Wisdom from Os Guinness' book, "The Case for Civility":
"...the incessant culture warring trivializes and distorts important issues and reduces America to a Punch-and-Judy democracy in which cartoon stereotypes rail at each other with no serious engagement, let alone deliberation and debate... Many who start with thoughtful positions slip into a partisanship in which team playing trumps truth, decency degenerates into malice, and constant attacks become a hostility that hardens into extremism...
"In the bitter clash of polar views, the truths at stake are lost and each side becomes the other's double, the closest reflection of the other, the main argument for the other, and the chief fund-raiser for the other. The finger-wagging, mudslinging accusations reinforce the perceptions of the other side as the dangerous and aggressive enemy. Every conservative becomes 'the Far Right,' and every liberal 'the far Left.' What some do once is taken to stand for all that the enemy 'is really about.' Each side, hypocritical enough to pretend that it lives up to its own hype, is equally insistent that the other side's worst is truly all that it is."
I wish that everyone could be this reasonable and self-aware. I mean, in between looking at pretty girls naked, wouldn't it be great if we examined our own behavior and treated each other with respect, regardless of our differences?
Be good, everyone!
"...the incessant culture warring trivializes and distorts important issues and reduces America to a Punch-and-Judy democracy in which cartoon stereotypes rail at each other with no serious engagement, let alone deliberation and debate... Many who start with thoughtful positions slip into a partisanship in which team playing trumps truth, decency degenerates into malice, and constant attacks become a hostility that hardens into extremism...
"In the bitter clash of polar views, the truths at stake are lost and each side becomes the other's double, the closest reflection of the other, the main argument for the other, and the chief fund-raiser for the other. The finger-wagging, mudslinging accusations reinforce the perceptions of the other side as the dangerous and aggressive enemy. Every conservative becomes 'the Far Right,' and every liberal 'the far Left.' What some do once is taken to stand for all that the enemy 'is really about.' Each side, hypocritical enough to pretend that it lives up to its own hype, is equally insistent that the other side's worst is truly all that it is."
I wish that everyone could be this reasonable and self-aware. I mean, in between looking at pretty girls naked, wouldn't it be great if we examined our own behavior and treated each other with respect, regardless of our differences?
Be good, everyone!