Helen Keller -
Her Socialist Years. Writings and Speeches
|
Tuesday, 17 January 2017
quote [ In the remote western plains of Texas, the Midland-Odessa region is separated from the nearest major city by hours of open road. So when the Planned Parenthood clinic in Midland closed down in late 2013 – a casualty of legislative cuts that targeted Planned Parenthood directly – it served as an isolated experiment in what happens when the government defunds the largest women’s healthcare provider around. ]
|
eidolon said @ 10:00pm GMT on 18th January
I think they do, but only within the context they understand. Stay with me a moment.
- No one thinks they're the bad guy.
- No one thinks they are being irrational.
- In both instances, the individual has a skewed world view where their response makes perfect sense.
It isn't a matter of getting them to act rationally, but of changing their world model so that their rational response better matches our rational response.
To explain it one more way: if you see a man scratching off his skin, you would think him insane. This same man sees you doing nothing about the spiders burrowing under everyone's skin and thinks you are insane. In the context of his world, even if that context is totally fallacious, his actions are entirely rational. If you lived in spider skin world, you would also be trying desperately to do something about it.
What makes our current situation so difficult is that it isn't that black and white. Everyone exists in a world made of reality and unreality. No one can fully embrace or dismiss anyone else's context because at least some portion of it is valid, and other portions may be subjective (such as a simple difference in how we rank our values/priorities). We may both agree prison reform is important, but we live in a world of limited resources where we must choose between prison reform and other priorities. We might also both agree that fixing the roads is very important. The conflict, then, comes when we must choose which to address first (or even at all if resources are so limited).
You and I could have all the same nominal values, but rank their priority differently. Even if we were to have the same values and the same ranking of those values, we could disagree on how best to address them because there is not sufficient evidence to know definitively which method will yield the best results and would need tremendous data to weed out other variables so we could find a true answer.
In light of all of this, the only value I can champion is this:
Love eachother, especially those who least deserve our love the least because they are the ones who need it the most.
Do not take this as an argument to let bigots suffer no consequences, or to understand them in a way that excuses them, but rather to embrace them so that with a firm and gentle hand we might guide them.
I say this today at this moment. Two minutes from now I'll want to burn it all to the ground again. This cycle has not only left our nation a house divided, but many of us have become so deeply divided within that reconciliation seems hopelessly distant.
Know this, many of you at times infuriate me, but the truth is that I keep coming back because I do love you. Even the ones of you I hate, I really do love. That might not make sense now, but I promise someday it will.
eidolon said @ 10:01pm GMT on 18th January
I think they do, but only within the context they understand. Stay with me a moment.
- No one thinks they're the bad guy.
- No one thinks they are being irrational.
- In both instances, the individual has a skewed world view where their response makes perfect sense.
It isn't a matter of getting them to act rationally, but of changing their world model so that their rational response better matches our rational response.
To explain it one more way: if you see a man scratching off his skin, you would think him insane. This same man sees you doing nothing about the spiders burrowing under everyone's skin and thinks you are insane. In the context of his world, even if that context is totally fallacious, his actions are entirely rational. If you lived in spider skin world, you would also be trying desperately to do something about it.
What makes our current situation so difficult is that it isn't that black and white. Everyone exists in a world made of reality and unreality. No one can fully embrace or dismiss anyone else's context because at least some portion of it is valid, and other portions may be subjective (such as a simple difference in how we rank our values/priorities). We may both agree prison reform is important, but we live in a world of limited resources where we must choose between prison reform and other priorities. We might also both agree that fixing the roads is very important. The conflict, then, comes when we must choose which to address first (or even at all if resources are so limited).
You and I could have all the same nominal values, but rank their priority differently. Even if we were to have the same values and the same ranking of those values, we could disagree on how best to address them because there is not sufficient evidence to know definitively which method will yield the best results and would need tremendous data to weed out other variables so we could find a true answer.
In light of all of this, the only value I can champion is this:
Love eachother, especially those who least deserve it because they are the ones who need it the most.
Do not take this as an argument to let bigots suffer no consequences, or to understand them in a way that excuses them, but rather to embrace them so that with a firm and gentle hand we might guide them.
I say this today at this moment. Two minutes from now I'll want to burn it all to the ground again. This cycle has not only left our nation a house divided, but many of us have become so deeply divided within that reconciliation seems hopelessly distant.
Know this, many of you at times infuriate me, but the truth is that I keep coming back because I do love you. Even the ones of you I hate, I really do love. That might not make sense now, but I promise someday it will.
<-- Entry / Current Comment
eidolon said @ 10:00pm GMT on 18th January
I think they do, but only within the context they understand. Stay with me a moment.
- No one thinks they're the bad guy.
- No one thinks they are being irrational.
- In both instances, the individual has a skewed world view where their response makes perfect sense.
It isn't a matter of getting them to act rationally, but of changing their world model so that their rational response better matches our rational response.
To explain it one more way: if you see a man scratching off his skin, you would think him insane. This same man sees you doing nothing about the spiders burrowing under everyone's skin and thinks you are insane. In the context of his world, even if that context is totally fallacious, his actions are entirely rational. If you lived in spider skin world, you would also be trying desperately to do something about it.
What makes our current situation so difficult is that it isn't that black and white. Everyone exists in a world made of reality and unreality. No one can fully embrace or dismiss anyone else's context because at least some portion of it is valid, and other portions may be subjective (such as a simple difference in how we rank our values/priorities). We may both agree prison reform is important, but we live in a world of limited resources where we must choose between prison reform and other priorities. We might also both agree that fixing the roads is very important. The conflict, then, comes when we must choose which to address first (or even at all if resources are so limited).
You and I could have all the same nominal values, but rank their priority differently. Even if we were to have the same values and the same ranking of those values, we could disagree on how best to address them because there is not sufficient evidence to know definitively which method will yield the best results and would need tremendous data to weed out other variables so we could find a true answer.
In light of all of this, the only value I can champion is this:
Love eachother, especially those who least deserve it because they are the ones who need it the most.
Do not take this as an argument to let bigots suffer no consequences, or to understand them in a way that excuses them, but rather to embrace them so that with a firm and gentle hand we might guide them.
I say this today at this moment. Two minutes from now I'll want to burn it all to the ground again. This cycle has not only left our nation a house divided, but many of us have become so deeply divided within that reconciliation seems hopelessly distant.
Know this, many of you at times infuriate me, but the truth is that I keep coming back because I do love you. Even the ones of you I hate, I really do love. That might not make sense now, but I promise someday it will.
