I really enjoyed reading this, and I think it identifies what's so dangerous about how many people have replaced religion with their political identity. When you start labeling anyone who disagrees with you politically a bigot, and when boycotting Thanksgiving with family becomes an act of moral righteousness, something is deeply wrong not with your politics but with your entire worldview.
Great post, and to add something your conversations with your friends should not be about politics, and if they are, that should be a minority of discussion. Don’t let whatever the scandal of the day is dominate your life. Discuss art, literature, family and God instead.
As a non believer in anything supernatural, I have come to the same conclusion about mutual respect based on my understanding that cooperation (including competition based on mutually agreed rules) is in everyone’s best interest. And I also believe in groups’ right of self determination in cases where they can’t agree on how to resolve differences.
For a while, I participated in a forum that essentially shared this view, but I was rudely criticized by religious fundamentalists who could not accept the idea that it was possible to reach the same conclusion by means other than a “fear” of God.
I will add that my wife had a background of mixed Catholic and Baptist indoctrination, with many highly favorable interactions with Jewish people. Although -- unlike me -- she retains some suspicion of a "Divine Being," we share typical Midwestern American cultural values.
That is to say, that we value such things as honesty, hard work, and non-discrimination based on generalizations (however statistically correct) about other "tribes" of people.
Based on similar "cultural values" (without concern for their basis -- especially of a "religious" nature) our friends are moderate Catholics, Protestants and Jews. We actually have "cancelled" some "friends" who "went woke" in "cancelling" us centrists along with the genuine fascist/racists in the MAGA cult.
My point here is in warning against equating my being a "non-believer" in matters of religion with my allegedly being an acerbic critic of middle American culture -- to which I happily belong and generally support.
Love the article! And it’s not just political things I’ve noticed even in community based online groups people come up with the worst possible interpretation of someone else’s intent or behavior.
Also, what’s lost is in person in general if someone brings up a point, you can see their side even if you disagree with it. But online people take a side 100% and see the other side as being stupid or bad. We had a local conflict here and I could honestly see both sides even though I leaned towards one of the sides being in my opinion, the side that I would support the most. People were calling people names and of course everyone calls anyone who disagrees with them a “Karen”.
It’s disheartening because young people are growing up seeing adults act this way, whereas most of us over a certain age grew up with adults for the most part, acting like an adult and leading by example.
As Vicky says, you know you are a liberal when everyone hates you.
Of course, not everyone, but it can seem like that, and we have to resist the natural urge to "fight back." But we are dismissed and ridiculed by people who are tribal, even within our own family....sadly, because we refuse to hate.
We think everyone is basically the same, as Halpin so vividly describes. We all want dignity, freedom to go our own ways, basic needs met, valuable relationships.
And the odd thing is, which most tribalists don't seem to get, is that you can meet your own needs better if you meet other peoples' needs. Being giving is also making your own world better.
Anyone who isn't a racist is welcome on our back porch, to sit with us, enjoy a cup of coffee, talk about their new car, brag on their kids, remark on the elk that pass our home constantly, and tell us about their childhoods and grandchildren (if they will also listen patiently while we talk about our 15 of them!).
And racists? We will give them a chance, doing the best we can. We can say to them that we believe that their views are not Christian, but that we care about them as people.
Now, can we please start every day with reading an article like this one?
Personal humility really is the key, isn't it? When I think of all the people I truly admire, who have a grace and inner peace that is apparent from just a few minutes with them (none of them are public figures, by the way), they all have that personal humility. Not in the sense that they are constantly self-effacing (that too can be ego since if you're down on yourself all the time you're still making everything about you), but in the sense of being "right-sized" and caring about what others think and do. They know and accept the flaws in others because they know and accept their own flaws.
Too many people confuse self-absorption for self-awareness. When you meet someone with true self-awareness it becomes apparent which is which.
It's also about admitting when you're wrong, changing your mind in public, and apologizing when people get angry at you. I always start with an apology, since I know that people's anger comes from feeling boxed in or cut off by whatever I'm saying or doing. I'm not esp. expecting a counter-apology, but I can comfortably regret hurting someone even if I do not take back the views themselves.
One caveat…you only apolgize if you did something wrong. Msking someone angry when you didn’t intend to isn’t on you and it isn’t necessary to apologize.
How someone responds to you is their issue, not yours. Being truly “right sized” allows you to see this clearly.
I think I'm seeing it pretty clearly by my own lights, but I appreciate your perspective. My personal red line is, has my tone or word choice offended someone, and I'll always stay with that.
And PS, I guess I've "lost it" enough in my own life (though I spend very little time in Comments sections, so not that often online) to know that those anger reactions come from normal places - who's wasting my time? Who's ripping me off? Who won't see my point? So I try to foreground the normalcy of anger reactions against me. Thank you again!
This all needs saying again and again, and you do so very clearly. The oxygen of liberalism is epistemic humility above all other qualities; perhaps it's better called civic humility: the understanding, expressed by you in similar terms, that none of us knows 'the mind of God'. However passionately held our views we can always learn something from those who disagree with us. When political information was 'gate-kept' it didn't matter quite so much that this essential norm was obscured by our inherited concept of politics as a contest - a notion that goes dead against most people's expressed desire for less confrontation. Now the gates have been wrenched off their hinges and every citizen is barraged by tribalizing rhetoric, we see the consequences of our failure, over many generations, to develop a healthy conception of what makes for good politics. The language of left-right etc, the absurd expectation that all members of a big-tent party pre-commit to broad policy platforms, even the truly unhelpful notion of political centrism or moderation as a policy stance, rather than a deliberative approach to politics - these are all effects of our lack of a healthy conceptual framework for citizens thinking about politics. Without a clear concept of good politics as deliberative, with civic humility as the driving value, we have no consistent framework for identifying and stigmatizing divisive political rhetoric.
"Part of being independent entails organizing one’s life around values and propositions that are distinctly non-political. Free agents often strive for moral and personal distance from politics itself, not just independence from the two political parties." Excellent!
Oh so true, if it was what is actually going on. In our RED State, liberal Democrats have simply rebranded themselves as "Independent" candidates in hopes of being a bit more palatable to the voters and to distance themselves from the hard left. They pose no solutions only doubt about both other directions.
Our "independent" senatorial candidate (endorsed by the head of the dem party) was caught on hot mic with a profanity laced rant, calling rural residents a bunch of Billy Bob's and Mary Jane's with f*d lives. Most of the social media commenters posted: "He's not wrong."
I really enjoyed reading this, and I think it identifies what's so dangerous about how many people have replaced religion with their political identity. When you start labeling anyone who disagrees with you politically a bigot, and when boycotting Thanksgiving with family becomes an act of moral righteousness, something is deeply wrong not with your politics but with your entire worldview.
🎯
Great post, and to add something your conversations with your friends should not be about politics, and if they are, that should be a minority of discussion. Don’t let whatever the scandal of the day is dominate your life. Discuss art, literature, family and God instead.
Great advice!
As a non believer in anything supernatural, I have come to the same conclusion about mutual respect based on my understanding that cooperation (including competition based on mutually agreed rules) is in everyone’s best interest. And I also believe in groups’ right of self determination in cases where they can’t agree on how to resolve differences.
For a while, I participated in a forum that essentially shared this view, but I was rudely criticized by religious fundamentalists who could not accept the idea that it was possible to reach the same conclusion by means other than a “fear” of God.
I will add that my wife had a background of mixed Catholic and Baptist indoctrination, with many highly favorable interactions with Jewish people. Although -- unlike me -- she retains some suspicion of a "Divine Being," we share typical Midwestern American cultural values.
That is to say, that we value such things as honesty, hard work, and non-discrimination based on generalizations (however statistically correct) about other "tribes" of people.
Based on similar "cultural values" (without concern for their basis -- especially of a "religious" nature) our friends are moderate Catholics, Protestants and Jews. We actually have "cancelled" some "friends" who "went woke" in "cancelling" us centrists along with the genuine fascist/racists in the MAGA cult.
My point here is in warning against equating my being a "non-believer" in matters of religion with my allegedly being an acerbic critic of middle American culture -- to which I happily belong and generally support.
Love the article! And it’s not just political things I’ve noticed even in community based online groups people come up with the worst possible interpretation of someone else’s intent or behavior.
Also, what’s lost is in person in general if someone brings up a point, you can see their side even if you disagree with it. But online people take a side 100% and see the other side as being stupid or bad. We had a local conflict here and I could honestly see both sides even though I leaned towards one of the sides being in my opinion, the side that I would support the most. People were calling people names and of course everyone calls anyone who disagrees with them a “Karen”.
It’s disheartening because young people are growing up seeing adults act this way, whereas most of us over a certain age grew up with adults for the most part, acting like an adult and leading by example.
As Vicky says, you know you are a liberal when everyone hates you.
Of course, not everyone, but it can seem like that, and we have to resist the natural urge to "fight back." But we are dismissed and ridiculed by people who are tribal, even within our own family....sadly, because we refuse to hate.
We think everyone is basically the same, as Halpin so vividly describes. We all want dignity, freedom to go our own ways, basic needs met, valuable relationships.
And the odd thing is, which most tribalists don't seem to get, is that you can meet your own needs better if you meet other peoples' needs. Being giving is also making your own world better.
Anyone who isn't a racist is welcome on our back porch, to sit with us, enjoy a cup of coffee, talk about their new car, brag on their kids, remark on the elk that pass our home constantly, and tell us about their childhoods and grandchildren (if they will also listen patiently while we talk about our 15 of them!).
And racists? We will give them a chance, doing the best we can. We can say to them that we believe that their views are not Christian, but that we care about them as people.
Now, can we please start every day with reading an article like this one?
Personal humility really is the key, isn't it? When I think of all the people I truly admire, who have a grace and inner peace that is apparent from just a few minutes with them (none of them are public figures, by the way), they all have that personal humility. Not in the sense that they are constantly self-effacing (that too can be ego since if you're down on yourself all the time you're still making everything about you), but in the sense of being "right-sized" and caring about what others think and do. They know and accept the flaws in others because they know and accept their own flaws.
Too many people confuse self-absorption for self-awareness. When you meet someone with true self-awareness it becomes apparent which is which.
True humility is surely something to aspire to.
It's also about admitting when you're wrong, changing your mind in public, and apologizing when people get angry at you. I always start with an apology, since I know that people's anger comes from feeling boxed in or cut off by whatever I'm saying or doing. I'm not esp. expecting a counter-apology, but I can comfortably regret hurting someone even if I do not take back the views themselves.
One caveat…you only apolgize if you did something wrong. Msking someone angry when you didn’t intend to isn’t on you and it isn’t necessary to apologize.
How someone responds to you is their issue, not yours. Being truly “right sized” allows you to see this clearly.
I think I'm seeing it pretty clearly by my own lights, but I appreciate your perspective. My personal red line is, has my tone or word choice offended someone, and I'll always stay with that.
And PS, I guess I've "lost it" enough in my own life (though I spend very little time in Comments sections, so not that often online) to know that those anger reactions come from normal places - who's wasting my time? Who's ripping me off? Who won't see my point? So I try to foreground the normalcy of anger reactions against me. Thank you again!
Great read. Thanks for writing this.
This all needs saying again and again, and you do so very clearly. The oxygen of liberalism is epistemic humility above all other qualities; perhaps it's better called civic humility: the understanding, expressed by you in similar terms, that none of us knows 'the mind of God'. However passionately held our views we can always learn something from those who disagree with us. When political information was 'gate-kept' it didn't matter quite so much that this essential norm was obscured by our inherited concept of politics as a contest - a notion that goes dead against most people's expressed desire for less confrontation. Now the gates have been wrenched off their hinges and every citizen is barraged by tribalizing rhetoric, we see the consequences of our failure, over many generations, to develop a healthy conception of what makes for good politics. The language of left-right etc, the absurd expectation that all members of a big-tent party pre-commit to broad policy platforms, even the truly unhelpful notion of political centrism or moderation as a policy stance, rather than a deliberative approach to politics - these are all effects of our lack of a healthy conceptual framework for citizens thinking about politics. Without a clear concept of good politics as deliberative, with civic humility as the driving value, we have no consistent framework for identifying and stigmatizing divisive political rhetoric.
"Part of being independent entails organizing one’s life around values and propositions that are distinctly non-political. Free agents often strive for moral and personal distance from politics itself, not just independence from the two political parties." Excellent!
Oh so true, if it was what is actually going on. In our RED State, liberal Democrats have simply rebranded themselves as "Independent" candidates in hopes of being a bit more palatable to the voters and to distance themselves from the hard left. They pose no solutions only doubt about both other directions.
Our "independent" senatorial candidate (endorsed by the head of the dem party) was caught on hot mic with a profanity laced rant, calling rural residents a bunch of Billy Bob's and Mary Jane's with f*d lives. Most of the social media commenters posted: "He's not wrong."