Why do I do this to myself?

Image via Wikipedia

I think I have just recently realized I am a masochist.  Situations that other people run from, I tend to wade into for some strange reason.  Most people tend to flock with their own kind, I however, am fascinated by hanging out with people who are totally different than I am.  I want to see what makes the "others" tick.  I want to build bridges.   My wife and I live in a predominantly white part of town.  We've always attended predominantly white churches.  I have never liked the fact that Sunday morning is one of the most segregated times of the week in our country and I have done my part to cross that color line.  I have waded into to chat rooms and message boards just spilling over with angry atheists and former Christians who absolutely hated Christianity and anything to do with it.  Why?  Because I thought it important that I try to present a reasonable side of Christianity to them. People ask me why I keep doing what I do because it usually causes discomfort and sometimes causes pain.  But, I do it because I think it's important to keep trying.   Recently, it's been in the political arena that I've been throwing myself to the lions.  I'm pretty active when it comes to social networking and I have friends all across the political spectrum from some who are actually socialists (not card carrying that I know of) to those who are so far right they are about to fall off the edge.  In the past couple of weeks I  took on a challenge cooked up by some of my Facebook buddies that took my interaction with the far right to a whole new level. They have a "champion" of sorts;  aguy that several of them seem to admire.  In his own words this morning, he and another friend have (jokingly) agreed he could run for President of "Moonbat Baiting Club of Massachusetts" (I gather from our conversations that a moonbat is a liberal).  I've heard about him for a few months and seen a few of his posts on one of my friend's wall.  He decided he wanted to meet some of their loonier, liberal Facebook friends.  So, one day I get an invitation on my Facebook page to become friends with this guy.  I took the challenge and while on one level, the experiment has been a total failure, on another level it has given me deeper insights to myself and to others that I think will be helpful.

Now, here's the thing about taking this challenge.  I knew all along this was a set up.  I normally accept friend requests immediately.  But, this one I hesitated on.  I knew the intent wasn't friendship. How did I know?  You see, they publicly posted on their walls that they wanted to play this game with Liberals (or "moonbats" as they call us).  In their minds, if you're a liberal, you're evil, stupid or both.  Either you don't know enough about history, politics or economics to agree with them and if you just had all the facts, you would surely be a conservative.  Or, you are actually out to destroy the country (and maybe the world).  I knew going in that I was intended to be fodder for them .  I waited a day or so and just mulled it over. 

Several of my friends (including my wife) asked me why I would fall for such an obvious trap.  Actually what they usually say, before finding out I walked into the set up willingly, is "Why do you even bother talking to those people?"  And, they ask for good reason because I come away from the computer at the end of the day all fired up and frustrated.  Making any progress at all on any point is agonizingly slow and painful. If I had any hair left, I'd be pulling it out.  I am amazed at how people will distort facts, ignore facts and out-and-out lie just to prove their position.  I am disappointed that people put ideologies (like being a good Democrat, Republican or Conservative) ahead of the good of the country.  And, just like the people I waded into this situation with, I think that if I can only hit them with enough facts, surely they will see.  I am a wide-eyed liberal, hope-filled change guy.  But, I never had any illusions that I'd turn them into liberals.  My goal was much more modest. I simply wanted them to see that being a liberal is a reasonable thing to be.  I wanted them to see that liberals are not necessarily misinformed, ignorant, stupid or evil.  I wanted to make them see that one can have a fair grasp of history, economics, politics, sociology, etc and still think that some liberal ideas are actually good ideas.  I must confess that my ego played a part in this. I knew that if I had ignored their request they would have already won. Liberals, you see are devoid of ideas. Liberals run from a debate because they have nothing to debate with.  I couldn't just let that sit there.

The first conversation we got into was about Islam.  From this I learned something about the way most of us "debate" on Facebook and other places.  We don't really have conversations.   Our discussions are more like a boxing match where we try to score points against the other guy. We're not there to actually listen and maybe change our own mind. We're in it to win it. We're either going to convince the other person that he is wrong or at least win the debate on the score card that we keep.  We started with "Is Islam good or bad?" "What should we do about Muslims and Islam?" You know.  Light stuff like that.  My take on it has always been the vast majority of religions and all major religions have much more in common than they have that are different.  All are flawed.  But, all are good.  None are inherently evil.  Most have fundamentalists that distort the teachings and bring a bad name to the faith.  Christianity has had and continues to have its share of whackos.  So, I am hesitant to point the finger at other religions as being the cause for the stupid behavior of some of its followers.  I believe that everything I  just said about religions in general applies to Islam. This was the position I took in the debate.  On the other hand, I have friends who think that Islam is evil (my word).  They are fearful of Islam itself and seem to equate Islam with the worst aspects of Sharia law. They seem to have a fear of sharia law being enforced in the United States (I say this based on their assertion that any mosque advocating sharia law be shut down).  They think any mosque built in the United States is a symbol of conquest of Islam.  The important thing I got out of this conversation wasn't about the specific points themselves.  It was, when I saw when I stepped back for a second, I realized that that days of debate was getting us pretty much no where.  What I observed is both sides were busy throwing data at each other trying to prove their point that Islam is either good or bad.  Those of us defending Islam were pointing out the good things about it, talking about the peaceful Muslims in the world (the vast majority) and drawing parallels between Christian atrocities (past and present) and Muslim atrocities and we were drawing parallels between Old Testament law (which was brutal) and sharia law (which has some brutal elements). The other side dismissed any parallels between Christianity and Islam.  They focused on the most controversial verses in the Q'uran (which we countered with controversial verses from the Bible.)  They focused on the most radical Imams and, of course, the small percentage of Muslims who do violence.  What I finally realized is that in most of these debates, the same thing happens.  Each side trots out the facts that support its case.  The other side promptly ignores or dismisses those facts and trots out its own facts to support its case.  Since there is not way to actually weigh the facts against each other, no one ever really changes the other's mind with this technique.   Each side walks away saying "We won."

After going through this exercise in futility with Islam, we did the exact same thing with whether the United States is "good" or "bad" because I made the comment that the United States is the greatest nation on earth (and the best place to live) and one of my friends took exception to that.  Ironically, in this case, I was on the side of my friends on the right going against one of my friends on the left.  My friend on the left did the same thing my friends on the right had done in the debate about Islam.  Every positive I pointed out about the United States, he brushed aside while pelting me with all of our shortcomings. I agreed with him about every single shortcoming he pointed out.  The United States is not perfect. After making this observation about the way debates tend to go, I also realized that the farther right or left people are the more it seems they engage in black and white thinking.  A thing is either good or bad, period.  In fact, it's more extreme than that.  A thing is either perfectly good or it's perfectly evil.  For my left leaning friend, it seemed from his conversation (although I know this isn't true) that he could find no good in the United States. At least during the course of that conversation, he didn't have anything good to say about our country.  For my friends on the right, they idolize things I simply refuse to idolize.  The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence are perfect documents in their minds.  Use the phrase "living document" and they get livid.  Criticize the forefathers (one of whom- Thomas Jefferson is my ancestor) and they go ballistic.  The leader of the group literally used the term "sacrilegious" when a friend of mine drew a parallel between Barack Obama and George Washington.  When one of us points out that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence did not do such simple things as include black people or women, therefore they were not perfect, we are seen as being unpatriotic and not recognizing any value in them.  When we point out that the man who wrote so eloquently about equality of all men actually had slaves and enslaved his own children (illegitimate offspring of his slave Sally Hemmings), they again say we are being unpatriotic. Any criticism of capitalism, means you're a Marxist.  Any criticism of the United States means you hate your own country.

Another example of this black and white thinking is a lot more current.  Our President- Barack Obama.  Everyone knows he's being attacked by the right.  We expect that. But, as I pointed out in my post on "Motivations" many of his attackers go way beyond simply attacking his policies or individual actions.  In fact just this morning a friend wrote:  

Brian: (based on our earlier conversations I said this was my understanding of her position) "The President is a Marxist, doesn't even deserve to be in the Oval office. So, of course, everything he does as long as he is President is offensive."

Rhonda: You betcha. That's it, Brian.

He doesn't deserve it is NIW being seen after only 18 months in office. Our country is being destroyed. Do you not see that?

If not, why not?

So, there we have it.  Barack Obama is a Marxist.  Therefore, he doesn't deserve to be President.  Everything he does while in office is offensive. Now, an example from the left, where Obama is being attacked almost as fervently as from the right.  Many have already given up on Obama saying he's not a true liberal.  I was discussing Obama with a good friend of mine. The interesting thing about this guy is he's a former evangelical and voted for Bush twice.  He was an extreme right guy. Now, however, he's an extreme left guy. He not only voted for Obama, he campaigned for him.  But, it seems whenever we talk about Obama all he can do is talk about what Obama hasn't done.  The health care bill didn't go far enough.  Gitmo is still open.  Some of the surveillance policies put in place during Bush haven't been stopped and on and on.  Don't ask don't tell is still in place. Honestly, I agree with most of his criticisms of the Obama administration and I could name more things they haven't done and a few more things they have done wrong.  But, unlike those on the far left or those on the far right, I don't think Obama is destroying the country, deliberately or otherwise. Overall, I think his administration has a done a good job with a terrible situation. 

Another thing that jumped out at me during this time was how we tend to demonize our enemy and if not demonize them, at least belittle them.  I have some pretty left wing friends on Facebook and I have to admit that some of them are just as angry as the people I've encountered on the right during this couple of week period.  They post almost nothing but negativity and bashing.  One of them recently said he'd like to see Andrew Breitbart broke and begging in the streets.  A left wing blogger recently posted that she'd like to see Rush Limbaugh have a heart attack and wouldn't even help him.  Seriously, grim stuff.  But, watching the hatred from the right over the last week has sensitized me to this type of language even more.  To be fair, none of them have said anything as bad as this.  Their approach is much more nuanced.  They refer to liberals as moonbats, sheeple and euphorians.  The leader of their group, after his spending his days "baiting moonbats" routinely reports back on his moonbat quote of the day, always lifted out of context from a conversation and they all pounce it like a pack of wolves on red meat.  This experiment has made me a little less hopeful that those on the far left and those on the far right can even begin to get along because I really wonder how much they even want to.  No one wants to get along with someone who is truly evil.  No one is going to put an effort into understanding another man's perspective when he thinks that man is ignorant, stupid or both.  

Another thing I observed is the "you're the exception to the rule" syndrome that allows people to ignore data points that don't fit their theory.  I've been complimented,  by the leader of the pack I was thrown to (Or should I say I walked into?).  He says I am actually articulate and well educated- unlike the liberals.  I used to get the same thing from white people who were shocked that I could speak well or that I was well educated.  Rather than admitting that black people are fundamentally no different than they are, they simply dismissed me as an exception.

I come back to the question.  Why do I do this to myself?  I have no regrets about jumping into this fray. As Nietzsche said "That which does not kill me makes me stronger."  (yeah, I know he was an atheist- doesn't mean he never had a good idea). I've learned a little something about myself and a little about human nature by doing this.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why I'm ignoring your Facebook request (salon.com)
• Why middle-class Lefties believe stupid things - because their friends do (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)