culture

American Trump: Not Pretending About Religion

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Something seems to be missing from the Republican candidates’ campaign. Wits may figure such things include “dignity”, “good taste”, and “not humiliating your family.” But what’s missing is Christian Values.

Yes we hear talk about Christianity, especially in the realm of finding new ways to screw Syrian refugees and ways to hate Muslims. But there’s not as much talk about Values, morals, principles, etc. The old Holier-Than-Though that we got used to for so many years seems to be gone. The Values talk is secondary or tertiary.

I’ve almost got a bit of nostalgia for the old times. Theres’ just not as many pronouncements on the evils of homosexuality by obvious closet cases (Oh, Lindsey Graham, you could have stayed in). There’s little pretend humility from egomaniacs. There’s much less discussion of Christian Values by rich snobs who don’t care for the poor. You almost miss the “Christian Values” pronouncements, if only for the lost entertainment Value.

I put this on the shoulders of Donald Trump and his campaign.

Trump is about anger and rage. He taps into the anger of people who feel economically disempowered by the elites (despite Trump being one). He taps into the rage people project onto other races and cultures (despite any of his past statements and alliances). Trump has tapped into something ugly and angry and incoherent and easily channeled as it can’t channel itself without a vehicle.

And he’s got a lot of support – from people who felt unsupported.

This isn’t new. The Republican party’s played a dangerous game with religion, money, and anger for years. The party’s cultivated its own alternate media and alternate reality. It embraced conspiracy theories and sensationalism. Trump calls on that heritage without using the religious catchphrases and pretensions that we may have once seen.  Others built the system – he learned how to flip the switches and run the machine.

He’s shown us where the party is now, a party where a good chunk is just upset anry people without even paying lip service to some kind of values or morals or principles.

I give Trump a 50% shot at the Republican nomination – and a 90% chance to become a 3rd party if he doesn’t. He won’t go away, but he won’t be president.

But when he’s off to wherever, why should we assume the Republican party will ever talk values as they once did? If they try, how can they in light of having once had so many people support a candidate like Trump?

I think we just witnessed a transition in Republican culture and strategy, but not everyone realizes it.

 

  • Steve

Activities For The Civic Geek: Free Speech

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Free Speech isn’t just talk – it’s a real life issue, and one that’s often misunderstood.  Do something real about free speech issues in an intelligent way.

There’s two problems with Free Speech – there isn’t enough of it, and most people don’t know what the hell it’s about.

For the latter, we need more education, better understanding, and occasionally informing people they’re full of crap for thinking someone defriending them on social media is censorship.  However, I’d like to focus on the former – actively helping people get over it and understand it.

Internet drama aside, there are a lot of threats to free speech – often subtle.  A banned book list at a school library, lawsuits designed to squelch opinion, and countries outright controlling what people think and see.  Issues of internet access, net neutrality, and freedom.  Maybe we geeks can do something about it.

Something like:

  • Invite authors who’s books and works have been banned to your events.
  • Do reading groups of controversial literature.
  • Get involved with organizations that support freedom of speech, from donations to getting speakers to events.
  • Provide access to banned literature or promote it at events.
  • If it’s relevant to your geeky media (books, comics, video games) do panels or studies of free speech in various countries.

Beyond doing good and helping overcome the at-times subtle censorship people face, being involved in free speech efforts also teaches you what it’s really about.  It’s one thing when people complain someone deleted their message board comment – quite something else to realize a beloved book was widely banned in a state.  Sometimes understanding free speech is best done by seeing it’s lack.

Here’s a few groups to get you started:

  • Banned Book Week – Celebrate the freedom to read – and take a stand against censorship – with Banned Books week.
  • Free Press – A savvy organization focused on a free press.
  • Public Knowledge – An organization focusing on intersecting issues of technology and free speech – access, copyright, net neutrality, innovation, and more.
  • The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund – A non-profit organization focused on protecting the First Amendment rights of everyone in the comics/publishing/reading chain. Provides legal referrals, representation, advice, assistance and education.

No, Actually I’m Pretty Fine With My Emotions And Everything Else

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“You’re being irrational.  That person is being irrational.  Those people are being irrational.”

We all know the drill.  There’s a discussion or an argument, often about politics, and then it verges into that special brand of stupid where someone declares that A) the people they disagree with are irrational, and B) Imply directly or indirectly that they themselves are thus rational.  This is intended to end the argument.

Usually – but not always – the person who invokes the argument is really just derailing the conversation.  When I encounter this “aggressive statement of rationality,” the person making it is usually pretty emotional – either seething with rage or displaying the kind of smugness that produces seething rage.  Occasionally they just seem emotionally dead and distant, as if that’s somehow good and implies a functional decision making process as opposed to the need for therapy.  Rarely does the person making the rational/irrational argument come off as someone that should be listened to.

(And usually I find the rational/irrational argument is best made by being the person who basically doesn’t freak out, act like a jerk, or come off as emotionally stunted.  If the argument is true – and relevant – it will be made on its own.)

But the use of this argument ignores a larger issue.  Emotions aren’t bad, the emotional/rational divide is nonexistent, and the idea of a separate rationality is meaningless.

There’s nothing wrong with emotions.  Evolution (or if you want to get metaphysical God or whatever) seems to have given us one hell of a range of behaviors and reactions.

They’re the hardwiring of the soul.  From the reaction to pain that saves us from harm, to the passion of love that drives us, to the snap of rage that lets us land a punch on an attacker, emotions are actually pretty awesome.  They’re part of being human.

Emotions aren’t separate from our rationality.  We use our rational intellect to decide how to make a meal more like mom used to make.  We use rationality to charm the person we love with, emotions helping us find the right choices as we carefully plan.  A rush of inspiration is deconstructed later into useful parts.  We get angry then intelligently plot revenge.  We get happy and calculate the best gift someone would want.

It’s all processing of information – with different levels and context, all lumped together.

In fact, emotions are a a font of meaning.  That ability to feel connections and reactions is powerful.  The awful taste of a bad food that saves us from poison gives us caution in other areas.  The sense of camaraderie brings us close together, and infuses a holiday or a job with substance and context.  Curiosity drives us onwards.  The visceral elements of emotions gives us a sense of being of reality.

Really what is rationality without some human element to it?  Processing information without connection, the idea of humans as unchanging ping-pong balls bouncing around.

I’m just bang along fine with my emotions.

I’m not sure were the idea that “emotions are bad” and “I’m super-rational and thus better” came from.  Freudian ideas of ID and Superego, idea of separation of soul and body, no idea.  Emotions can backfire like any other part of being human, from our senses to our appendix to our rationality.

So no, when people try to argue they’re rational and thus right, be suspicious.  Chances are they’re neither – and not very self-aware at that.

 

  • Steve