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If you had admitted voting for his re-election to me at lunch I would have gotten up and left the table without saying a word. I can understand feeling this wa

by nkurz 9y ago

If you had admitted voting for his re-election to me at lunch I would have gotten up and left the table without saying a word. I can understand feeling this way, but do you see this as a response that improves the situation? Is your impulse to silent action just that it's easier than engaging, or is there a positive outcome of silently leaving that would not be also achieved by explaining your reasons for leaving? Engaging in a discussion of why you feel the way you do seems like it might have the best chance of a possible outcome. If their response is that are in favor of our behavior at Abu Graib that you despise, then I can understand giving up and leaving. (Ironically, this responseless post was voted below zero when I found it, and dead from user flagging when I tried to reply, which I think is equivalent to the "silently leaving" approach espoused by the author. I'd be interested to hear from those who flagged it why they did so.)

Eric_WVGG 9y ago
Thank you for responding. No. I don't think "just leaving" would have improved the situation. A screaming match and fists wouldn't have improved the situation either. American culture has found itself in this weird space where arguments that were supposedly settled in the last century are apparently still up for debate. In the case of torture, there are two questions at hand: One, does it work, and two, if it works, is its use defensible. Believing the first is ignorant; believing the second is inhumane. I don't see any sort of constructive middle ground or even argument to be had over such a basic conversation of good vs. evil. Since I spent most of 2004-2008 in a state of rage over the presence and defense of actual evil in a country and society that I love, I would not have had the self-control necessary to engage in a dialogue. So I would have left. (The down-voting was weird but predictable.)

by nkurz 9y ago

Eric_WVGG 9y ago

Thank you for responding. No. I don't think "just leaving" would have improved the situation. A screaming match and fists wouldn't have improved the situation either. American culture has found itself in this weird space where arguments that were supposedly settled in the last century are apparently still up for debate. In the case of torture, there are two questions at hand: One, does it work, and two, if it works, is its use defensible. Believing the first is ignorant; believing the second is inhumane. I don't see any sort of constructive middle ground or even argument to be had over such a basic conversation of good vs. evil. Since I spent most of 2004-2008 in a state of rage over the presence and defense of actual evil in a country and society that I love, I would not have had the self-control necessary to engage in a dialogue. So I would have left. (The down-voting was weird but predictable.)