Hello everyone On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 12:14 PM, Mary Clark <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings, > > The other day I responded to Platt by saying that we are not as free as we > think we are.
Hi Mary If you don't mind me asking... free to do what? >Mary: > Surely this is not the forum to discuss current goings-on in the US, but I > have written to my senators (both of whom happen to be Republicans) and > received very unsatisfactory responses. I guess in my frustration I desire > to have my voice heard somewhere. > > At some point during the 9 years of my absence was there ever a time when > the fad of writing "This I Believe" essays swept through MoQ Discuss? If > so, I missed it. Dan: I don't think so. >Mary: > I miss the news. I mean actual NEWS that provides information. The current > Fox vs MSNBC mudslinging is tearing the country apart. This is ugly stuff > and detrimental to making any kind of forward progress. I suppose it has > entertainment value since everyone enjoys watching things that reinforce > their belief system. Dan: The NEWS is supposed to be unbiased and objective, a reporter taking a birds-eye view, forever apart and separate from the happenings they're reporting. It's kind of like Bohr's framework of complementarity, they're attempting to isolate part from whole, but while Bohr realized the futility of this, most people don't. As long as we continue to teach our children to see the world as an isolated observer, this fallacy will perpetuate itself. >Mary: > If you turn on a TV in the United States today you are bombarded with > arguments designed to arouse fear. News has become commentary interspersed > with commercials laced with innuendo and specious 'facts'. If it is true > that the majority of Americans cannot explain the meaning of a health-care > public option, who's fault is that? Isn't it the job of news organizations > to convey information? I used to believe that a free and independent press > was a foundation of democracy, but now we are seeing the denouement. The > press is not free when it exists only to return value to its corporate > shareholders. Should the worth of a news organization be directly > proportional to its stock price? To those who would argue that government > is the problem, I would suggest that corporations are the problem, and that > even though I agree our government is no where near perfect, I would point > out that it is the only thing we have standing between us and corporate > greed. Dan: Girl, do I have a solution for you! First, unplug your television set. Then drag it to the nearest window. Open window. Toss tv out. Shut window. Repeat as needed. You'll be amazed at how all that crap drops by the wayside once you stop fixating on it. >Mary: > I cannot believe I am saying this, but I long for the days of William F. > Buckley, Jr.'s conservative "Firing Line". How I turned out to be a liberal > is a mystery, given that "Firing Line" was required weekly viewing in my > childhood household, but maybe not so much of one, because I recall Mr. > Buckley behaving much more like what we would call a moderate today than a > rabid conservative. He did not stick strictly to a party line, and > entertained guests of all persuasions - and he gave them a chance to speak > their mind without chopping them off mid-sentence to go to commercial. What > an amazing show. We did not then appreciate what we had. All this is an > impossibility today. Dan: I'm not familar with Mr. Buckley but I would wager he is just as biased as anyone. There is nothing wrong in being polite, however. >Mary: > There is a fundamental law that should be self-evident to anyone wishing to > persuade. You do not do so by insulting the intelligence of other party. > Our current "debate" about health care in the United States is the farthest > thing from true debate there is. Due to the grandstanding and > insult-hurling that is now passing for debate, the nation is completely > polarized, and no one is coming forward to bring sanity to the situation. Dan: I study the art of persuasion. In fact, this is precisely what a person has to do in order to persuade someone to change their point of view. Only it's better to do so covertly and not overtly, in my opinion. >Mary: > Do you know how true agreement is achieved? It is my belief that the > fundamental requirement is an ability to understand the other side. When > your opposition says something seemingly illogical to you, instead of > crowing about it and attempting to humiliate them, your job should be to try > to understand where they are coming from. This serves two purposes. On one > hand, you may actually gain an understanding of their position that you did > not have before, and this might cause you to alter your own, and on the > other hand, by forcing them to explain themselves, they will be forced to > delve deeply into their beliefs, and may change their view once they have > gone through the exercise of examining it. In either case, and I don't care > which, something better will always come of it. Dan: Sure. But go back and read what you wrote... [they] may change their view... you are saying they're wrong and you're right and once they see things like you, then they'll change their minds. But... what if there is no one right answer? What if reality allows for multiple points of view to coexist? What if reality demands it? >Mary: > Did it ever occur to liberals that when a conservative says they are afraid > of losing what health-care coverage they've got, the correct response is not > to deride them for being selfish, but to respectfully examine that concern? > Maybe they are right, and even if they aren't, they believe they are, so > your task should be to find a way to allay those fears rather than simply > cast aspersions. Dan: What if they're both right. >Mary: > This is a mess. Not a true essay at all. I actually have two points I am > trying to make rather than just one as should be addressed in a proper > essay, and they are both interwoven in a very unsatisfactory way in my > mind. I should edit, edit, edit, and know that, but I am not going to. > Given this group of distinguished thinkers, I'm going to just throw it out > there knowing my points will be understood no matter how poorly I string > them together. > > Thanks for listening, You're welcome, and thank you too, Dan "In the summer, I'm a nudist. In the winter, I'm a Buddhist." Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
