House of Eratosthenes

And it would appear from skimming over this link over on Democratic Underground (DU) that one of the terrible things someone can do for a righteous cause, is to go entirely out of one’s way to avoid helping someone in terrible need based on the injured party’s political beliefs, and then actively go about projecting that behavior on someone else. And in an Internet forum visible to the entire civilized world, no less.

Quothe DU denizen demgurl:

I was on my home and was on the ramp getting off the highway. I saw a mini-van on the side of the road. There was a lady standing next to the van and in her arms she held her child. I can only assume her mini-van had broken down. I don’t know, perhaps with so many gad stations being out of gas, she had also run out. I slowed down and started to pull over to offer her a ride. At the very last second I noticed a “W” sticker on the back of her vehicle and I sped up and drove off.

If you’re familiar with DU this is nothing new. DU people are a whacky bunch, and when these nuggets are mined out of the DU message stream the immediate knee-jerk defense is that “all Democrats are not like that.” And that’s true, by the way. I’d say out of the Democrats I know, maybe 20% or 30% have the same hateful nature as the DU community, the balance of them being truly nice people with golden hearts who’ve simply been fooled into thinking we can eliminate poverty by giving poor people money.

But this particular thread is remarkable. Read every post:

First poster says next time, give them a chance to convert, and only refuse to help them if they don’t
Second poster submits an empty message with a title endorsing the first poster
Third poster is the original person who actually did the abandoning, apparently expressing surprise and disgust at her own actions. “I don’t know how freepers can act this way and not even think twice about it. ” Freepers are members of the Free Republic, which is DU slang for people who don’t think like them. This is projection.
Fourth poster says the fact that demgurl is so troubled by her own behavior suggests she has a conscience, which proves she’s better than Bush.
Fifth poster says he or she wouldn’t have stopped either.
The sixth and seventh posters, finally, point out that this was not okay. Interestingly, the seventh poster says the reason it’s not okay is because it’s an example of becoming what you hate. This person has seen too many movies and is engaging, again, in projection.
Eighth person thinks the original poster did the right thing. Ninth and tenth persons react (I think to this) with some measure of righteous indignation. Eleventh person says she understands completely and totally, injects some tripe about how the whole hurricane thing is all Bush’s fault, and the temper tantrum continues.

This is kind of scary. Our ability to think about things is nationalized now. It happened when communication sped way up throughout the twentieth century; presented with an opportunity to think for ourselves in the midst of a constant onslaught of other peoples’ opinions, which generations previous we never would have found out about, we declined. We started echoing opinions instead of simply listening to them.

Now, when we decide hemlines should go up, we nationally decide hemlines should go up, and not a single one of us can explain why. When we decide we’re tired of hearing about Christina Aguillera, and we’re in the mood for a retro comeback from Cher, we decide this nationally, and no one among us can explain why. We’ve become like ants. People don’t think for themselves too much anymore.

For that reason, this is a national security threat, I think. Not the political belief system. Demgurl can decide to vote for John Kerry or Al Gore so that we won’t have any more hurricanes — that’s simply stupid, and we’ve had stupid people around for a long, long time. We can survive stupid. What I don’t think we can survive is someone refusing to help truly needy people because she doesn’t like the needy person’s political beliefs; convincing herself that it never happened and it was the other side that did this; and a roomful of sympathetic people telling her “there, there” and reinforcing her belief this is what actually happened.

No, I don’t think DU should be shut down.

No, I don’t think any rules should be changed, anywhere. That’s why I’m not a liberal. I’m noticing something is busted and it will eventually kill us — it does not automatically mean I’m for changing any rules.

But we should all make an effort to be aware of what is happening here. That awareness, whether it changes the way you vote or not, is the only thing that will eventually save us.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

So CompassionateFriday, September 2nd, 2005

So Compassionate
Friday, September 2nd, 2005