This World

As I watch the political and ideological arguments swirling around us, I really do try to understand why people argue past each other, even when I am one of those arguing. Lack of knowledge of logical fallacies is one reason. Anger is another. But in the middle of the night (I seem to do my best thinking when I’m not here!) I awoke with another. Often one person is arguing from specifics and the other is arguing from general principles.
The example that came to mind was health insurance.
The *principle* is – why should we as individuals have to buy into such a system? Why should we be compelled to have health insurance for the sake of society in general? People should stand on their own feet and not rely on the government all the time. I agree with that principle.
But the *specific* is that Bob Friedman, after my recent hospital stay, said he hoped I had health insurance beyond Medicare, as a big enough hospital bill could destroy me.
Well, I don’t. I resent the cost of insurance, and I think as a nation we are over-insured. When I was an employer, I was always staggered at the cost to the company of paying to provide health insurance for our employees (including ourselves). But, it’s true what Bob pointed out. After a long lifetime of frugal living and productive work, I have savings and investments that should be sufficient, with the help of Social Security, to see me out. But one illness, or a series of illnesses, or some sufficiently great medical emergency could bankrupt me.
It doesn’t even make sense economically, because as soon as I was bankrupt, presumably I would be a charge on the taxpayers as a welfare client.
So there you are, and you can’t resolve the conflict by logic, nor even by insulting all the people on the other side of the issue. If you could, we could resolve all our political issues in battle by facebook, and eliminate the need for insulting each other in election campaigns.

[I put this on Facebook first, reversing the usual procedure.]

Listening to the emotion behind people’s rhetoric, rather than the specific words, I have been trying to figure out why so many Facebook posts are so negative, so angry, so certain.
Sure, politics and ideology are often matters of strong opinion. But these days, they are reaching the point of hysteria. I have been wondering why.
Here’s a tentative conclusion: Everybody on the left and right (and even a few people at the center) shares one characteristic. They hate America.
Oh, they don’t think so. They love THEIR IDEA of the America that OUGHT TO exist. But the America that actually exists, which is shot through with flaws, they hate. And it’s a short step from hating imperfection to hating those you see as being responsible for that imperfection. Add fear of losing your imagined love permanently, and you have a recipe for just what we’re seeing.
I was going to list particulars, but perhaps it’s better for everybody to make their own lists.
An old saying has it that “the best is the enemy of the good,” DeMarco’s corollary (made up just this minute) states that an idealized image held too closely leads to hatred of reality, which is always imperfect.
And that, in turn, leads to an uncomfortable question for us all: How much am I letting my love for an idealized America turn into hatred of the America that actually exists? And what can come from hatred but more hatred?
Carl Jung said that condemnation always isolates, and only acceptance heals. Perhaps it is time we stop blaming each other for the fact that America isn’t what it should be, and start holding and spreading our vision of what it yet could be.

[I added a follow-up]

Do you hate America?
I know you don’t *think* you do, but —
Can you love America while hating its people?
Can you love its people if you only love *some* of its people?
Can you love America if you hate those Americans who hold ideas you hate?
So, do you love the *real* America — the one that exists, warts and all — or only the edited version you wish did exist?

In human terms, how are we to describe… our own Western civilization, or any other of the 10 or 20 civilizations which we can count up on our fingers? In human terms, I should say that each of these civilizations is, while in action, a distinctive attempt at a single great common human experience, or, when it is seen in retrospect, after the action is over, it is a distinctive instance of a single great common human experience. The enterprise or experience is an effort to perform an act of creation. In each of these civilizations, mankind, I think, is trying to rise above mere humanity — above primitive humanity, that is, — toward some higher kind of spiritual life. One cannot depict the goal because it has never been reached, — or, rather, I should say that it has never been reached by any human society. It has, perhaps, been reached by individual men and women. At least, I can think of certain saints and sages…. But if there have been a few transfigured men and women, there has never been such a thing as a civilized society. Civilization, as we know it, is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor. No known civilization has ever reached the goal of civilization yet. There has never been a communion of saints on earth. In the least uncivilized society at its least uncivilized moment, the vast majority of its members have remained very near indeed to the primitive human level. And no society has ever been secure of holding such ground as it has managed to gain in its spiritual advance.”

Arnold Toynbee, Civilization on Trial

I was going through some old saved messages, and came across this, which seems timely and in fact is probably always timely. I sent it out Feb. 15, 2013 and titled it “Causes.” As far as i can see, nothing has changed.

My friends send me emails and links about various things that concern them. Many of them I agree with but find myself unable to give more than casual assent. I was reading about something or other, realizing that I agreed but couldn’t bring myself to actively care, when I all but heard this:

“Care about what you care about, not what you think you should care about. Leave the things you think you should care about, but can’t, to those who are called by them.”

If we each stick to the things we care about, nothing important will be neglected. We are all specialists in this world.