Progressive Disagreement
We should disagree with the understanding that we may be wrong and that where the person we are disagreeing with is correct, we need them. We should also approach those with whom we disagree with the sobriety that where they are wrong we have done the same or similar things, and where they are way way off, that we should forgive them for they likely don’t even know what they are doing.
But why?
Because the truth is found when competing interests collide in an honest arena. An arena that prefers mercy over judgment. This happens when we position our hearts and minds towards the allowance of great and honest intellectual combat. Combat where like the Amigo brothers we embrace after the melee.
This is where truth is found. But first, we must have the gall to stay in the arena of intellectual combat. Canceling stems from the misguided belief that people are more stupid than they are smart. I make the argument in another post for why people, on average, make more good decisions than bad ones, but the crux of the argument is that if people made bad decisions more often than good ones we would have long ago plunged our race into extinction. We would not have made a better and better society throughout time. So if we believe in people, we should give a platform to any idea catching any amount of traction no matter how far off it may seem from our relative position. If it is a good idea, it will gain more and more following over time, if it is a bad idea, it will die out.
Sadly these days, it is vogue to cancel the arena of intellectual combat; in fact, many are proposing to bulldoze it and replace it with not even a different stage but a megaphone that spews “right-think.”
In times like these, it is important to look at history. In times of great change, when many are questioning what the right thing to do is, we must look back at what has and has not worked. The question I pose to you is, when has the suppression of speech ever worked in the long run? Ever? What you will find is that even if suppression has the veneer of creating something more healthy behind it is rot. What you will find is that it has never worked. Never. Not once, ever. And like I have said before, anytime people point to future results for why something is a good idea, we should approach it with increased caution and scrutiny. Now, this isn't to say that new ideas do not work, of course they can. But when the supposed new idea is just the oldest of ideas, shutting up those you disagree with, maybe we should have the backbone to question it.
Restated:
How do we approach those with whom we disagree most?
Again, we should do so with the understanding that where they are correct, we need them. We should approach those with whom we disagree with the sobriety that where they are wrong, we have done the same or similar things, and where they are way off, that we should forgive them for they likely don’t even know what they are doing.
This doesn't mean that you are to be a doormat or that you should allow people to treat you in any way other than how you want to be treated. Because if you kick my dog, I'll break your face. And if you attack my wife, I’ll take your life.
A not-so-quick aside:
It amazes me how our society, in many ways, has shifted away from self-ownership in just about everything. There are many who would have a certain level of uncomfortability with my last two statements concerning the self-ownership of the protection of my pup and wife. In days past, those statements would not even have to be made, they were understood and universal. I'm not going to call the cops if you attack my wife, the neighbors can do that. I am going to be an encounter in vicissitude and wrath, not stopping short of selling my life in my effort to protect her. For when the lion knows the resolve of the badger, the risk-reward ratio ceases to be in the favor of the lion. The lion knows it can win, but at what risk, at what cost? We the people should terrify those that might do us harm.
This, like everything, carries important nuance. If such an event would befall me and I were forced to kill someone in order to protect my wife or loved one, I would not celebrate the ending of that person's life. I would mourn that loss; I would mourn the circumstance and decision-making that led them to that place. I would mourn for what they could have been. All moral killing is to be mourned. Every death delivered in every just war is not a celebration of victory but a mourning of the destruction of progress that that life was supposed to bring. Each death is a funeral of potential greatness. Each death is a life that could have created great value if circumstances were different, if bad choices were not made, if bad leadership were not followed.
The real tragedy in our current situation is the misunderstanding of the inalienable weighty power of every life. For civil rights are not granted to make humans powerful. No. They are a recognition of the actual and very real power within every man and woman. Every life is full of a weighty gravity that can not be silenced. No matter how much the mainstream shrinks the voice of our weighty power, the power yet remains. No matter how many people the mainstream seeks to diminish, no matter how great the mainstream suppresses the light of others, their weighty power remains. Their bright light may dim, even to darkness, but still the weight remains. The star may die, but still the weight remains. From within the diminished, shrunken, de-platformed darkness comes a power unrivaled. And with an inevitable force, its coming destruction will be more complete than the combined efforts that created it. That is why we must work to see that the arena of intellectual combat remains and is glorified, for it is the great bulwark against what eventually arises from its absence, chaos.
The necessity of this post amazes me. The gradual takeover of illiberal ideas that allowed us to land in our current regressive state should forever be a warning to future generations about what happens when we decline our responsibility to pay attention to the goings-on in our shared world. Where we are is the result of large swaths of our population granting power to those who they know not, and refusing to hold them to their results. Apathy is always the opening act for ignorance, which in turn sets the stage for the horrors of history.
Above all else, Trump woke both/all sides in the United States up to the fact that we should pay attention. This awakening will be our great purifier. Because either by weighty darkness or by the bright light of scrutiny, we the people will usher in a new renaissance, a new enlightenment. For just as one can not unlearn 2+2=4, those awakened are unable to sleep again; try as they might, their efforts towards ignorance will only yield restless insomnia.
It isn’t just that suppression is wrong; it’s that suppression doesn’t work. Can't work. It carries 0 capacity to achieve its stated goal. 0. This is a universal principle of humanity. The further the rubber band is forced away from society, the greater the force of its return, for regardless of whether it wiggles free or snaps, its resolve carries the same energy.
If you find yourself applauding the suppression of others, you blind yourself anew with the age-old delusion of the faux incrimination of your opposition. You ignore facts for narrative; you infect yourself anew with that which has plagued every authoritarian society, for that which masquerades as the people's union is simply the Soviet Union = Controlled Unity = Forced conformity = Tyranny. Telling people what to think is inherently evil. And if you think suppressing those who have done no wrong because some great minority did something wrong, you are supporting EVIL. It is that simple. There is no way around it. Neither pedigree nor degree negates it, and no amount of sources cited changes it.
But I know that those who support this core evil don't even know what you are doing; I know I have done the same or similar things, and I know they have a beauty within that sees what I do not see on many a topic. And if that’s you, know that I value you, you are good, and through conversation and celebrated open connection, you are going to change my life.
It is up to us.
We the people have to refuse to diminish and cancel one another. This resolve must start in our own hearts, yet it must move from our hearts to a public stance.
Greatness looks like something. And deep down, we know what that is.
Show up. Be it.
Hold Tension, Be Vast.Remember, restoration alone brings victory.