Another interesting blogcast, gentlemen. A duo of observations about the ’last 15 years’ of growing "pressure" of hateful partisanship, however:
Even thousands of years ago, observers such as Ovid, Cicero, and Ecclesiastes 7:10 noted the hollow wisdom in the perception that things are worse now in the present than they were in the past. Such a pessimistic view is common to human nature (especially in the middle-aged), but that does NOT make the view intellectually honest. The puerile and hostile partisanship we decry today is no better or worse than the long ago furious partisanship between Hamilton and Jefferson, or between Augustus and Anthony. The longing for the ’better’ Golden Age in the past is not an anabolic grounding for building a good life, as the popular contemporary longing for the return to the Golden Age of the 7C Caliphate should make us aware.
Secondly, partisanship is a noted feature of a free people. Moreover, partisanship is one measure of the HEALTH of a free polity, at least from the perspective of those of us more concerned with pluralism than those of us more concerned with monism, absolutism, and ’unity’ (revisit Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s ’unity,’ as being "excessive"). What is fascinating about political partisanship is its easy plummet into hate.
The hate of political partisans, both by the Left and the Right, is grounded in human fear; essentially, the instinctual fears that the alternative or contrary opinion is going to prevail, to ’win,’ to survive, at the cost of the survival of the other opinion. Therefore, the ideologies which elicit such partisan loyalty are based upon our respective psychologies, which in turn are grounded in these two opposing primal instincts, both frightened to hell that the ’other’ will win.
It is essential to freedom that these two primal instincts have full play, and that they are honored for their observable existence, even as they are both decried for how "stoopid" the other is. For freedom to thrive, it is essential that these two opposing primal fears within us all be able to voice their views; the beneficial result is the actual releasing of the "pressure" of partisanship. Without the release of such normal partisan "pressure," a people are not free, a lesson taught to us by Hitler, Marx, and Khomeini.
The expression of partisan hatred (Dr. Dean, famously), is symptomatic of an intense inner fear. That’s not to excuse the hate, but merely to try to explain it. But, that so many of us willingly vote for those who hate is profoundly disturbing. Perhaps if we better understood that such expressions of political hate are based upon primitive, instinctual fears, we would make a better, more rational counter-argument...on blogcasts.
’Be free,’ gentlemen. Love your show.
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Written By:
a Duoist
URL:
http://www.duoism.org
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