Take An Opposing Point of View To Dinner day
Last night, I got the huge honor and pleasure of being able to spend time with one of the most wonderful people in the world, a friend of mine from college who I hadn't seen in years. She's one of the most warm-hearted, generous and affectionate people I've ever known. And she's as liberal as a free doughnut.
Like most everyone else, the majority of the people in my life tend to believe more or less along the same lines as me. It's never an accident...you just gravitate towards the people who see the world in the same shades that you do. But it's always incredibly valuable to talk to someone who believes those things that mostly only enter your world via magazine articles and links from a ranting blog.
At last night's dinner, I heard the first mentions of the "Industrial Military Complex" that I've heard in a while, and got an analogy of the World Bank/IMF to an abusive domestic relationship. Some of this I agreed with, and some I disagreed with. But mostly, it made me realize how, in spite of what some Republicans may argue, my views are much more centrist than I thought, that an actual, deeply-felt liberal point of view is actually something that most people don't really get exposed to in any direct way.
I'm laying these thoughts down because it's always something that I've felt that most people who are really liberal or really conservative don't get: the full-force, in-person views of the people who believe the opposite. Not just people who disagree, but the people who have a completely opposing view. I told my friend about the ridiculous argument I had had with my uncles last Thanksgiving about "terrorists educated in the US", and she realized how little real contact she had had with anyone who truly believed the things that she had gotten the surface of through Fox news and Rush Limbaugh. And it amazed her that there were those people who truly believed those things.
This isn't about everybody holding hands and getting along and singing beautiful songs of political understanding, though I guess that would be nice. It's just about coming to an understanding of those people with differing political outlooks by actually talking to them. I just don't think that most people do that. More and more, we get our views of the opposing views by marginal blogs and "news" publications, and there are more and more rants about the horrible, disgusting, immoral views of the left/right that use one person's badly-worded blog entry or bulletin board post as evidence of the craziness on the other side.
Talk to people. It's surprisingly different than a blog!
10 comments:
It's definitely a lot different to hear a completely opposite (or non-centrist) viewpoint from someone you know and respect, and who can talk about it without ranting. I have a good friend who believes whole-heartedly in creationism (or "intelligent design," as kids these days are calling it) over evolution. I wouldn't say she's an ultra-conservative or anything, although she does lean slightly farther to the right than I do. Except for that one issue, she's fairly pragmatic. But when she talks about that one issue, it's clear that no additional evidence or theories could ever change her mind, or even get her to accept some sort of middle ground. And while in one sense it's kind of fascinating to hear it from someone who grew up in the same hometown, and has a similar background, it also baffles me to some extent.
My theory with most non-centrists is that there is something that makes them *want* to believe a certain point of view. I haven't completely figured this out yet, but generally for someone to completely buy in to a far-left or far-right argument, they have to ignore some pretty well-reasoned counterpoints. Or just avoid those counterpoints altogether by surrounding themselves only with people/media/information that strongly support the same side of the argument. It would be hard to find someone who genuinely listened to both sides of an issue, considered them, and decided one side was 100% right and the other was 100% wrong. Unless, of course, the issue involved Vanilla Ice, or mullets.
Anyway, I just came to your blog today by accident. I was getting hungry and did a google search on "free doughnuts."
I dare you to try and come up with something more liberal than a free doughnut. You can't! You can't do it!
I would also like to clarify that when I talk about extreme thinkers, I'm not talking about eXtreme thinkers, who are pushing the limits and trying bold new flavors of Doritos and Pepsi. Those people are another subject altogether.
More seriously, I honestly believe that the new rise in the belief of creationism has less to do with religious belief and more to do with conservatives wanting to separate themselves as much as possible from the thought patterns of liberals.
It's similar to the frustrating insistence of so many liberals to distance themselves from the American flag and finding any sort of pride in their own country. It really has nothing to do with anything except the pattern of: IF conservatives like it THEN I hate it. Baby out with the bathwater, I say. But that's why I've always loved that Howard Zinn's favorite song is "America The Beautiful." Liberalism combined with patriotism. Fantastic.
Okay, so maybe I'm not that centrist. But it's an important lesson that there's always plenty of wiggle room to be more so, for a lot of us.
"It's similar to the frustrating insistence of so many liberals to distance themselves from the American flag..."They're just being cautious. You can't stand too close to a flag while you're burning it, or you'll singe your eyebrows. ;)
Scott, you sorta hit it right on the head. Most people who are extreme in their belief of anything (doesn't have to be politics) don't even consider that an opposing viewpoint exists, and they really don't want to hear about it. Take, for instance, your viewpoint that the Baltimore Ravens are a "really good" football team. Okay, just kidding. But seriously, whenever you talk to someone who is extreme in their beliefs, it's impossible to get a dissenting word in. Not that they'll refute your point, but just that they'll get indignant and pouty. This is usually the case. Frankly, I think that a lot of people aren't even sure why they are so steadfast in their beliefs. They just know that if they want to fit in with whatever crowd, they ought to be in support of (or against) whatever it is. Their refusal to hear the opposing view may be partly due to the fact that they don't want to expose their shaky belief system. Note: not "wrong", but "shaky", as in not really well researched or well founded.
Reid's mention of World Bank/IMF, (and my comment above) reminds me of the protests that were held in DC, and also the WTO protests in Seattle a few years back. Lots of kids out there raising hell, trying to fight against something they didn't approve of. Right? In a lot of cases, the answer is no. I saw lots of interviews with kids on the street who weren't even sure what the WTO does, but they were there loudly protesting anyway. Sheep.
Interesting that you guys brought up flag-burning as a side topic. Earlier this evening, I decided to name Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as head coach of my fantasy baseball team. Like him or not, he's insanely intelligent and is frankly the only one of the Justices who brings any flair into the hearings. Anyway.... to the point. He's one of the most conservative Justices the Court has ever seen, but for some reason he was part of the majority opinion of Texas v Johnson. I don't know why I didn't know (or had forgotten) that nugget of information. It's a nice piece of trivia that such an extreme conservative is a champion of this particular application of first amendment rights.
For the record, I didn't appoint him because I like his politics. I just like his flair. Fantasy baseball isn't about making friends, it's about winning.
Yeah, the college kids who came to the WTO/IMF protests were often just protesting because someone said the word "injustice" and they all flocked.
But this is part of the problem with a lot of liberal issues...they get ruined by the people who don't really understand what's going on. Somehow, conservative issues seem to be somewhat immune to the idiots who don't understand what's going on.
Those liberal idiots have clouded the issues of the World Bank, making an issue that really deserves everyone's attention into this crazy whacko issue that most of the country shrugs off as nutty protesters going at it again, which is a shame, because there are some pretty unfortunate things going on with the issues of third world debt and the World Bank and IMF that should be considered as more than just a liberal issue.
There's always a certain "coolness" factor associated with protests...kids going through their rebellious stages, being exposed to new ideas in college, etc., and the opportunity comes up for them to channel it towards a particular cause. Never mind that really being committed to a cause requires a lot of actual work. Anyway, with Clinton I think the "cool" factor shifted back to the liberal side. In the 80's, I seem to remember more instances of this happening on the conservative side of things, back when everyone wanted to be Alex P. Keaton or Gordon Gecko. Or maybe that was just me. ;)
What really upsets me about the protests against the World Bank and IMF (or the WTO or USAID, for that matter), is that they focus too much on the organizations rather than on the actual issues. These are organizations that were created for extremely honorable purposes, and while some of their programs certainly have their problems, the successes outweigh the failures. There are always going to be risks when applying economic theories (often unproven) in areas of the world that have unstable market conditions. Not everything is going to work as expected. But the protestors aren't interested in fixing what's wrong or improving what could have been done better, they want to eliminate the entire organization. The problem with that is that it leaves a huge void which couldn't be filled otherwise. Politics aside, the World Bank has some of the most brilliant minds working on ways to improve economic conditions in the poorest areas of the world. They could definitely learn from their mistakes and improve where their programs haven't been successful. But dismantling the World Bank because of third world debt problems would be like dismantling the military because of Abu Ghraib.
I think that most of the people who are calling for the end of the World Bank are just the sheep that are going along with it because it's the latest liberal cause. There are a lot of people involved in those protests that recognize what the World Bank actually is, the good they do and the harm they do. Hell, the people that I know that work there more often than not can recognize the harm they do, even while they're working on the good.
Not being able to focus on the actual issues is something that people of all political persuasions have a difficult time doing, and I think that it's something that ironically is getting worse as technology makes the world a smaller place.
I think that colleges especially have always been liberal. They're not any more or less today than they were in the 80's. I think that there was a political change in the '80's as baby boomers who had their hippie phase in the '60's and '70's glommed onto Reaganomics and came to the conclusion that everything they had believed previously was ALL WRONG, just as they had done in college.
In another topic in this comment that should really be its own post, I think that the popularity of conservatism that started in the '90's had to do with conservatism and being a Republican becoming a political frame of thought where you can feel angry and disenfranchised and that you're fighting against the people who are trying to bring you down. Before that, conservatism was just as it implied: conservative. Quiet, older people, and it became exactly the sort of thing that attracts the college kids to the WTO protests: you can yell and be angry and feeling like you're righting an obviously global wrong. Extremism. Just like we were talking about. So that tied it all back in nicely, I think.
This doesn't have much to do with anything, but I remember that one of the most striking images from a few years ago was of the angry Republicans who demonstrated following the 2000 election. Angry, well dressed Republicans with their "Sore Loserman" signs. It was like someone unleashed the fury of Alex P. Keaton. I remember how unthreatening and humorous they all seemed! Contrast with the nitwit anarchists at the World Bank demonstrations. I'm not sure what my point is here... ;)
I think I see your point, Christian. It's just about the appeal of having a political viewpoint that feels like a fight.
But it's the liberals fault. We live in a culture where conservatives have just grabbed onto the annoying liberal theory that "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." It's the idea that if you position yourself as a revolutionary, someone who has to fight against the injustices that those people are trying to make you live with. It's a way to feel useful, like a revolutionary. It's also a convenient way to get out of arguments: you don't have to come up with good points if you blow up at "ignorance" and "injustice".
A lot of it has to do with the fact that this country was founded through revolution...it's in our blood to strive for change. Even the appearance of someone fighting for change seems admirable to us, regardless of whether it's superficial or not.
It reminds me of one of my favorite lines from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" when the governor complains that he's behind in the polls:
JUNIOR: Well he's the reform candidate, Daddy.
PAPPY: ...Yeah?
JUNIOR: Well people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some.
PAPPY: I'll reform you, you soft-headed sonofabitch! How we gonna run reform when we're the damn incumbent!
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