Guy writes to Village Voice advice columnist “Andrew W.K” complaining his father is a “right wing a****le”.
Mr W., K’ answer is both the last thing I expected and one of the best I’ve ever seen, and worth reading in its entirety.
One of several potential pullquotes:
When we lump people into groups, quickly label them, and assume we know everything about them and their life based on a perceived world view, how they look, where they come from, etc., we are not behaving as full human beings. When we truly believe that some people are monsters, that they fundamentally are less human than we are, and that they deserve to have less than we do, we ourselves become the monsters. When we allow our emotions to be hypnotized by the excitement of petty bickering about seemingly important topics, we drift further and further away from the fragile and crucial human bond holding everything together. When we anticipate with ferocious glee the next chance we have to prove someone “wrong” and ourselves “right,” all the while disregarding the vast complexity of almost every subject — not to mention the universe as a whole — we are reducing the beauty and magic of life to a “side” or a “type,” or worst of all, an “answer.” This is the power of politics at it’s most sinister.
Everyone on all sides of “the divide” could stand to absorb a bit of it, in spirit anyway.
Who’d a thunk it? That was definitely a great response. I’m sending it to my daughter. We seem to always get into political arguments, yet I know that she does not have the animosity toward me that the advice seeker has against his dad.
Interestingly enough, if one scrolls down the page, there is a headline entitled, “Three Time Losers: Republicans Blame Everyone But Themselves for Healthcare”.
Who would have thought I’d find hope for humanity in the “Village Voice” on a random Tuesday?
Don’t know how (or why) you were on the site, Mitch, but excellent find!
Bullshit.
When we have a segment of society that celebrates every debauched, deranged, de-humanizing behavior ever to cross a human mind there is absolutely nothing wrong with grouping them together as reprobates and degenerates. Especially since, as Mitch so often reminds us, they so helpfully group themselves and signal their presence to themselves and others.
Like most people, I have a LOT of faults; I’ve done a lot of bad, inexcusable shit in my time. The difference between me and the reprobates is that I don’t make excuses for them, or try to convince you that my faults are features you need to make part of your lives.
If you want to live and let live; find the beauty in willfully debauched, wretched souls, well, that’s your choice. I’m choosing sides.
When we lump people into groups, quickly label them, and assume we know everything about them and their life based on a perceived world view, how they look, where they come from, etc., we are not behaving as full human beings.
Every belief and political action of the left is based lumping people into groups and assuming that they know everything about them and their life.
I’ve been hearing about “Trump voters” from the liberal media for the last eighteen months. I have not heard a type of person described as a “Hillary voter.” The idea of “systemic racism” is based on the idea that people can be lumped into labeled groups. Hey, are you in the newly invented labeled group called “woke”?
Protests outside the Village Voice, demaning Andrew W.K. be fired, to commence in 3, 2, 1…
The son sounds like a fairly self-centered individual. How did he tolerate his father when growing up? No indication that he’s considered that his father, a human being, grew up in a specific age, under specific conditions, that shaped his perspectives and sense of right and wrong, just like his son.
But to judge your own father a “monster” and deem his morals inferior to yours? The son appears to be a product of the current
educationindoctrination system that is becoming indistinguishable from most of the 20th century’s totalitarian regimes. It’s not there yet, since the son still admits he loves his father. A couple more years, and maybe he’ll vote to send dear old Dad off to the re-education camp, for “his own good.”I’ve seen this mindset more and more. The leftists have become more emboldened and less aware/respectful of differing opinions. The left-wing on-line echo chambers and the mainstream media (sorry, redundant) have furthered this notion that opinions can be “right” and “wrong”.
Alas, I hate to give libturds credit, but this is what libturds do best. They spout flowery language full of rainbows and unicorns and yes, common sense and sensibilities, and then turn around and double up on hate, groupthink and hypocrisy.