Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Part of the reason we’re divided in 2021, in politics, in both intensity and frequency, is that for approximately half a century there has been this drive to avoid making each other feel bad.
You say: Hold up there Freeberg. How can this political division, which makes people feel bad, be the result of some effort to avoid making each other feel bad? That’s kind of like Superman being hurt by rocks from his home world, isn’t it? Makes no sense! In order for me to explain this I have to simplify things, a lot. It is necessary to remove the emotional attachments. So let’s say we’re discussing whether or not water is wet.
All the Sesame-Street pandering to feelings has resulted in a new deliberative tool having been forged, a rhetorical device of: “If you mention that water is wet you make me feel bad.” Note — the people on the other side wouldn’t have to use this device. You can easily prove water is wet, so it wouldn’t make any sense to go wading (ha!) into an argument wielding a rhetorical device of “You make me feel bad if you say water is *not* wet.” It would be needlessly convoluted, time consuming and wasteful. So this new device is available only for those who assert the weaker positions. But since 1960 or so, it is available.
Black people owned slaves too. You make me feel bad!
The virus really did come from China. You make me feel bad!
Gay married couples have fights & divorces too. Feel bad!
Here’s a rich guy who didn’t inherit anything. Down-tingles!!
Women on average can’t lift as much. Triggered!!
Aside from furnishing this new rhetorical tool to people who have taken the wrong position on something, and know they’ve taken the wrong position, this divides us in other ways. It splinters us. Think of all the ways you can respond to this situation, of “I’m going to feel bad if you mention water is wet.”
Normal people will respond with: Well then you know what? Let’s just avoid the subject entirely. That’s the default response from anyone who is decent. And, uh, maybe their husbands.
Then you have dickheads like me. No, we can avoid talking about it if we want, but water is wet and nothing we say, or refuse to say, is ever going to change that.
And then you have bullies, which people like me are tempted to be, and we try not to cross that line…we get no credit for it, no one knows how hard we try not to be the asshole who says: “I’m going to stress the wetness of water again and again and again until that whelp is lying on the floor in a fetal position, quivering and pissing himself.” Those types are certainly out there. The temptation is out there. That’s what polarizes us.
There are also some real assholes on the other side. The kind that grew up crying whenever mommy was in earshot, and stopped when she left the room. “I know water is really wet, but if I act like I’m triggered whenever anyone mentions it, I get to start fights and make it look like it’s the other guy’s fault.” These crybabies really don’t care if water is wet or not wet. They thrive on the thrill of breaking things and making it look like the other guy did it. They’re like porch pirates who don’t know what’s in the box they’re stealing. It’s the thrill they get from doing something they know is wrong.
Deep down we all know what’s true. We don’t need me to actually say it. But…here I go.
It was a mistake to get feelings involved in these discussions in the first place. If water is wet, it doesn’t matter who’s throwing a temper tantrum over it. It’s still wet.
Some 2,500 years ago, the ancient Greeks began to debate and inspect the concept of what’s true, and what truth is. We’re behind where they were 25 centuries ago, because of our…feelings, nothing more than feelings, whoa oh oh feelings…
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[…] of clogging up Morgan’s comments with a long entry, I’m going to move my response to this, on the tried-and-true Liberal “argument” strategy of being offended by facts, over […]
- Working the Refs | Rotten Chestnuts | 08/16/2021 @ 05:58