even to me sometimes. Just like comparing people to Hitler has lost all meaning, because people with little rhetorical skill jump to that analogy far too often and far too soon. So we're left with an event that really did shake the nation to its very center, and has still somehow lost the power to affect us very deeply. We'll think about it today, but we'll forget about it tomorrow.

And it's because we haven't seen anything like it on our soil for eight years. That's a miracle. I can assure you that the Islamic extremists do not hate us less. Nor have their efforts to kill as many of us as possible slackened. No, it's just that we've put an enormous amount of pressure on them--to the point that they haven't been able to pull off anything so large scale since.

I don't want this post to be partisan. There are things that we've done that have been effective, and things we've done that have been almost unforgivably stupid. Important, smart, and verbose people fight bitter battles over the particulars every single day of each year.

Instead, I want to talk about our morality. I believe in God. And I believe that he blesses nations according to their righteousness. I'm not talking about religion, I'm talking about human goodness. Nations that are filled with and led by people who are honestly seeking the best for each other, who are selflessly serving their fellow human beings--those nations prosper. The further we stray from that basic decency, the closer we come to being destroyed by our own inhumanity.

I don't believe God typically destroys people. I believe that when they walk far enough away from their innate sense of right and wrong, He simply lets them destroy themselves, or He stops protecting them from their enemies.

Self-destruction is something we can almost taste in this country right now. If the economy were to cease suffering and just die, then we would very quickly come to an understanding of how very bad life can be for the living. Our immorality is a sword hanging over our heads.

And so is terrorism. We've been lucky. Blessed is the term I prefer. But our safety is not a given. Mark 14:7 (in the Bible) states, "For ye have the poor with you always." The terrorists are a similar bunch in that way. There will never be a day when we lift our hands to the heavens in a celebratory gesture and declare, "They are defeated." If anyone does say those words, they are mistaken, mislead, or misleading. Terrorism is not something one nation can ever stamp out totally.

What we can do is continue to fight it, but more importantly, continue to hold onto our values. We must be a loving, honest, selfless people. If we continue on in our trend toward permissiveness, moral relativity, insatiable appetite, and utter disregard toward or open rebellion against the consequences of our actions, we will not be able to stop either sword from falling. Whichever comes first will be the only uncertainty.

I will never say that we deserved what happened on September 11th. Certainly the innocent victims of the attack did nothing to bring upon themselves a violent and untimely death. But it is absolutely incumbent upon each one of us to wake up to the realities of our world. On September 11th, we woke up. But then, as always, we fell back to that deep sleep of apathy. Each year, on this day, we have an opportunity to reawaken. This year, let's stay awake.

Iconography

This is a really helpful, eye-opening video:

http://www.pjtv.com/v/2317

You'll have to register to be able to see the video, but it's very worth it. Here's one of the wonderful things I gleaned from it, though:






This is the "icon," according to the video, that would be the most effective opposition to Obama's powerful image. Please, download it, share it with your friends. It might actually turn out to be important to tear down the personality and start focusing on the actual presidency.

Further, I'm pretty enthusiastic about getting a really effective brand onto Mitt Romney. It will need to be done if he's to have any kind of chance in 2012--I know, he hasn't said he'll run, but I'm certainly hoping he will.

So, any ideas for a good Mitt Romney brand?

Something Deep

Admittedly, this has little to do with politics. It's more about perspective.

Also, it's just really cool. Please enjoy.



The guy who was responsible for posting this runs an interesting website called Deep Astronomy: Better Living Through Astronomy. I've perused it briefly and feel I can safely recommend it.

Why We Elect Liars

I was having a conversation with my mom the other day, something that naturally occurs on an eleven-hour road trip from Arizona to Utah, and the discussion turned, as it inevitably does, to politics.

My mom and I agree on most things political. She might be a hair more conservative than I am, which is ironic considering her status as a single-mother, country music hating, artistic feminist of the old school...but anyway.

We mutually realized during the course of our conversation, that politicians are dishonest because people are dishonest. I posited that the majority of Americans will tell a lie when the benefits seem clear and the risks seem low. A lie is like an investment--when the returns are assured, and the risks are minimal, most people will make that investment. Morality ends up being calculated right out of the equation, and our culture continues its steady decline.

So what if we were all a lot more honest? What if lying was much more socially unacceptable? What if, when we caught a politician in a lie, he or she was immediately removed from his or her office?

As it stands right now, we forgive lies among politicians remarkably easily. Obama has kept almost none of his campaign promises, and yet, almost uniformly, we respond with resigned acceptance of this dishonesty. "What politician doesn't make promises they know they can't keep?" many ask in his defense. Since making a promise you know you can't keep is just another form of lying, those who use this logic are essentially justifying dishonesty by its very prevalence.

Which is, sadly, somewhat fair. Politicians lie, and so do we. Incidentally, my counter-argument to this defense of Obama, in particular, is that he was supposed to be different. He built his campaign upon being different and bringing "change" to Washington. That's the only definite selling point he had. So if he's no different, then his unfortunate voters have been roundly duped. They elected a very standard politician who's defining characteristic now seems to be his astounding ineptitude and lack of essential experience.

But I digress. The point here is that we are in a position of great danger. We hate our elected officials, but we have no one to blame but ourselves, as a nation of ignorant and/or apathetic citizens. With prosperity comes apathy, and with apathy comes bondage.

The complaint is that we can't know politicians' true colors as we vote for them because they lie too well. But the truth is that they lie to us no more often than we lie to each other. Politicians' moral bankruptcy only reflects that of their constituents. We want our politicians to be better people than we are, but not only is that impossible, it's unreasonable.

We want to be outraged when our leaders lie to us, and sometimes we even pretend to be. If we truly are outraged, however, then we are hypocrites, because at the end of the day, we keep electing them.

If we want our leaders to change, we have to change. We have to start living our lives more honestly, and following our consciences more closely. We have to make hard decisions, guided by our inconvenient moral compasses. We have to be better. Each of us and all of us must be better. Only then will we be able to find within our ranks those who are fit to lead us.