Commenting simply to acknowledge ... & express agreement. We are in a tragic time that fully embodies the expression "the road to hell is filled with good intentions." I do not doubt the sincerity of those good intentions, but as a family tragedy has taught me, we are blind when we let aspirational intent cloud our vision of reality.
"The reality is that we have a political establishment in Victoria which has created in-groups and out-groups among politically engaged citizens and advances a political narrative that, if opposed in the slightest form, is taken as a threat to the very existence of their political motivations and ideals as a whole. With this binary understanding of the political landscape, they relentlessly attack and belittle anyone who expresses even the slightest opinion or perspective different from their own."
Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard concludes that love, truth, and faith are the same, when real.
THIS is what's so offensive about the approach of Thompson, Caradonna, Kim, Dell and Loughton: either they don't have the wit, or the tiny bit of self-reflection, to see the cruelty and destructiveness of their fundamentalism, or their hubris is so strong in the face of truth and love, they don't care.
Like every politician who trades on ideology over people (love, truth, faith), and the left and right are indistinguishable this way, they have no choice but to act with unimaginable cruelty, even causing harm and death, because their ideology fails at the speed of light when people of truly diverse (not just shallow shapes and colours) thinking, interrogate them for truth. Love and truth are existential threats to their "strongly held beliefs."
Kierkegaard is saying to Thompson, Caradonna, Kim, Dell, and Loughton that their faith is invalid because it's incompatible with truth and love. As a result, their faith cannot be positive, constructive, or build community. Quite the opposite.
I couldn't agree more, and the evidence is everywhere: less compassion, more incivility, people turning away from the process entirely, people entrenching into their own fundamentalisms, corruption, and less compliance with community norms, even bylaws.
Commenting simply to acknowledge ... & express agreement. We are in a tragic time that fully embodies the expression "the road to hell is filled with good intentions." I do not doubt the sincerity of those good intentions, but as a family tragedy has taught me, we are blind when we let aspirational intent cloud our vision of reality.
"The reality is that we have a political establishment in Victoria which has created in-groups and out-groups among politically engaged citizens and advances a political narrative that, if opposed in the slightest form, is taken as a threat to the very existence of their political motivations and ideals as a whole. With this binary understanding of the political landscape, they relentlessly attack and belittle anyone who expresses even the slightest opinion or perspective different from their own."
Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard concludes that love, truth, and faith are the same, when real.
THIS is what's so offensive about the approach of Thompson, Caradonna, Kim, Dell and Loughton: either they don't have the wit, or the tiny bit of self-reflection, to see the cruelty and destructiveness of their fundamentalism, or their hubris is so strong in the face of truth and love, they don't care.
Like every politician who trades on ideology over people (love, truth, faith), and the left and right are indistinguishable this way, they have no choice but to act with unimaginable cruelty, even causing harm and death, because their ideology fails at the speed of light when people of truly diverse (not just shallow shapes and colours) thinking, interrogate them for truth. Love and truth are existential threats to their "strongly held beliefs."
Kierkegaard is saying to Thompson, Caradonna, Kim, Dell, and Loughton that their faith is invalid because it's incompatible with truth and love. As a result, their faith cannot be positive, constructive, or build community. Quite the opposite.
I couldn't agree more, and the evidence is everywhere: less compassion, more incivility, people turning away from the process entirely, people entrenching into their own fundamentalisms, corruption, and less compliance with community norms, even bylaws.
As you describe in your essay: nothing new here.