Your Mother Wears Combat Boots

Last week's post -- Neighborhood Bars --  got a little more attention than my usual boring analysis of the latest macroeconomic data. To me it was illuminating -- not what I said but how some of you reacted to it. I learned a couple things from the interchange.

First, most of us do agree that we don't like the current hypersensitive situation, and we actually do agree that excessive ideological reactions to one another are not helpful when it comes to solving our myriad, deep, and complicated economic and social problems. Look back at some of the posted comments and you will see what I mean. We are not so far apart. We really would like to see a more rational and objective approach to our challenges.

Second, despite the above, we are locked and loaded and ready to explode if a mouse walks into the room. We are ideological. And that is neither bad nor unusual. Even if we are what one might call a "moderate," some of our views might be less moderate. Maybe the abortion issue is your thing and you believe strongly that no one can dictate a woman's choices. You might be less extreme on taxes or utility regulation but if someone dares to challenge a woman's right to abort, then out come the pistols.

Even moderates hold strong views on some issues. And then there are some people who are not moderates and find that many of their views line up with what we call progressives and conservatives.

This means that despite agreement on many things, most of us are ready to "go off" if some unsuspecting fool says one word that challenges our beliefs. Worse yet, we really believe that person is a fool and possibly a bad enough person that they do not warrant an argument. Why waste time with someone so ignorant and mean? So what's our approach?

We are mad at an offensive thing that person said and since that person is beyond redemption, we start calling them names. "Your mother wears combat boots!" (Women in combat boots can be pretty sexy so I'm not sure why this is a negative thing to say.) And then we are off and running. Once we call them a name -- the easiest and most direct thing to do is to respond in kind and call them an even worse name. Woowee. What fun.

I doubt that this behavior is new to America or anywhere else. As I tried to say in last week's Neighborhood Bars, what's different now is that we have a lot of really big problems -- problems that really bother us. We are frustrated by the persistence of these problems. They are also problems that are not easy to resolve. There is very much wrong with an exclusively progressive solution so that gives the conservatives a lot of firepower. Of course, there is also something wrong with an exclusively conservative approach, so that makes progressives ready to jump on conservative suggestions.

Big problems. Complicated solutions. An opening to criticize the other guys. And then the fight breaks out.

To me the answer is simple. Go find someone of the opposite stripe and hug her/him.

Just kidding. The answer is respect and education. Open your mind to the need for multi-ideological approaches to complicated problems. Think about what you want to say before you open your yap. If you disagree with your crazy progressive son, find a way to disagree that shows respect for his views. Try to understand why people who ordinarily love each other would disagree. Put yourself in their shoes and try to understand why they hold a different view. Hmm, maybe it is possible to learn from each other!

I know what you are saying. Larry is in the JD sauce again. And maybe I am. Maybe today I am more of a dreamer than a realist. Maybe we will never escape all this ugliness. But then maybe it is possible for people to be respectful and try to learn about hard things by being exposed to opposing views. I don't know. You tell me.