Are we as guilty as the right-wingers at times?

[Archae]

I posted a thread about Cesar Chavez, after learning that in the latter years of his life, he fell in with the dangerous cult, Synanon.

I was just thinking, are we like the right-wingers in one aspect, we are in love with the image of those we admire, rather than the reality?

The right-wingers are in love with their image of Ronald Reagan.
The real Reagan would get kicked out of their party nowadays.

Are we just as bad with our heroes like Chavez? Or FDR? Or Kennedy?

I think sometimes we can be.

[patrice]

1. I don't get why it matters one way or the other what we think, positive or negative, without

the context for thinking it. That may be the difference between some of us (right wingers or whatever); some have understandings upon which they base an evaluation, others don't.

[randome]

3. I don't know.

I tend to think right-wingers are the same as us but functioning in a different way.

Fear, I think, drives many on the right-wing. Without that, we might be indistinguishable from one another.

We are all afraid of something. But we deal with it in different ways.

[patrice]

4. Yes. So there are questions about what those understandings are about, what are the cardinal traits

of the understandings; how many have them compared to how many don't.

[randome]

7. For one thing...

...if we insist on calling them 'evil' or 'stupid', they will only react more obnoxiously. Those kind of labels will not 'calm' them, if that's possible.

I'm glad Obama is not all 'blood and brimstone' with them. I think because he knows they will never go away. Therefore, the only thing to do, no matter how difficult, is find ways to turn them into fully functioning -or just better functioning- representatives of the country.

It's a slow process but it's the only thing that will work outside of public executions.

[patrice]

19. I think there is this instinct for freedom, because freedom serves one's ability to adapt

functionally and, thus, to survive.

Most people have fundamental "givens" that are less likely to change under most circumstances, but beyond that they also have personal "options" that are part of how they experience their own power in the world (which power, again, is close to their sense of their ability to survive). The more you mess with whatever those options are, especially unnecessarily so, the more you manipulate or limit their freedoms to choose, their personal powers, the more they are going to react.

For many people, calling them things like "evil" and/or "stupid" (or insults and names in general) messes with their options/power, pushes their buttons, not only are they insulted but it also forces them more and more into reactions. You are the one controlling them and they don't like that, so they react and then you react to their reaction and everything escalates quite likely away from whatever the most important issue is.

Yes, you can respect people's freedoms/options/powers as much as you possibly can and some of them will still react wrong and either hurt themselves and/or others, but if you don't ever respect anyone's options/freedoms, you will for darned sure have a higher probability that MORE of them are going to react in a dysfunctional manner than if you do respect their choices. And at least beginning with respect and/or returning to it whenever possible, you also stand a chance of knowing who is actually a more or less unavoidable problem and who isn't or is less likely to be.

[randome]

2. I think sometimes you are right.

'Faith' is a human failing across all political spectrums. 'Faith' is a guess. Or wishing. No one person and no one idea should be without examination from every angle.

It's the only way to see things clearly.

[patrice]

5. True. But it is also true that at some point you DO have to take that gamble. It is important to me

though not to take the risk of "faith" until I have pushed my rational understanding as far as it can go.

[randome]

9. I'm not trying to belittle anyone who has faith in someone else.

But it strikes me that often it's like a weather prediction.

When you hear that there is a 90 percent chance of rain, all that means is it might rain and it might not.

I think of 'faith' in that way. All it means is that the person you have faith in might do what you expect and he/she might not. But the odds give you some comfort along the way and help you move on to something else.

[patrice]

11. Precisely. No matter how high the odds are, they're still only a probability, so you don't really

know if the next instance of whatever is going to one way or the other. You only know which is more likely and how strong that likelihood is.

One thing that could affect the accuracy of your prediction, though, is if you know all of the conditions impinging upon an event. The more that you know, the more you can rely on the probability. If something changes you can factor that into the probability, but there's still the chance that you don't know what you need to know in order to rely on the probability.

[valerief]

6. NO!!!! nt

[Igel]

18. Yeah.

When I've pointed out to a (R) who decided to define words to suit his preconceptions, ignore facts that he didn't like, venerate idols with giant masses of clay for feet, I also pointed out he was just like a lot of extreme (D) that I know.

His immediate response was a wail of denial: NOooo!

Didn't even like thinking that he and liberal (D) were in the same species or that a (D) could be Xian, so into dehumanizing (D) he was. (The sometimes response is, from Xian (D), to give thanks that we're righteous and good, not like that sinner; or to say we're not knuckledragging, mouth-breathing Neandertals like the dehumanizing (R).)

The real problem is that we're human. No one human can evolve. Only communities of a species, through mutations that introduce new features and through natural selection that alters gene frequencies--i.e., through reproduction over time--evolve. All other uses are self-aggrandizing and other-denigrating.

[Warpy]

8. Some people are prone to hero worship

but Democrats as a group are a little more sanguine about the human failings of their heroes. Margaret Sanger was a eugenics fan. Cesar Chavez got sucked in by Synanon, an effective group that went down the cult path later on. Neither flaw diminishes the great work that both did.

Republicans are more likely to be authoritarian thinkers, unwilling to acknowledge any of the flaws in their own leaders.

[Electric Monk]

10. This didn't go as well as you'd hoped, so you thought you'd try again four hours later?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002953633

[Enrique]

12. you got some good responses in that thread, nothing RWish at all

you seem to be the only one who thought Chavez was a saint.

[Poll_Blind]

13. I think about two thirds of the people here suffer from that syndrome.

The other third don't and are made to suffer for the clarity.

PB

[patrice]

22. 1+++

[11 Bravo]

14. In a word, yes.

All of the myopic dipshits in this country are not on the right. (Just most of them.)

[amfortas the hippie]

15. i think we

fall into the Certainty Trap, too.
It's easy.
The difference, I think, is that we can catch ourselves, sometimes....and at least have a care for attempting to be objective.
It's hard to be Skeptical of Everything, all the time...but keeping a sort of Socratic Perplexity is helpful in dealing with the world.
Especially these days...information flies out of every orifice.
Knowledge is Provisional...but rather than fall into Nihilism, ya identify a Framework that you can Hang your understanding on, until a better fit comes along.

On the other hand, and after careful study,lol...it seems that our Opponents fall into a Framework, and stick there.
They invest so much in that accidental Framework, that they must defend it.(Exceptionalism, Bush did his best, etc) They are scared shitless of Uncertainty, let alone Socratic Perplexity...so they convince themselves that they're Certain. That's the source of all the Crusading Evangelism, the attempts to Universalise their Certainty....because, what if them stoopid libruls are right?!...rather than examine themselves,their Framework, it's simpler to say, "Convert or Die"....and wrap up warmly in the certainty, again.
I feel like Jane Goodall, sometimes..living here.
(Texas)

[turtlerescue1]

16. Likely.

But we all have preferences, mindsets and Values we believe in.

I'm sure they feel the same as I that "They are just wrong, and you can't fix stupid."

As for heroes falling, our days don't stand still, we cannot predict Tomorrow, nor can we do much about Today, so all we really know is Yesterdays. We aren't born with erasers on our heads, but that would make our mistakes/errors easier. We don't know what is ahead of us,
we don't know how we will respond, don't know if we'll be deceived, don't even know what we may want then. A hero isn't a lifelong duty, it is doing something that needs doing at the time it needs to be done. Heroes don't plan on the title, they wander into it.

[RegieRocker]

17. Without a doubt

[GeorgeGist]

20. Have you stopped beating your dog?

[Jamaal510]

21. I think so.

Like for example, I find it interesting how both sides have their shares of people who distrust the media. The right thinks that the media has a liberal slant and all networks work as Obama-relection campaigns or whatever, and libertarians think that the media are afraid of Ron Paul winning the presidency. Meanwhile, the left says that the MSM work for the elite and don't work hard enough to expose nonsense from the other side.
Regarding the hero worship that the OP touched on, I believe the difference with them idolizing Reagan and us idolizing someone like FDR is that Reaganomics pretty much gave birth to rising income inequality, while FDR's New Deal helped us out of a depression. Plus, Reagan was notorious for race-baiting ("Welfare Queens" comments) and killing the balance in the media via the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine. There was none of this with FDR, Chavez, or Kennedy.