Political discussions...

If you follow this advice, on your death bed, you will receive total consciousness, so you've got that going for you.

Big hitter the Lama.
 
I'm a fan of Arthur Brooks, and though I obviously disagree with the Lama's theology, I think he's very much right on this. And obviously showing kindness in the face of contempt is consistent not only with Tibetan Buddhism, it's also consistent with Jesus's instruction to love your enemies and to bless those who curse you.

Nevertheless, I think it's worth asking why contempt has entered politics to the extent that it has. Personally, I think politicians and political advocates have pushed it for two reasons. First, it motivates the base. It's easier to motivate people to fight against somebody they hate. Second, it helps divert attention away from those politicians' weaknesses on policy. If the opposition isn't just wrong but evil and worthy of contempt, then it's easier to tell your people to ignore areas where you've been deficient. For example, the Democratic Party has delivered very little for black voters since the mid-'60s, but they've basically been able to keep their loyalty by telling them how rotten Republicans are and not to consider the Democratic record on actually doing good for black constituents. So in short, they do it because it works.

So why does it work on voters? I think two big factors are at play. First, it makes us feel superior when we have contempt for others who disagree with us. For many liberals, people who vote Republican don't just have a different worldview, they're racists, sexists, homophobes, science "deniers," etc. For many conservatives, people who vote Democratic are morally corrupt and unpatriotic. Accordingly, the opposition isn't just wrong. It's immoral and dangerous, which makes us the moral redeemers of the nation, and that feels good. Second, it gives us a convenient distraction from areas where we're inconsistent or wrong. For example, I know lots of people who vote Democratic but have very little agreement with Democratic economic policies (which frankly aren't very defensible). If you press them on that disagreement or make them answer for such policies, they'll eventually change the subject to other areas where they can show their contempt. "No, I don't like tax increases and expensive but ineffective social programs, but I can't vote with the hillbilly Bible-thumpers."
 
Honestly, I like the approach. Like Deez, my influences are more Christian than other religions. Alas, I'm also subject to hormones and anger plays a role in my discourse. I do like in this discussion forum to every once in a while praise thoughtful insights from folks with whom I usually disagree. As seldom as it happens here, there is honestly more thoughtful reciprocity on Hornfans than other discussion forums I frequent, likely because the average intellect here is a higher.
 
Crockett said:
As seldom as it happens here, there is honestly more thoughtful reciprocity on Hornfans than other discussion forums I frequent, likely because the average intellect here is a higher.
Click to expand...

Most discussion forums are like the comments section of news articles or Facebook comments. It's all about name-calling, rudeness, and smack talk. In short, it's all about the contempt Brooks is talking about.

And yes, the average intellect is higher here, but I've seen plenty of supposedly smart people act like jackasses in all sorts of online contexts. I don't necessarily think it's about smartness. I think it's about priorities and familiarity.

Most of us aren't here to antagonize others who disagree with us. We're here to have real political and philosophical discussions. Since we've been able to build an online community where such discussions can be had and know how rare that is, most of us stick around for a while. By sticking around, we've fostered a degree of familiarity. With that familiarity comes a form of shame and accountability. Personally, I don't act like a jerk here (though some might disagree) because I'm a mature adult and don't act like a jerk in real life, but I also don't act like a jerk because unless I'm willing to leave Hornfans, I have to come back and "face" the people to whom I've acted like a jerk. I'd get shamed and eventually ignored, which defeats the purpose of discussing things online.
 
His Holiness operates under the premise that contempt is always bad thing, which is another categorical assumption that is not correct. Should we feel contempt for Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and Maduro, or should we let our love light shine, open our hearts and feel sympathy for these fine, upstanding tyrants?

By trying to insulate others' emotions from negativity, we effectively kill authentic feedback from poor decisions on their part. If you are defining warm heartedness as effectively communicating justified contempt (i.e. it has been repeatedly proven time and time again that these systems, policies, and ideas fail and cause society harm, and sometimes cause millions of people to die) for communism, socialism, centralized government decision making, Obamacare, racial quotas, Sooner Nation, illegal immigration, Islamic theology, and "transgendered" bathroom policies, then there may be an argument as to what is effective communication. However, I do not believe that contempt in these circumstances is a "bad" thing.
 
Mr. Deez said:
I'm a fan of Arthur Brooks, and though I obviously disagree with the Lama's theology, I think he's very much right on this. And obviously showing kindness in the face of contempt is consistent not only with Tibetan Buddhism, it's also consistent with Jesus's instruction to love your enemies and to bless those who curse you.

Nevertheless, I think it's worth asking why contempt has entered politics to the extent that it has. Personally, I think politicians and political advocates have pushed it for two reasons. First, it motivates the base. It's easier to motivate people to fight against somebody they hate. Second, it helps divert attention away from those politicians' weaknesses on policy. If the opposition isn't just wrong but evil and worthy of contempt, then it's easier to tell your people to ignore areas where you've been deficient. For example, the Democratic Party has delivered very little for black voters since the mid-'60s, but they've basically been able to keep their loyalty by telling them how rotten Republicans are and not to consider the Democratic record on actually doing good for black constituents. So in short, they do it because it works.

So why does it work on voters? I think two big factors are at play. First, it makes us feel superior when we have contempt for others who disagree with us. For many liberals, people who vote Republican don't just have a different worldview, they're racists, sexists, homophobes, science "deniers," etc. For many conservatives, people who vote Democratic are morally corrupt and unpatriotic. Accordingly, the opposition isn't just wrong. It's immoral and dangerous, which makes us the moral redeemers of the nation, and that feels good. Second, it gives us a convenient distraction from areas where we're inconsistent or wrong. For example, I know lots of people who vote Democratic but have very little agreement with Democratic economic policies (which frankly aren't very defensible). If you press them on that disagreement or make them answer for such policies, they'll eventually change the subject to other areas where they can show their contempt. "No, I don't like tax increases and expensive but ineffective social programs, but I can't vote with the hillbilly Bible-thumpers."
Click to expand...

For the average American voter, the hardest part is to get them motivated enough to vote. Both sides can count on the extremes. They are already motivated. It's the apathetic "middle" that they vilify the opposition to make them seem so abhorrent that a voter MUST vote for them to deter the evil that would most assuredly come if they gained office. It's much easier to get a voter fired up against the other party than for your own. Sadly.
 
The nasty mess that is political discourse. Link.

By
Gerald F. Seib

Updated May 29, 2017 7:03 p.m. ET
297 COMMENTS
A Republican congressional candidate body slams a reporter. A Democratic party state chairman hurls obscenities at both the president and dissidents in his own party at a public meeting.

Speakers are chased off college campuses by those who disagree with them. Lawmakers in both parties find they can barely hold town hall meetings in their own districts because they are so likely to be shouted down by hecklers. Social media has become a forum where insults are the norm and outright threats not uncommon.

Such is the state of (un)civil discourse in America today. Politeness, decorum, respect—all seem to be endangered ideas. Anybody who isn’t troubled isn’t really paying attention.

The consequences of this trend are real, and visible every day in Washington and in state capitals. Lawmakers who are either engaged in or intimidated by the shout-fest that has become political debate find it harder to talk with each other, which means it’s harder to find consensus or even compromise.

Whether the intense polarization that stands in the way of progress in Washington is the cause or the effect of this decline in civilized debate is almost beside the point. The dysfunction it produces in governance is the result either way.

More than that, though, the trend has spread more widely in society. Athletes ostentatiously celebrate their achievements—even the most routine ones—by mocking their opponents. It used to be called bad sportsmanship. It’s now normal.

One is left to wonder: What kind of behavior is society modeling for its youngest members?

Democracy, to be sure, has long been a rough-and-tumble affair, and excesses aren’t a new thing. After all, one U.S. senator, California’s David Broderick, was shot and killed by a political opponent—California’s onetime chief justice, no less—in 1859. “He became the only sitting senator to die in a duel,” the Senate’s official website notes dryly.

More than a century ago, Finley Peter Dunne, the Irish-American satirist, first wrote that “politics ain’t bean bag.”

In the ensuing years, though, a more civilized version of political debate had become the norm, particularly as political parties worked past their differences to win two world wars, to prevail in a Cold War and to build the infrastructure that sustained the American economic explosion.

Now, though, harsh has become the new norm. President Donald Trump has to shoulder a lot of the blame. He ran a campaign in which publicly insulting his opponents—“Lyin’ Ted Cruz” and “Crooked Hillary”—was a regular occurrence. He introduced obscenities to public rallies, at one point saying he would bomb the “s— out of” Islamic State.

Early on, he identified the news media as an opponent, declaring at a Florida rally in March 2016 that journalists are “the most dishonest people on earth…disgusting, dishonest human beings.” His crowds picked up the cue. He hasn’t entirely tempered his approach since being elected; in a January tweet, he branded the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, the “head clown.”

But now it isn’t just Mr. Trump. In their new “resistance” mode, Democrats have become just as nasty. Tom Perez, the Democrats’ new national chairman, has already earned notoriety for his use of profanity at rallies. At some of them, he has trouble speaking because the anti-Trump heckling is so loud.

Similarly, Democratic activists at the party’s recent California state convention were so raucous in demanding an end to corporate donations and a move to a single-payer health system that the state party chairman, John Burton, at one point told the crowd, “Hey, shut the f— up or go outside.”

When journalists drop objectivity to become part of the shout-fest, and when grass-roots activists move beyond making voices heard to voicing threats against those with whom they disagree, they are adding to the problem.

Where does the incivility end? We may have gotten a hint of the answer when Greg Gianforte, a Republican technology executive who won a special House election in Montana last week, was charged with assault for his attack on a reporter there. Just this weekend, a partisan fracas broke out on the floor of the Texas state legislature, and windows apparently were shot out of a Kentucky newspaper’s office.

The bigger question may be: What can be done about it? Father John Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame, has thought and spoken more than most about the trends in civil discourse. “The first thing is to recognize that it’s a problem,” he says. “My worry is that conversation has deteriorated to a point where we’ve just become accustomed to it.”

The problem isn’t “isolated,” he adds. “I’m told by politicians that it doesn’t help you to be civil. You want to appeal to your base and to fire them up and all that. I understand that. But at some point, some leaders are going to have to rise above and show us a different way and call us on these things.”
 
Sooner Nation... Well played, good sir. :)

I effort to disagree agreeably. I hope it shows. Also, sometimes I skew to represent the devil in absentia on some of my far left leanings.
 
Mr. Deez said:
The nasty mess that is political discourse. Link.

By
Gerald F. Seib

Updated May 29, 2017 7:03 p.m. ET
297 COMMENTS
A Republican congressional candidate body slams a reporter. A Democratic party state chairman hurls obscenities at both the president and dissidents in his own party at a public meeting.

Speakers are chased off college campuses by those who disagree with them. Lawmakers in both parties find they can barely hold town hall meetings in their own districts because they are so likely to be shouted down by hecklers. Social media has become a forum where insults are the norm and outright threats not uncommon.

Such is the state of (un)civil discourse in America today. Politeness, decorum, respect—all seem to be endangered ideas. Anybody who isn’t troubled isn’t really paying attention.

The consequences of this trend are real, and visible every day in Washington and in state capitals. Lawmakers who are either engaged in or intimidated by the shout-fest that has become political debate find it harder to talk with each other, which means it’s harder to find consensus or even compromise.

Whether the intense polarization that stands in the way of progress in Washington is the cause or the effect of this decline in civilized debate is almost beside the point. The dysfunction it produces in governance is the result either way.

More than that, though, the trend has spread more widely in society. Athletes ostentatiously celebrate their achievements—even the most routine ones—by mocking their opponents. It used to be called bad sportsmanship. It’s now normal.

One is left to wonder: What kind of behavior is society modeling for its youngest members?

Democracy, to be sure, has long been a rough-and-tumble affair, and excesses aren’t a new thing. After all, one U.S. senator, California’s David Broderick, was shot and killed by a political opponent—California’s onetime chief justice, no less—in 1859. “He became the only sitting senator to die in a duel,” the Senate’s official website notes dryly.

More than a century ago, Finley Peter Dunne, the Irish-American satirist, first wrote that “politics ain’t bean bag.”

In the ensuing years, though, a more civilized version of political debate had become the norm, particularly as political parties worked past their differences to win two world wars, to prevail in a Cold War and to build the infrastructure that sustained the American economic explosion.

Now, though, harsh has become the new norm. President Donald Trump has to shoulder a lot of the blame. He ran a campaign in which publicly insulting his opponents—“Lyin’ Ted Cruz” and “Crooked Hillary”—was a regular occurrence. He introduced obscenities to public rallies, at one point saying he would bomb the “s— out of” Islamic State.

Early on, he identified the news media as an opponent, declaring at a Florida rally in March 2016 that journalists are “the most dishonest people on earth…disgusting, dishonest human beings.” His crowds picked up the cue. He hasn’t entirely tempered his approach since being elected; in a January tweet, he branded the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, the “head clown.”

But now it isn’t just Mr. Trump. In their new “resistance” mode, Democrats have become just as nasty. Tom Perez, the Democrats’ new national chairman, has already earned notoriety for his use of profanity at rallies. At some of them, he has trouble speaking because the anti-Trump heckling is so loud.

Similarly, Democratic activists at the party’s recent California state convention were so raucous in demanding an end to corporate donations and a move to a single-payer health system that the state party chairman, John Burton, at one point told the crowd, “Hey, shut the f— up or go outside.”

When journalists drop objectivity to become part of the shout-fest, and when grass-roots activists move beyond making voices heard to voicing threats against those with whom they disagree, they are adding to the problem.

Where does the incivility end? We may have gotten a hint of the answer when Greg Gianforte, a Republican technology executive who won a special House election in Montana last week, was charged with assault for his attack on a reporter there. Just this weekend, a partisan fracas broke out on the floor of the Texas state legislature, and windows apparently were shot out of a Kentucky newspaper’s office.

The bigger question may be: What can be done about it? Father John Jenkins, the president of the University of Notre Dame, has thought and spoken more than most about the trends in civil discourse. “The first thing is to recognize that it’s a problem,” he says. “My worry is that conversation has deteriorated to a point where we’ve just become accustomed to it.”

The problem isn’t “isolated,” he adds. “I’m told by politicians that it doesn’t help you to be civil. You want to appeal to your base and to fire them up and all that. I understand that. But at some point, some leaders are going to have to rise above and show us a different way and call us on these things.”
Click to expand...

I agree with Mr. Seib. It's beyond embarrassing that we support adults behaving in childish ways simply because they support "our agenga". The cheerleading on this site for Gianforte was a great example of behavior that used to be disqualifying in politics that now is celebrated. The extreme left is no better. The lefts' fringe used to be childish actors whether it be the Black Panthers, PETA or Greenpeace. Of course, those organizations were rightly relegated to the fringe. Now that boorish behavior has gone mainstream. Gianforte is simply a symptom.

Donald Trump has played an extremely large part in pushing us all over the precipice of decorum but it was there before. The alt-right, 4Chan, Reddit (the_donald), ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter and their ilk are now dominating political discussions. Sure, some claim to be rational often using humor to hammer home a point. The humor simply covers for more insidious beliefs. Racism, reverse-racism, mysogyny, sexism and many other PC terms rightly apply to these groups though they work hard to disclaim them.

This rancor has taken over social media too. Sure, one would expect a message board like this to feel it. It has since the beginning of the WestMall. Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and others are now feeding the cesspool though. Both true fake news and biased news feeds cater to our own personal biases creating a cocoon of a world steeped in more rancor than actually exists in daily society.

That's changing though. Who isn't looking at some individuals on our facebook feed differently? They could be former friends, family members, coworkers or acquaintances. I'm connected to other fathers of kids on my son's sports teams. Some I've coached with in baseball and football. To be frank, some are so extreme (right and left) that it's become awkward hanging out at tournaments. Unfortunately, I think this is the new norm because it's the way to rouse the base.
 
It should be noted that the current climate of political discourse is now scaring legislators away from having in person town hall meetings. This time around it's left pushing rancorous townhalls like the Tea Party backers did in 2008-2009. In turn, only 8 of 217 House Republicans have scheduled open town halls per this site. Politicians are scared of becoming viral sensations, I'm sure.
 
The binary nature of our political system makes this worse. If you don't line up behind your party's candidate, you're going to be demonized as helping the other guy, and with the hardcore polarization of the parties, that gets harder to do. The worse the opposing party's nominee is, the harder it is to cross party lines, and I think that's party of the problem.
 
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