In a recent discussion here, I tried to illustrate that saying about a negative behavior that “everybody does it” is generally misleading, unless some numbers are put to the observation. Yes, some groups have some bad apples. But some groups have a lot more than others. Some ideologies have had unfortunate consequences… but some have had far worse consequences.
Especially perverse is the notion that both sides have the same numbers of people with equally good motivations, so that we must “respect” all those on the other side as if they really want the same things we do, and have the same values we do. So in a fit of undoubtedly childish sarcasm, I illustrated the absurdity of the notion that “everybody does it” and “everybody really means well” this way:
There is no difference in behavior between the right and the left. Both sides are equally respectful (or disrespectful) of the other. Both sides are equally right. Both sides are equally wrong. Both sides have the same tendency to speak hatefully of the other. Both sides have the same number of radicals. Both sides care equally about everybody and everything. Both sides have the same number of people who are committed to doing the moral thing. Both sides have the same numbers of people who are committed to their perspectives for purely selfish reasons. Both sides lie exactly the same amount. Both sides celebrate equally the personal misfortunes of the other.
Everyone is just as equal in everything as it is possible to be. We’re all just the same. No one is any more correct than anyone else. There are no absolutes, no one knows any more than anyone else, and everything is up for reconsideration at any time.
Furthermore, the communists in the Soviet Union were no worse and no better than any other political party or entity in any other nation, because everyone is basically the same, and there are no real moral differences between people who believe different things honestly.
In fact, the Chinese Communist Maoists were no worse than the Whigs…. just different. Who is to say whose values are better than whose? What gives anyone the right to say that one side’s values and policies are better than the other’s?
After all, good Christians were in favor of slavery, and quoted scripture to support it.
So nobody really knows anything with any certainty. In fact, stating one’s opinion too strongly is probably a sign of intellectual immaturity and possibly colonial intentions.
Can’t we all just get along?
(my tongue is starting to hurt, and I will now remove it before it becomes permanently bonded to the inside of my cheek)
Manifestly, everyone and every group and every ideology is NOT the same in negative consequences, negative motivations, and just plain evil. I believe that it is far more often the Left that makes the claim of a false equality, especially by saying “the Right does it too” when some really obvious transgression is pointed out regarding the Left.
Very simply, I have the impression that the Left is rarely embarrassed, or will admit being embarrassed, by anything that anyone on the Left says or does. On the other hand, when someone on the Right goes over the line, they are likely to be chastised FROM the Right. For example, very many on the Right were very critical of the overspending, pork barreling, and ear marking of the Republican congress before 2007. So were many on the Left. But the Democrat congress has topped Republican excesses by at least an order of magnitude… and the Left is mostly silent about it.
The difference is telling.
January 12th, 2010 6:22 pm
You are absolutely correct. I literally cannot think of anything more opposite of the right than the left. But to me, what you are talking about is human fear.
You wryly illustrated this absolute: Everyone is as unequal as everyone can possibly be. This is frightening. So to combat this fear of lonely social isolation, we must seek some form of equality, or commonality. So now, we have all become bigots. We all prefer to associate with people of whom we are the most comfortable, and we are scared to death of those outside of that comfort zone. Also, most of us are even more afraid of admitting it.
Some of us feel sooo guilty about our bigotry that we desperately attempt to search for a solution. So we try to change internally. We try to be a little more tolerant, or try to just get along, or look for peace and understanding with those who are outside of our comfort sphere. We “go left”; is the current articulation. Others of us try to change externally. We try to reach out with a few of our best so-called moral lessons. We try to “teach” these frightening outsiders how to make more familiar life-decisions so that we can be more comfortable with them. Or perhaps, we try to convince (or convict) them of our own deeply held beliefs so they can be more like us; thereby making them a little less frightening. We “go right”; as it were.
No matter the inspiration or good intention, all of these efforts are utterly futile; as they never satisfy our own socially indoctrinated guilt that has now grown out of this fundamental fear of social isolation that everyone is too afraid to admit!
Fear cycle, simplified; something like this: The comfortable good guys are sick and tired of being scared and finally rise up and defeat the scary bad guys. But in time, the good guys get corrupted by the fear of losing their comfortable power to select those they are comfortable with. Eventually they become the outsider bad guys that everyone fears, so that then, the next group of comfortable good guys can rise up and crush them. And so it goes. As long as the fear between the two groups is never vanquished, the cycle will continue.
It seems that some elite intellectuals like Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson observed this historical cycle of suffering and annihilation and tried to devise an alleged human/divine, governmental solution for it; or at least make the inevitable transitions a little less genocidal. Cross your fingers, 200 years and counting.
A couple more absolutes:
The Haves always have it. The Have-nots never get it.
Fat people on food stamps always complain louder than bloated people on termite mounds. Ask a Filipino.
Vicious words don’t hurt as much as hot bullets. Ask a Somali.
Evil is real, and really really scary.
Fear not.
January 13th, 2010 7:05 am
Well the difference is that with the Left their only true moral foundation is whether or not they win. Whether they are right or wrong at the moment is simply a matter of shifting the argument
January 14th, 2010 8:25 am
“A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn’t own.” – author unknown
January 14th, 2010 8:49 am
I just watched Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin on Fox as they made fun of themselves and offered to host SNL doing parody of themselves. It’s truly worth seeing. What strikes me is that conservatives tend to be able to do such things as this whereas it’s tough to find a liberal who doesn’t take themself so seriously as to be unable to have a sense of houmour except in mocking conservatives. I’m not saying conservatives don’t mock liberals – they do it quite well – it’s just that liberals can’t ever make fun of themselves. I wonder why?