by Bob Butler » Thu Jun 24, 2021 5:12 pm
The riot was an attack on our democracy, intended to freeze our election system. It is trivial if you don’t believe in democracy. Some people value democracy.
The divide is that the cavalier / rural / racist / red / Republican culture sees itself as having a superior place in the culture. One is either for this culture, or not. If you are tribally thinking, you are out to build up prejudices about other competing cultres and oppress them in ways from voter suppression to murder.
The opposite is working from principles such as equality, democracy, human rights and rule of law.
So naturally if you are doing something which supports the supposedly superior culture even at the cost of democracy, you would try to label it as trivial. If you value the principles, you do not.
Things were ugly in the Agricultural and Industrial Ages. Tribal thinking - advancing your own class, race or nation - was common. Violence was the preferred method of oppressing people. Each crisis, the above principles makes this oppression more difficult, not to mention machine guns, nukes, proxy wars, insurgent wars and non violent legislative culture change. There is no exception in the Anglo American sequence. I do not anticipate an exception now.
So it is not from a liberal vantage point any sort of battle about class, race or nation. It is about equality, democracy, human rights and rule of law. When I visit the main thread, it is not hard to see white supremacists building up each other’s prejudices and blaming everyone but themselves for the problems of our culture. Others see it through entirely different lenses.
Don’t count on anyone changing their perspectives. If you visit places where divergent viewpoints are welcomed, you would be aware of how seldom perspectives change, where it takes a major failure to cause a change. S&H had that happening only in a crisis, and only after disasters like Atlanta or Hiroshima occurred. Little notice was given to the suffragettes, Gandhi, or the civil rights movement, the increase importance of non violence and legislative change to culture.
None of this addresses John’s habit of lying, of attempting propaganda that will only convince people already convinced.
The riot was an attack on our democracy, intended to freeze our election system. It is trivial if you don’t believe in democracy. Some people value democracy.
The divide is that the cavalier / rural / racist / red / Republican culture sees itself as having a superior place in the culture. One is either for this culture, or not. If you are tribally thinking, you are out to build up prejudices about other competing cultres and oppress them in ways from voter suppression to murder.
The opposite is working from principles such as equality, democracy, human rights and rule of law.
So naturally if you are doing something which supports the supposedly superior culture even at the cost of democracy, you would try to label it as trivial. If you value the principles, you do not.
Things were ugly in the Agricultural and Industrial Ages. Tribal thinking - advancing your own class, race or nation - was common. Violence was the preferred method of oppressing people. Each crisis, the above principles makes this oppression more difficult, not to mention machine guns, nukes, proxy wars, insurgent wars and non violent legislative culture change. There is no exception in the Anglo American sequence. I do not anticipate an exception now.
So it is not from a liberal vantage point any sort of battle about class, race or nation. It is about equality, democracy, human rights and rule of law. When I visit the main thread, it is not hard to see white supremacists building up each other’s prejudices and blaming everyone but themselves for the problems of our culture. Others see it through entirely different lenses.
Don’t count on anyone changing their perspectives. If you visit places where divergent viewpoints are welcomed, you would be aware of how seldom perspectives change, where it takes a major failure to cause a change. S&H had that happening only in a crisis, and only after disasters like Atlanta or Hiroshima occurred. Little notice was given to the suffragettes, Gandhi, or the civil rights movement, the increase importance of non violence and legislative change to culture.
None of this addresses John’s habit of lying, of attempting propaganda that will only convince people already convinced.