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VanitasVanitatum
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If we do that when we are not thinking and it isn’t possible to always be on guard then there is no solution.
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PetraG
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How is it not logical to say that what constitutes “the left” seems to be whatever some particular Republicans don’t want in the GOP?
Honestly, it can be as simple as “Criticize Donald J Trump” → --> “Whatever direction it came from, that is the LEFT”
No, it makes no sense, but the definition of “left” that some people use to write others off as being leftist can be for no other reason than that the presumptive “leftist” thinks Mr. Trump has made a terrible decision or deliberately said something false. It is about that complicated.
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Freddy
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Well yeah. Probably not. Don’t realise that the problem possibly includes yourself. Ignore any personal preferences and bias. Don’t adjust your thinking on the matter. Just accept whatever bubbles up from your unconsciousness as a mere nuisance to be ignored.Freddy:
If we do that when we are not thinking and it isn’t possible to always be on guard then there is no solution.
Just carry on as before. Nothing to apologise for. No need for any self reflection. No need to be aware of how we act in different situations with different people. ‘Hey, it’s all automatic. Not my fault. What can I do…?’
Nothing apparently.
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PetraG
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This is a variation on “I can’t help it, it is just the way I am.” It doesn’t wash.
All of the manners our parents taught us, after all, are to save us from all the boneheaded and insensitive things we would otherwise do “without thinking.”
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Freddy
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“I consider my position to be on the right. If you disagree with any of my beliefs that means your are on the left. I can therefore ignore anything you say”.
And we can swap right and left in the above and it would still be true.
I’m sure there used to be a time when, if someone disagreed with you, the first thing you’d do is to find out why. To enter into a discussion. To investigate the counter claim. As opposed to simply declaring the other person a right/left wing idealist and treat her views with disdain.
Maybe I’m imagining it.
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PetraG
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Yep. Do not forget “how can you even talk about topic A with someone who is so wrong about topic X?”
And yes, both sides do it.
There was a time when they could actually work in Washington in a non-partisan way, but now anything that Pelosi or McConnell or Trump or some other political Untouchable has any hand in is DOA. Hey, I say if Trump comes up with something good, more power to him. If Pelosi gets it right, get 'er done.
Sure, there are things that will be very difficult to find any middle ground on, but it has always been that way. Why should it be now that every other possible work in Washington has to be tainted by those?
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VanitasVanitatum
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There shouldn’t be a problem in the first place then, but this automatic subconscious probably is not something that can be reigned in so easily otherwise it would not be worth mentioning.
That’s nice and all but unless it is pragmatic I wouldn’t waste any time on it if doesn’t have much gravity in terms of effects and if it is not something that I willed.
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StudentMI
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That’s what I mean by natural. Thanks for posting. Perhaps it’s some kind of evolutionary drive. I don’t know.
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silentwitness
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If you heard that a black girl that lived down the street was run over yesterday by a truck, how would you feel?
Would you feel more sorrowful if someone told you a white girl was run over 30 years ago by a truck in Moldovia? I suspect not.
Perhaps your feelings have more to do with connection to people and that is not a bad thing. Perhaps we should recognise personal connections as a good thing rather than something to be ashamed of in accordance with secular ideology.
If you feel different because one girl was killed rather than another that is not a test of your goodness. When we follow the ideology of trying to make everything the same, the historical outcome of that is that we stop caring about either girl.
If your daughter dies how would you feel? Is it the same as how you feel when some girl you don’t know in Poland dies? If you think it is a goodness to react the same for all cases the only possible solution is to be indifferent to all deaths and even publicly and continuously admit to your family privilege.
If a black guy feels more sorrowful when a black person dies i don’t see this as a badness. I don’t point the finger at him and yell ‘secular heretic!’. I think it probably means he doesn’t have the personal connections with white people. That can be changed slowly better by friendship with him rather than pointing the finger.
I had an Indian friend before who i got very close to. She spoke about how she viewed white people before she met me. She preferred ‘black’ people. That was ok for me. Her family were all black, her husband was black, her children were black. The goodness in her life was all black. They were real bonds that should be celebrated and protected. Even though we had different backgrounds we connected through our similar Christian cultures together with our profession. That she prefers blackness is fine for me. She is still my good friend and i value her and respect so many things about her.
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VanitasVanitatum
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That’s not the hill I would die one.
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silentwitness
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I think the idea of white patriarchy is just a way to divide people by race and gender in order to attack parts of society. As we know the idea is to identify and define a group of people and then get others to dissociate from those groups by painting them as oppressive.
It is a bad ideology. We have seen this type of thinking in the church. To prefer ‘your own religion’ is to suggest you are unconsciously bigoted against other religions. This redefinition of goodness has led to millions of people walking away from Christianity because they don’t want to be biased and someone else tells them they are more ‘open minded’ and ‘tolerant’ by walking away (that is doing what they want).
When this ideology is prevalent then it becomes easier to discredit the church in history to paint them as oppressive and unreasonable. Defending the church then becomes an act of bigotry and close mindedness and just going along with the anti church rhetoric is being open minded and in favour of ‘equality’.
Again i think this ideology is created to destroy natural bonds by redefining goodness based on partisan secular usage of ‘equality’.
I think the church has been largely decimated in the West because of exactly this attitude.
If someone prefers Hindu people then the world doesn’t stop for me. If someone prefers Vietnamese culture and people then the world doesn’t end for me. If someone prefers the company of and friendship of women the Sun still shines for me.
I don’t think of these people as bad but simply my brothers and sisters, whether they are closer to me culturally, racially, religiously or not.
Instead of painting these people as bad because of a secular religion that says they are not worshipping ‘equality’ i would prefer to junk the secular religion, accept them as they are and ask them over for lunch.
We used to call that tolerance and friendship.
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Freddy
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What on earth are you talking about when you say ‘secular values’? I can’t follow your post at all. It has nothing to do with anything I have posted whatsever.Freddy:
If you heard that a black girl that lived down the street was run over by a truck, how would you feel?
Would you feel more sorrowful if someone told you a white girl was run over by a truck in Moldovia? I suspect not.
Perhaps your feelings have more to do with connection to people and that is not a bad thing. Perhaps we should recognise personal connections as a good thing rather than something to be ashamed of in accordance with secular ideology.
This ideology attacks the nuclear family, heterosexual normal thinking, white patriarchy, individual religions, white privilege etc. It does this by getting people to think natural bonds are disgusting things and if you don’t publicly disown them in line with their ideologies then somehow you must hate the other.
Such a philosophy is divisive, authoritarian and just plain incoherent.
If you feel different because one girl was killed rather than another that is not a test of your goodness. When you follow the ideology of trying to make everything the same the historical outcome of that is that you stop caring about either girl.
If your daughter dies how would you feel? Is it the same as how you feel when some girl you don’t know in Poland dies? If you think it is a goodness to react the same for all cases the only possible solution is to be indifferent to all deaths and even publicly and continuously admit to your family privilege.
This is a bad ideology that is constructed to control people by redefining goodness in secular terms.
Of course I value my family more than close friends and close friends more than people I know and people I know over people I don’t. But an (unfortunately all too frequent) natural tendency to value (for example) a white life over a black life is something of which we need to be aware and we need to consciously reject it.
If a black guy or an Asian guy or an American Indian or a white Englishman would prefer one of ‘their own’ to survive some accident rather than someone else for no other reason than they were born with the same ethnic backhround then that is wrong. It is racism. It means that when the rubber meets the road then one of those people would pass on saving someone who is ‘different’ to save someone they felt was ‘the same’. And a very short step indeed to intentionally sacrifice someone else to benefit ‘your’ group.
Your Indian friend needs a wake up call. How would she react if you said that you actually preferred Asians to Indians. And what on earth could you base that bias on? What on earth does she base her prejudice on? Colour? Ye gods…
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silentwitness
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The ‘secular values’ is not based on real life connections as much as abstract theoretical equity tests.
She has very real life connections that is where her empathy comes from. That is a good thing.
The theoretical question of why i might prefer Asians to Indians would be based on real life connections. Perhaps my family is Asian. Perhaps i lived in China for many years. Preferring one over the other is ok.
Hating the other is something different. I think ‘secular values’ try to move the goalposts as described for the purposes of control.
Again a theoretical abstract example where the goalposts have been slightly moved. ‘Preferring’ someone survives is different than reacting to the death of someone.
I think there is an attempt to create an abstract morality continuum. (not by you but by the ideology).
This continuum would start at having a different reaction to a death, move to preferring a certain outcome of death and finally arriving at being the instigator of that death.
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Freddy
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No. Your friend is using nothing more than a reversed argument that is all too popular with people who are racist: ‘Some of my best friends are…’. It’s nonsensical to use that as an argument to show that you don’t have an aversion for some ethnic group and equally nonsensical to use to to show that you prefer one ethnic group over others.Freddy:
The theoretical question of why i might prefer Asians to Indians would be based on real life connections. Perhaps my family is Asian. Perhaps i lived in China for many years. Preferring one over the other is ok.
Preferring a person because they have a particular ethnic background is wrong. No ifs, buts or maybes about that. It’s the actual definition of racism.
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silentwitness
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No i think this is part of the abstract continuum that secular values attempt to construct that i mentioned in my last post.
I don’t think the continuum is valid but is constructed to control people in small things at one end of their continuum as if they were stopping real wrong doing at the other end of their continuum.
Ethnic background i think is a straw man. We have to define the lived experience behind the phrase ‘ethnic background’, Ethnic backgrounds can have different languages, different humour, different topics of conversation, different social arrangements, different ideas of the Divine and goodness, different dress, different food, different historical references, different sports etc. etc. etc.
It is entirely ok to prefer one to another. Again we have to be mindful of the secular continuum that moves quickly from preferring particular groups to wanting to hurt and be callous to other groups. The two are very different things.
Preferring one groups humour and socialising isn’t two steps away from genocide.
ok. i give you the floor and will be back tomorrow.
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Freddy
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This obviously means something to you. It’s a word salad to me. I have nothing more to add.Freddy:
No i think this is part of the abstract continuum that secular values attempt to construct that i mentioned in my last post.
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Erikaspirit16
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Ah yes, Nimrata Randhawa. And don’t forget Bobby Jindal (Piyush Jindal).
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PetraG
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You’re going to like some people and dislike others. You have to realize that and learn to be fair and just. Fair and just means learning how other people actually are and not just imagining you know based on looks. It means welcoming and listening (as the officer did not) to feedback from others. This requires education, maturity and self-examination, but it isn’t rocket science.
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Erikaspirit16
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Exactly. I don’t know why those other people are attacking you for stating what should be obvious.
Yes, Americans both, Christians both. Bobby Jindal is a faithful, practicing Catholic. I have to wonder if he ever considered Latinizing his Indian name to “Pius” — it sounds almost identical. Great name, the name of some of our most venerable Popes, but it doesn’t have an American “feel” to it. (That is a problem with America, not with the Church nor with Catholic culture.)HomeschoolDad:
Ah yes, Nimrata Randhawa. And don’t forget Bobby Jindal (Piyush Jindal).
He was probably better off taking the name of one of the Brady sons.
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