We should learn to “see, understand, and respect other people in all their depth and dignity,” writes David Brooks in his best-selling book How to Know a Person. My friend George says he has been struggling to do that with friends and family members who have different beliefs and political views than his own. This is hard, he explains.
Part of the problem, we agree, is that America has morphed from a society that leans into civic discourse to one that venerates antagonistic speech. How do you respect people who denigrate your views as you try to appreciate theirs? Brooks captures the transition like this: “We live in an environment in which political animosities, technological dehumanization, and social breakdown undermine connection, strain friendships, erase intimacy, and foster distrust. We’re living in the middle of some sort of vast emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis. It is as if people across society have lost the ability to see and understand one another, thus producing a culture than can be brutalizing and isolating.” In other words, we have flipped from agreeable “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” to indignant “I'm all-knowing, you're irrelevant.” George seems somehow able to stretch his mind around the notion that others may see him as irrelevant, but vainly wrestles to develop a capacity to show appreciation or respect for uncaring, angered know-it-alls.
The uncaring anger that has descended upon us, as Brooks intimates, extends beyond personal relationships. We see it in the demise of national compassion for the left out and left behind, for peaceful immigrants seeking asylum and opportunity, for starving children in war torn countries, for public servants dismissed for suspected political beliefs, for politicians vilified for taking conscientious stands contrary to the know-it-alls’ tenets, and so on. George and I wonder how Christianity fits in now. You know, the version where Jesus said “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40) Our president says Christianity is important: “I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief….Let’s bring religion back. Let’s bring God back into our lives.” He established his Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias and also said, “I’m a very proud Christian.” Yet it is this president’s administration that willingly helps spread the plague of uncaring anger. Both George and I were unable to develop a capacity to show appreciation or respect for that. Crawford is the author of A Republican’s Lament: Mississippi Needs Good Government Conservatives.
13 comments:
Yes Bill, we dehumanize pedo groomers who are enticing our children to destroy their bodies.
Here is a quote for you, Bill. Mark 9:42
And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea
Pretty cut and dry. Democrats and RINOs need to take a cement dive to the bottom of the ocean.
Yet in his last sentence he denigrates Pres. Trump.
The weekly Crawford click bait.
Let me see if I understand all of this. We are supposed to care and understand people who have different beliefs than we do. The exception is we all should hate the president of our country because he is not willing to borrow money, which our taxpayers are supposed to pay back, and send that money to help other countries who hate us but do believe in holding out their hand out to the U.S.
You made his point, 9:06, when you started name-calling five words in. Whether you like it or not, we are all loved by God. Even you and even me.
I know everyone knows that Jesus Christ was, and is, the embodiment of love, but there are some things that GOD hates.
Proverbs 6:16-19 “These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among the brethren.”
Don't be deceived, GOD is not mocked. What ever a man sows, that shall he also reap. We, all, are planting a crop. I suggest you sow good things.
10:53 AM’s problem with 9:06 “name calling” those that harm children sums up today’s leftist Democrat ideology. Making sure the criminals aren’t offended or harmed…supersedes the criminal act, no matter how evil. We’ve heard this BS before with “minor attracted individuals.”
God’s love for us doesn’t negate scripture; including Mark 7:6.
So, Obama said those who opposed him clung to bibles and guns as a smear, Hillary called half the country a basket of deplorables, and Biden called his political opponents semi-fascists. But should one dare to oppose handing out free medical care to the rest of the world when they break our laws to get here, instead of getting a work visa that is available, they are uncaring?
Cave your breath @7:37 People like Bill and 10:53 AM don’t see any problems with mentally ill drag queens twerking for children in schools and libraries. Bill will never quote the Bible about Sodom and Gomorrah because it offends the perverts. Nobody cares about offending the righteous. But we mustn’t offend the thugs and perverts!
Another vicroty for President Trump and MAGA as the supreme court upheld Trumpsnorder to strip Temporary Protected Status from criminal illegal aliens and mass deport them. Victory for sanity, justice, and the American taxpayer who these “economic refugee” leeches are robbing!
Another victory for not just Trump and MAGA 12:28 PM, this is also a victory for America’s fools too dumb to know it. Once removed, we will then never know which children would have been sexually assaulted and/or murdered due to the thugs that Biden and his crime and chaos loving Democrat Party “facilitated” being here.
Democrats have successfully used crime and chaos to make cities like Jackson, MS a one-party Democrat city forever.
Democrats have successfully used crime and chaos to make states like California a one-party Democrat state forever.
And the ultimate goal of Democrats (Soros has shown them the way) is to use crime and chaos to make the USA a one-party country forever; with Democrats as the rulers, and living safely behind gates and/or in areas unaffordable for most Americans.
@1:32 Republicans like illegals too. It took a Maverick like Trump to tackle this issue
1:54 PM, almost every adult American loves the illegals that come here, then with no government assistance at all work and do jobs better and more efficiently than lazy entitled Americans. The Americans that don’t know it now will certainly find out if/when they’re all deported. The only thing consumption addicted keep up with the Jones’ Americans love more than the labor illegals provide, might be the $350 per month Chinese labor allowing Apple to enjoy their 46.9% gross margin (got to have that new IPhone every year or two!).
But it’s Democrats that love the criminal illegals 1:54 PM. The Alinsky - Soros system of crime and chaos is their MO. The crime and chaos Democrat pols and so-called judges use to make cities like Jackson one-party Democrat forever, while THEY themselves either live behind gates, or worse, in the Republican suburbs, sending their babies to elite private schools.
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