I often engage in intellectual battle with those around me. You can’t help but argue nowadays. It’s obvious we have a divided nation, and as a result, we can’t seem to put the fight to rest.
I do my best not to sink to the level of ad hominem attacks. I try not to “strawman.” I also try not to use anecdotal evidence. This being said, I’m not perfect. I do use anecdotal evidence more than I like. I do like telling stories. Stories are powerful, and help shape a narrative. Hollywood is predominantly left. Conservatives best keep their mouths shut in the Hills if they would like to continue working. James Woods was just dropped by his agent for speaking against the collective. David Mamet is one of the few loud and proud conservatives. Leftists feel sanctified in their groupthink. The mainstream media does not push against extreme left views.
I was recently discussing the Aziz Ansari sex scandal with a group of friends. The conversation jumped around, and somebody had brought it up. I wrote a piece, and did an illustration of this topic. This was when “#timesup” and “#metoo” was birthed. Nobody could ignore the spectacle of the drama playing out before us. Great heroes of the culture fell fast. Some monsters, like Harvey Weinstein, thankfully were removed from their position. These topics came up as we discussed the culture war. Ansari was brought up as an example of the nuance of this debacle. I began to discuss some of the details of the sexual encounter from my reading. I had read both statements, and I had a familiarity with the episode. Another friend randomly walked into the conversation as I was discussing the details.
He interjected, “What? You seem like you know so much about this? Were you there?”
He didn’t know exactly what we were talking about. He may have just wanted to jest, and segue into the dialogue. He didn’t have the tact to take his time, and take a moment to listen.
I quickly attacked him right back informing him that I was citing details from statements written by the people included in the scandal. I asked him to take a moment to look it up if he felt I was saying untruths. He then changed his tune, and we continued with an enlightening discussion.
Now, I mentioned before I don’t like ad hominem attacks. I don’t like it when Saul Alinsky wrote about the tactic in his book, 10 Rules for Radicals. I don’t like when people do it now. It’s a weak man’s way of going about debate. I get it though; there is something decisive in shutting up your opponent. It isn’t powered by truth though. So, we aren’t getting anywhere. The point of engaging in discussion and/or debate is to seek out truth. Now, we need to be open to being wrong. So, there may be opportunities to get an insight that can enlighten. I think that this primarily comes from statistics/studies. It is not commonly illuminating to hear somebody’s personal story, and expect it to be the best measure of truth.
I will say that Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, tells the truth. It is a narrative, and is not a study. It comes from a place of wisdom, and reveals true horror. There is a time to use the power of story and narrative to reveal truth. Statistics speak in a manner uncorrupted by people’s singular viewpoint. We have many ways to grapple with truth, and many ways to present it.
There is a place for story, and Solzhenitsyn does it in his book, Gulag Archipelago. He tells the precisely detailed account of what it was like to live under communism. He illuminates the horrors from the ground floor. Statistics are revealing, but the narrative allows us to connect to the humanity.
In learning, we are engaging in the search for truth. We learn in a multitude of ways. Everybody has their own way in which to process. Some people respond more to numbers, and others to words. The human race greatly responds to story. We use metaphor, drama, story arch, character and humor to discuss things that are impossible to describe in a pie chart.
When I engage with people who disagree with me I often ask questions. I want to learn about where they got their understanding. It helps me figure out if I may be sourcing inaccurate or less accurate information. I also propose ideas, and see what they think. We all have talking points. We have our scripts in the two-party-system. I have an understanding of the left ideology, because I used to be a member.
I believe there is a place for us to tackle problems from a left sensibility and a right one. It’s sad what has happened to the left side of the aisle. Nobody is shooting down Maxine Waters from her own team. Nobody is taking a stand to walkaway from the extremists. The left used to care about the middleclass, families and jobs. It appears, as a whole, they have lost touch. This is not to call the Republican Party a team without error. We have two parties, realistically, to choose from. We see people of all backgrounds making the shift to the right.
There is one tenet of the leftist ideology that I oppose to my very core. I oppose “equality of outcome.” This signifies a viewpoint that contradicts the natural world. This contradicts what is, and what we can’t control. Equality of outcome is a manifestation of Socialism. When people want Socialism; they want to undermine the will of the individual. When we fight against the natural order, we fight God. Pride comes before the fall. To think we can bend the natural world to our own will, takes balls. I’d almost admire it, if it weren’t glaringly wrong. We, Americans, have been blessed to inherit a country put here by the most courageous. It was the intention of our forefathers to create a nation that embraced the individual and their pursuit of happiness. We didn’t get it right immediately, but we strived toward a truly free society. We inherited a Bill of Rights that sought to give us freedom we had never known. Freedom is something that we take for granted, and who could blame us. We inherited the spoils of a beautiful nation. We, ourselves, didn’t have to fight the British Empire. That was done for us. Countless people have sacrificed their lives so we can live to the utmost.
“Hard times create strong men, Strong men create good times, Good times create weak men, Weak men create hard times.”
G. Michael Hopf
Now, I will invoke the power of story here to illustrate a point about the quote above. My grandfather, Abraham, lived in Poland during WWII. Most of his family was murdered. The horrors of a socialist overpowering state had destroyed the modern world. My grandfather was a good man who then became a hardened man living in hard times. He killed Nazis in the woods, and lived through it to see peace. He came to America, raised a family and loved his new home. He lived through hard times to see the best of times in the U.S.A.
Abraham loved wrestling, Hulk Hogan, Americanized Chinese food and freedom. He lived through a time when the world went mad. He lived through horror none of us will ever know. He fought his way out, and made it to a land that valued personal choice.
The left want to make things more equitable. They think by using aggression they can force people to think and behave a certain way. They want to redistribute wealth, because they know better. People are incentivized by reward; they ignore that about people. “To each according to their ability; to each according to their means.” They have a willful blind eye to the state of man. In their quest for utopia they have historically brought about dystopia. Look at the state sanctioned murdering of leftist countries, and you’ll see the truth that statistics present.
To fight against the state of man is to fight with god. When you engage in a battle with the power of the cosmos you will lose. We can’t change how people are made up. We have evolved from the chaos of a molten planet. We emerged from the ground to stand upright. We took generations to get to the enlightenment and birthed the great constitutional republic. It was a long road of spilt blood to get here, and we have forgotten that. We created a civilization that would allow for us to be the best that we can be. We’re here, because we didn’t cave into mediocrity. The innovation comes from the society that rewards hard work. We work in harmony with the natural world. America is great, because we allow people to be free. How can I argue with people who believe they can change the rules set down during the beginning of time? It isn’t wise to think we can change the rules of the game. We can’t change the force of the waves. We can ride them, go with them, master ourselves and be triumphant. We can’t fight the force of nature. If we plan to fight God, then good luck to us all. It’s a fight we’ve fought before, and the world descended into Hell. It doesn’t take much. Civilization is a delicate thing, and destruction is all too easy, especially for us.