The most annoying thing about folks who think they're never wrong is their smug condescension.
It drips equally and as generously from both sides of the conservative/liberal divide, and flows in torrents at the extremes.
The unstated assumption underneath their tones and expressions is "You can't possibly understand this issue and still disagree with me."
It's an unsettling rhetorical device that is very effective, because it incites anger, and anger diverts attention from the facts to what we dislike about our ideological opponent (where they have the upper hand, because they excel at being annoying, and they know it).
It is so overpoweringly disconcerting to me, I can't watch or listen to either extreme, even when I agree. I become so furious I have no choice but to switch the channel.
We've lost our capacity to reason peaceably. We laugh and scoff at each other, moving so quickly between fact and sarcasm that listeners are left only with a vague sense of something meaningful having been said about something important, which means we are not really listening to each other at all; and that, unfortunately, is entirely the point.
The original version of this post contrasted a prominent creationist apologist and a liberal cable TV personality. I removed them because the temptation was too great to be cruel to both of them. I don't wish to be cruel, angry, or smug. I want to understand, and be understood. After changing it, and while writing the paragraph you’re reading now, I felt distinctly liberated and at peace. I mean that most sincerely.
The subject of this post is a quote from William Butler Yeats; I'm not sure what he meant, but it's appealing in a shadowy, ghostly but comforting way.
The full quote is: "Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation."
I've often engaged writers when reading them, in a very tangible manner you might call a dialog. I have no problem envisioning this same practice on a spiritual level.
The image at the top of this post is a detail form Carl Bloch, Jesus the Consolator. The full painting is at left. I have always admired it. A copy has hung in my home for years. I printed it out on 11”x14” paper back when such things were relatively expensive, then had it framed. The color print was $1.50 at Kinko’s and the frame was $60. The source was a family bible.
Started: 2012-06-26
Good thought - on those who have passed on.
ReplyDeleteAlso- The dead comply more with our superimpositions than the living. I once served with a man who complained that his commanding officer would never be happy with his staff NCO's (of whom he was one) because the commander was always comparing his staff NCO’s with the first sergeant he served with in Vietnam (as a young lieutenant.) The first sergeant was larger than life to the young lieutenant (the firs sergeant was killed in combat) - and maintained that status in the mind of the lieutenant as he advanced. So that, when the lieutenant himself became a commanding officer- none of his staff could compare to the now-fictional first sergeant of his youth.
Thank you, Anonymous. When vigorous personalities are lost young, they acquire an almost deific status in our memories. After all, a memory can do no wrong; it is always only what we expect it to be. Real people can't compete with that.
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