Not On Our Side, Tribal Intelligence

The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb. — Medium:

A useful short read, but I suspect most of the group that reads my blog will feel a bit like me. When you are on the "minority team", you HAVE to hear "the other side" -- pretty constantly. Now I go out of my way to NPR, Slate, etc, so get a MEGAdose of what the "other side" has to say, but we are all soaking in the dominant culture.

"When someone communicates that they are not “on our side” our first reaction is to run away or dismiss them as stupid. To be sure, there are hateful, racist, people not worthy of the small amount of electricity it takes just one of your synapses to fire. I’m instead referencing those who actually believe in an opposing viewpoint of a complicated issue, and do so for genuine, considered reasons. Or at least, for reasons just as good as yours. "

The other missing item in the article is that at one time we as a culture DID believe that "Western civilization" -- which included Christianity was "better", and there was a good deal of evidence. Europe once "ruled the world", capitalism advanced the condition of people around the planet, rule of law and just basic civic decency was common, people believed that hard work and personal responsibility were virtuous, the family is the cornerstone of  society, children were a blessing and the promise of the future, etc.

The "big divide" is now between pretty much everyone except a few "radicals" agreeing with the previous paragraph, and today's world where "the winning side" believes that god is dead, all values are relative, man is an animal, the environment (and animals like gorillas or even snail darters) are more important that human life, Western culture is decadent / corrupt / evil, Islam is the "Religion of Peace" and Christianity died with god and survival in a godless world goes to those who can prevent the births of their succeeding generation.

The "old values" people are largely the ones dismissed as "backward, stupid, reactionary, bigoted, etc". Sure, with the advent of Trump, the "todays world" people are taking some "abuse", but that is a pretty new phenomenon.

Never the less, being able to at least MAKE the points that the other side makes is worthy. I believe that we will actually have to AGREE on some set of transcendent values though before we return to actually "making progress" and truly "getting alone". The article not so subtly makes the point that there is "no real truth", it is is all relative.

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