Go to Religion in the Modern World
- Add a comment
- Go to Distinguishing between a rebuttal and an attack
sannhet - determining what is insensitive or demeaning is the biggest
challenge of all. One man's logic can quite often be another man's object of ridicule if the reasoning is circuitous. The logic presented can be the sum total of one man's capability to reason while it is so far behind in developed thought to the other man's reasoning capabilities that the recipient of these pearls of wisdom cannot help but become weary. They are spreading "dumb" like peanut butter, a comment that may seem insensitive to some but is simply a fact to others. Our inherent human compassions stop us from demeaning them too badly.
posted by
gomedome
on September 28, 2007 at 9:05 PM
| link to this | reply
strat - I wish I had written those words
That's it exactly, it is so refreshing to hear some fundamental common sense articulated so appropriately.
posted by
gomedome
on September 28, 2007 at 8:50 PM
| link to this | reply
Gome -
Yes, it's unfortunate that people have to build themselves up by tearing others down. But I guess that's part of the price we pay for the ability to say what we want, regardless of how insensitive or demeaning it might be.
posted by
sannhet
on September 28, 2007 at 3:37 PM
| link to this | reply
It does become a bit vexing --
But then again, it is also the nature of the beast to shoot the messenger, otherwise Aesop, or Grimm, or whoever, wouldn't have written about it.
It is difficult for any but the most mature to differentiate between the person and the opinion. I would daresay there are a lot of reasons for this, one being the puerile instinct of the indoctrinated to fall back on dogma, ala Orwellian mantra, "Two legs bad; four legs good." Another is to bring back such disciplines as debate, logical thought, and elocution in school curricula, so that kids can learn early that it is okay to take any side of an issue you want, provided you show respect, do your homework, and argue logically.
Finally, the simple dumbing down of our society is eroding our ability to discourse dispassionately and logically. To wit, we are largely a society of spoiled, overfed, overindulged 6-year-olds. And that's going to ultimately take us down.
Sorry about the sermon here. But you know me; either feast or famine when it comes to commentary. Good post -- or rather, keep up the good work- - I read you quite a bit but don't comment as much these days.
Take care!
posted by
strat
on September 28, 2007 at 1:47 PM
| link to this | reply
Ariala - I know exactly what you mean
There have been some people that develop their assessments to extreme levels. When it is considered that to a great extent we all have complete anonymity and that we can only be assessed by the words we post and how much we reveal of ourselves, anything beyond an impression recognized as an assumed broad overview is ridiculous.
posted by
gomedome
on September 28, 2007 at 11:20 AM
| link to this | reply
Good post...what I find disturbing is when someone comes into my blog
and implies character traits about me that just aren't true, but they base this on assumptions they've made while reading me...still, these I TRY to ignore...
posted by
Ariala
on September 28, 2007 at 10:35 AM
| link to this | reply