It’s the kind of exchange I think is valuable, so here it is…
The #ProLife movement and the #GOP started something 50yrs ago that they don’t know how to stop.
It is not abt stopping #abortion. It is abt who is a good person and who is a bad person. It is abt division.
And it is madness. https://t.co/mUYvwXRUG8
— (@stevenpmillies) November 13, 2023
If you doubt me, focus on the way folks on the pro-choice side regard those who dare to disagree with them. Disdain is too weak a word. And there’s nothing “liberal” about it. It’s about separating sheep from goats…
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) November 14, 2023
You know what? The embed codes are messing up and overlapping each other. I’ll just give you plain text for the rest…
Steve: You’re right that a binary needs 2 to tango but also I’m not willing to bothsides this because there’s a peculiar madness on one side that is more responsible for our polarization than any other factor. I’m so devoted to that point of view that I wrote a book abt it.
Me: The right has gone stark, raving mad. But tragically, the left is weakened by its own embrace of some of the symptoms. Neither side is an appetizing “team” to join. And media have trained everyone to think in binary terms, by covering politics like sports. So we’re lost…
Me again: That probably seemed incoherent. Too many related thoughts, not enough room for the transitions…
Steve: It makes sense. But my conclusion is that madness supersedes weakenedness. The Right no longer is doing politics recognizably at all, they’ve gone so far there aren’t 2 sides anymore for anyone serious abt politics and that’s why we have to overcome the binary framing.
Me: You know that book I keep telling you I want to write, but (unlike you) never do? If I ever write it, I have an idea for another. It’s about politics, and my tentative title is “Consensus.” It’s what we desperately need to work toward, at all times….
Steve: A longtime struggler toward consensus, though, I have to say that you can’t achieve consensus or engage in dialogue with people who don’t accept that consensus and dialogue are legitimate. Our more fundamental problem is that too many people don’t believe in politics at all.
Me: Absolutely. That’s what I meant by “we’re lost.” And one of many reasons is that people don’t understand basic things about our system, which is intended to be deliberative. They think it’s about winning 50%+1, and cramming their will down the throats of the “bad people”…
Both of us could have gone on, but had things to do — especially Steve, who as I mentioned in passing, actually writes books instead of just talking about it, and has busy day jobs as well. He’s a professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
You see what I did there? Under the guise of finally posting something on the blog (without having to write it from scratch) I snuck in another “ones and zeroes” post. Fair warning: I’m likely to do it again at any time.
The part of the exchange that deals with consensus is another step down the same train of thought that led to this post awhile back…