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Mar 11, 2023·edited Mar 11, 2023Liked by Steve QJ

1st, Steve, Chris, it was refreshing to read your well-spoken exchange this morning. It made me wonder if even though you superficially belong to tribes where many are at war with each other you agree on the idea that those wars are poison for the brain and that there is no rise to hostility in the subject of your differences of opinion.

"𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸"

There lays the problem. The vast majority of what we see is not an effort at positively influencing the thoughts of the opposition, but rather to collect praise from the likeminded. People who with no apparent sense of irony display what they claim to oppose in their own behavior.

They are dangerous. I often express my thoughts on the demonization/dehumanization process used to condition otherwise peaceful to go to war and kill. One of my positive traits, if I do say so myself, is to try to understand why people hold the views that they hold. I might not convince me to change my view, but it does make me less likely to dehumanize them. That's important, at least in my thinking.

I've mentioned my MAGA buddy in the past. He dismisses everything he disagrees with as coming from Soros funded communists (Democrats/liberals) and RINOs. I don't actually have much hope in being able to convince him that Trump is a RINO who has created a cult around himself distributing toxic cool-aid for the mind. How do I express that thought to him without it being perceived as insult? Most non-MAGAs purposefully insult and demonize him. They harden his views without hope of changing them.

I don't mention him to demonize him. We have a near 30-year friendship founded in things other than politics. He is an intelligent man with double master's degrees caught up in a cult. I do understand where some of his views come from and actually don't disagree with him on all of them. I see those traits in people with opposing views. It is all too easy to switch our thoughts from ideas to people because it is so easy to demonize and dehumanize people. To see their membership in a group as the uniform of an enemy in a war.

A worthwhile quote for a pop-up on our computers when we go to social media; "𝓐𝓵𝓵 𝓱𝓸𝓹𝓮 𝓪𝓫𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓸𝓷 𝔂𝓮 𝔀𝓱𝓸 𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮."

[edit] I intended to mention that the pop-up would be to inspire us to seek to behave in ways to bring hope.

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“maybe we can fix the culture war with some culture diplomacy.”

And maybe the horse will learn to sing.

You have a good heart Steve but this sow’s ear will make no silk purse. You do yourself harm on twitter.

No I am not calling people cockroaches. A lot of people on Twitter are truly sick. Engaging is futile. Remember that Daryl Davis worked in person, not on Twitter.

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I'm going to put this here since it addresses Steve's Commentary topic and could be placed in more than one of the sub threads here.

The culture wars are tribal and politically partisan, something I am known to not care for. The tribes have a checklist of things you must agree with/stand for to maintain good membership status. Those things (issues) often have no relationship and depending on the issue I may tilt in either direction. While you may see more of this or that within selected tribes, they are not monolithic. That is probably truer than we think because people are afraid to speak their minds. Making an example of myself, I have a significant amount of extended family who are devout Christians. While I won't lie about it, I tend to just leave the subject alone because my thoughts on it would be offensive. Why the hell would I do that with family. I am in no way unique which is why I think that is a valid example.

Why did I mention proxy wars? They pertain to the two issues that I think make other issues equivalent to a pimple on an elephant's ass.

WAR: China is preparing for war in every possible way. We will be at war with them, and they will defeat us because we have foolishly blunted the armory and depleted the treasury. A bipartisan disaster.

FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY: Omnibus spending bills. In the dark of night without possibility of being read and understood our politicians sign on to massive debt for things that could never pass in the light of day. They give all of America the finger as they seal our fate with mockery of our so-called democracy. There will be a day of reconning, and it will be the collapse of the nation. It would be easy to blame the Ds but they do it with the willing cooperation of the Rs.

That's the politicians and the inevitable doom that they bring, but the culture war is taking place with the general population. During the course of my lifetime, I've been a dirty job trailer trash guy at the edge of town in the south. A clean job in a nice house guy. Lived around and befriended the uneducated and highly educated. The hard left & right and those in between. I know them and I can sit peacefully at a table with any of them and it is probably at the root of my disdain for partisan culture wars. I don't despise people for holding ideas that I don't agree with. People can be influenced with nuance and more complete information, unless they are hard core left or right.

Debate about which tribe's assholes are worse is the culture war Steve is seeking to dismantle. It gets us nowhere useful unless we want to go to war and kill each other. That would get us somewhere. Somewhere no rational person wishes to be.

Who's worse? Which issue? I don't wish to participate in that.

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Aside: I ran across an utterly horrifying movie from last year called "Soft Quiet." Six women, all but two of them strangers, gather in a church meeting room with pastries and pie . All very supportive and feminine and lots of hugs and self-deprecating laughter with tons of woman talk.

Then they start talking and it's all bigotry over multiculturalism; the organizer uncovers the cherry pie she'd baked and it has a swastika cut into the crust. The first to introduce herself gripes over a Latina woman getting a promotion she wanted.

It ends up being, by virtue of complete believability, one of the most frightening movies I have ever seen.

Relevant to this thread,

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I understand your reverence for the achievement of Mr. Davis and your hope that this can be widened. Our disagreement on the feasibility of this is something I don't need to reiterate. I have great respect for your goals and your skills in trying to achieve them but I despair.

You are a gifted writer and a subtle thinker and more than once I've been envious of the craft with which you make your points. The next word is "but."

But. Suppose you were to write a supremely persuasive essay that anyone on the other side of the culture wars would be unable to dismiss, would be compelled to consider your arguments, and would not be given any excuses to tune you out. What would happen?

The moment he discerned that you weren't of his tribe, he would stop reading, give a little shake of his head, and forget everything he had just read. You would not reach anyone. The only way to reach someone on the other side is one at a time, a long and patient effort, with the establishment of respect and trust, and even then the chance of progress is very slim. Yes, it can be done and if you devote the rest of your life to it you might reach a half dozen people.

I think that given your talents at this kind of persuasion that you should work in more fertile ground, certainly not Twitter where hate speech is not only tolerated but expected. Where Musk has his remaining staff actively promote the ugly side of the culture wars. Medium was once such a place but is no longer I don't know how you've remained on there talking about gender ideology but it only takes one squeal of "transphobia" to get banned. There are probably better forums but they don't have the readership.

Even then, don't set your hopes too high.

I abhor the language of violence and war but I don't see any potential for reconciliation. The divisions are widening and both sides are overrepresented by their worst.

And, given that we do have a war, one of outlooks more than of weapons but with no shortage of weapons either, it is imperative that we win, that as one person put it, conservatives are crushed like bugs.

Because if they prevail they will kill you for being black, they will kill me for being gay, and they will kill the natural kingdom and in less than a century our world will be the eighth dead planet in the solar system.

And I am willing to compromise a lot to prevent that.

And there you have it.

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