Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I agree with this entirely. Nothing cures adherence to bigoted "isms" like regular exposure to individual members of the groups about which one recklessly generalizes.
But I think the current problem goes beyond just exposure to people of different backgrounds.
A large percentage of the country has lost the ability to engage each other intellectually. Conversation is dead, advocacy its replacement. People view discussions not as opportunities to have their minds changed, or to test the validity of their positions, but as zero sum games.
There is no absolute right or wrong in most complex matters. The Left and the Right are a yin and yang. Everybody sensible person knows this. A society run on exclusively progressive or exclusively conservative policies cannot persist. There has to be horse trading. There used to be horse trading. But it's damn hard to horse trade when you you come to the table with, "Everything you stand for is fundamentally invalid."
Every civics class should require students to memorize this statement:
"Progressivism and Conservatism are both incomplete, like any 'ism.' Neither is tenable alone, both working best as counterweights to one another, ideological checks and balances."
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I mean, I take your point, but no, they're not ying and yang, which implies some sort of relationship to each other.
Movement conservatism - of the government doesn't work so let's get rid of it kind - has no room to horse trade with others who believe that government can do things to improve people's lives. Two people who want the government to do different things can compromise. One person who does and one who wants government not to exist can't, or at least can't on anything other than the pace of a one way ratchet to zero.
And despite the 2016 election blowing a giant hole in the notion that there's any popular support for movement conservatism, one thing 45's coalition of deplorables have in common with them is a desire to make sure government isn't helping those people, which works out to be pretty similar.
