ECKLEBURG
2004-09-16 - 11:22 a.m.
So I have thus far been shy of political/religious commentary on my blog, perhaps because I feel very strongly about politics and always fear that if I talk to people about politics, and there are fundamental differences between them and I, one of two things will happen:
1. I will try to patch over our differences, only to later come to terms with the fact that I can no longer continue to encourage their uninformed, unreflected idocy by continuing to acknowledge their right to belong to the human race, OR,
2. I will have to attempt to debate the issues with them to show them the key points that are missing from their equations, thereby allowing them to fill in some key gaps, finally carry that 2 that they have thus far forgot to do in their sociopolitical calculus, and grasp the larger picture so that they can come around to my point of view.
The risk here, of course, being that other people might oh-so-stubbornly cling to their incorrect worldviews like a scrap piece of wood in their sea of intellectual uncertainty, and thus not ultimately agree with me. (Did the comic hyperbole of my confidence come through here – I am not really an arrogant person!) In this case, the debate would inevitably take a turn for the worse, Hitler would be flung out into the fray, poorly understood concepts of 18th century capitalism will be proposed (not by me) as the savior to all of humankind’s ills, and friendships will go up in flames.
Now I know that this is perhaps a false dichotomy of the possible outcomes of political/religious discussions, but like some people fear swimming due to the possibility of drowning, I fear these discussions.
Now that that is said, I will now promptly put up some political and religious observations for you in my next few posts . . .
