Why I've been so quiet
Call this a draft, maybe I’ll come back to smooth it out. I try to be daring, pure in heart and completely honest. It’s not easy, but it sure does feel good when I am able. Some people seem to have chosen to simplify the problem, to have either their faith or their reason shut out the other half. I find each needs the other, without reason faith has no relevance and without faith reason has no purpose.
My dad was a physicist, the ultimate staid rationalist and a very regular old fashioned Protestant. Life was rather dull, and then I smelled a rat, actually lots of them, conventional thinking that simply didn’t have the ring of truth. That was a long time ago. Trying to be considerate, of course, there’s now no idea I wouldn’t still gladly smash to bits if it does not have it.
It’s not, for example, quite truthful to harden individual sites to protect them against terrorism. It doesn’t create a barrier against terrorism. It acts more as a diversion of the threat toward unprotected targets, and doesn’t recognize the nature of the problem. Open societies are based on trust, and there's a breech. We need to accept the threat and face the problem. There's only one way to end it really, and that's to stop making enemies. That’s easier said than done, of course, and there’s much to say about who could be reconnected and how, but let’s consider the antithesis.
Vilifying your enemies is a tried and true practice of charismatic leaders, and well worth smashing to bits. It’s both strategically misguided and deeply un-Christian. Christ taught us the power of love, not the love of power after all, and the latter is what vilifying your enemies is largely for, in addition to running up your own false pride and dishonestly subjugating your listeners. When faced with a threat do we then need to abandon ourselves to panic and give up on self-defense? No, but resisting the urge to hate and the war feavers it feeds will get you threatened with that and worse.
My dad was a physicist, the ultimate staid rationalist and a very regular old fashioned Protestant. Life was rather dull, and then I smelled a rat, actually lots of them, conventional thinking that simply didn’t have the ring of truth. That was a long time ago. Trying to be considerate, of course, there’s now no idea I wouldn’t still gladly smash to bits if it does not have it.
It’s not, for example, quite truthful to harden individual sites to protect them against terrorism. It doesn’t create a barrier against terrorism. It acts more as a diversion of the threat toward unprotected targets, and doesn’t recognize the nature of the problem. Open societies are based on trust, and there's a breech. We need to accept the threat and face the problem. There's only one way to end it really, and that's to stop making enemies. That’s easier said than done, of course, and there’s much to say about who could be reconnected and how, but let’s consider the antithesis.
Vilifying your enemies is a tried and true practice of charismatic leaders, and well worth smashing to bits. It’s both strategically misguided and deeply un-Christian. Christ taught us the power of love, not the love of power after all, and the latter is what vilifying your enemies is largely for, in addition to running up your own false pride and dishonestly subjugating your listeners. When faced with a threat do we then need to abandon ourselves to panic and give up on self-defense? No, but resisting the urge to hate and the war feavers it feeds will get you threatened with that and worse.
posted by pfh at 12:17 AM
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