What He Said

February 9th, 2005 | by Craig |

R. Alex hits on something I’ve had rattling around in my brain for quite a while now, but couldn’t get it into words.

Common Humanity and Common Humanity Lost.

  1. 3 Responses to “What He Said”

  2. By Jim - PRS on Feb 10, 2005 | Reply

    Craig,

    He made some excellent observations. I tried to leave a comment over there, and I even tried to “set up an account,” which for some reason did not work. So, here is the comment I tried to leave over there:

    Very well said. Not only do I find myself reading certain blogs less frequently because of what I view as their political vitriol, but I also find that I sometimes judge (pre-judge, is probably more accurate) a newly discovered blog by the content of its blogroll. Fair or not, if I come across a yet-unread blog with a blogroll that is populated with sites that I find to be politically way out there, I wont give it as much “screen time” as I otherwise might have given it or than it might well have deserved. I definitely have to work on that.

  3. By Wulfgar on Feb 10, 2005 | Reply

    I also attempted to leave this comment over there, but was unable to start an account. So, here goes:

    Violating one of my own long held rules, I actually got into a political discussion with a co-worker yesterday. I am a moderate democrat, very prone to snark, he is a fundamental evangelical conservative. As we talked, I noticed over and over his efforts to pin me on the far left of the aisle, and I had to restrain myself from snarking at his “rightiness”. In the end, I think he was rather more surprised than me to find out how much we actually agreed upon, and were willing to assist each other.

    Point being, there is a particular palpable value solely in the effort to be civil. The question is how much each of us balances that cost with the debt we feel we owe ourselves for being “correct”.

  4. By David Summerlin on Feb 10, 2005 | Reply

    When friends fight, I always dole out the advice that it is more important to be kind than it is to be right. Following that advice gets exponentially more difficult in a polarized political discussion. It doesn’t help to have popular politicians in office who are overtly and unapologetically unkind. Opponents of those politicians err in generalizing all supporters of those politicians as equally unkind, and supporters of unkind politicians err in taking personal offense to criticisms of their candidate’s hostilities.

    Personally I believe civility goes a long way, but only so far. There comes a point where what’s at stake is valuable enough to warrant a declaration of all out war. Fundamentalist Christians have shown me where that line exists. I simply cannot abide the insidious attempts of organizations like the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family to impose theocratic dominion upon our secular republic. That’s the point where I stop being kind and insist on being right.

    However, that leaves open pretty much the entire sphere of political and religious discussion just left of the Taliban. That universe is large enough for me, and leaves plenty of elbow room for civility and gentlemanly conduct.

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