I thought you were from Australia.

Haha! Now I really have to know why you'd think that!

Probably because of your icon, the scenery looks Australian.

Well, at least this is funny.

I was remembering how someone brought in an onion article to my Lesbian Psych and Lit class. The piece was about "college lesbianism."

The professor was horrified by the writing...and then we realized that she thought that the Onion was factual accountable journalism.

How do I make sure that I don't become an academic totally out of touch with reality? Acutally, how do I know that hasn't already happened to me, like, since I was born.
I think I'm doomed.

It's really amazing the way the current administration (or whatever you want to call it, the media, the spin machine, something) has poisoned people against each other, isn't it? I thought it was just a function of Fox News hysteria when I first heard it. But this is why I don't like talking about politics. Kerry had a point that he could have used for when he said it's time for us to get away from labels and start focusing on problems and how we can fix them. So maybe that's what I would pose to the people who immediately start by using that term. What is liberal? How does it help or hurt the real, serious problems at hand? How is "liberal" ultimately different from "nigger" or "Protestant"?

Ok, that might be a little over the top. But you know what I'm saying?

I don't think it's over the top - I've heard it both ways, with "conservative" and "liberal" being the Nazi word (the word we give to a group that we believe to be utterly wrong).

This comes on the heels of my reading about the battle between the blue (ethnocentric, conservative) and green (worldcentric, liberal) memes in American politics. One is not more right than the other - the green meme is an evolved form of the blue meme, but the blue meme must be in place to facilitate growth to the green. It's a lot to take in at once.

Where are you reading about these cool colored memes?

Sounds like complex adaptive system stuff. You need factors that preserve and factors that innovate. Reminds me of The Global Brain by Howard Bloom. Here is an excerpt about Sparta and Athens.

Globalization scares the shit out of people. You can hear it whenever their is talk about the US giving up its right to protect itself to another country. But there are too many worldwide connections to ignore the coming integration.

Now I have to send you the book - I should be done with it very shortly :-)

The book is Boomeritis - you can read more about the spiral dynamics theory of cultural memes at these places:

http://www.spiraldynamics.net/
http://www.spiraldynamics.com/

Ah, the guy talking about deconstructionism?

I'll look into it.

Heh... a review says it's the theory of everything... I hate it when they throw around sensational rhetoric like that. No system is that comprehensive.

Well - it is pretty goddamn comprehensive. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Yeah well... People have always tried to have the final word. Incompleteness being what it is no one ever has the last word. Ptolemy was pretty damned comprehensive too.

Especially for someone who's used to believing only Bill O'Reilly tells the truth. (Did you read any of that link CK had about the harrassment allegations? Ew.)

Where did you read about this green/blue meme theory? It's interesting.

Wait a minute. I saw. Thank you.

This is the reason why I rarely talk politics with people who I don't know if they are Republicans or Democrats. Poltics is like religion - it's one of those subjects that people tend to just close their minds about once they've made up their opinions.

I really hate everything about this election - the way it has divided our country and made us stupid.

However, I think you're giving Bush way too much credit here. Bush has been a divisive president, but people were just as opinionated and fixed in their opinions during the Clinton Administration as they are now. It's the nature of politics that makes it near impossible to talk rationally about, not any one politician.

Unfortunately, with their biting campaign ads, politicians make the problem worse, not better.

This thing is so out of hand, that there are small partisan conspiracies going on all over the place: people stealing/destroying registration cards, party offices being broken into and vandalized, etc. I heard a rumor that this thing is getting so out of control and has the country so divided that it has the potential to shift us into a civil war. Dunno if I believe that, but it certainly isn't easy to stomach anymore. (This coming from a guy who is more removed from politics than ANYBODY. Can't imagine how upset people must be who are actually following the campaigns.)

Have a conversation with Nathan some time, because at least then we're all specific enough to be explaining what our problems with each other are, rather than our associated (Liberal/Moderate/Conservative/Bavarian Anti-Pope) groups.

"Damnant quod non intelligunt"

"Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis"

My advice to you is to never read Concepts of History by Walter Benjamin. Or is it?


Also? At least you get to vote.

First of all, some election amusement for you: JibJab. "This Land" is funnier, but "Good to be in DC" is also amusing.

Secondly, as I formed my own political opinions, I began to hate the party system for several reasons: It makes it way too easy for idiots to identify themselves as members of party X and then blindly vote for their party's candidate without actually paying attention to that candidate's stance on various issues; it makes it far too easy to demonize the opposing party (the "all liberals are evil/stupid/" attitude that you've been running into as well as its flip side, both of which I see far too often); and, as you've pointed out, its potential to divide our country. I don't think politics is intrinsically depressing, divisive, and pointless; it's the party system and, more specifically, the two-party system that encourages us to pick a side and hold it against all comers, promoting divisiveness within a nation.

Thirdly, I live with an open-minded conservative, and discussing politics with him has given me some interesting insights, as well as proving that possibilities for reasonable discourse between liberals and conservatives does exist. You're right in saying that it's difficult to find a Republican who won't immediately condemn Democrats, but I've spoken to many Democrats whose minds are just as closed against Republicans.

You're not alone in finding this election frustrating and depressing. And I honestly think that a big part of why this election is so divisive is due to W's refusal to compromise with anyone unless forced to do so since he took office. He hasn't precisely fostered an atmosphere of open-mindedness and tolerance of opposing viewpoints in the past four years.

I think it all started going down hill when immediately after claiming that he would be a healing president that would close the divides in the country, Bush made it a point to vet people for appointments by asking if they were a Republican or a Democrat and who they voted for in the last election. Not cool and I doubt that is even legal up here.

I don't have a problem with Republicans, just the so-called Moral Majority, the only minority that claims it's the majority. The only good news is that if Bush wins the election, there's a chance he'll rip the Republican party apart in the next four years, and you might see the rise of a credible third party... or not.

However, there was an interesting UK article about Bush.

Interesting indeed. That article outlines a theory I hadn't heard put forth before. Not that W isn't scary enough without mental instability...

"Moral Majority". Excellent descriptor. I'll have to remember that. And I think the problem with the Republican party is that it has come to stand for that "moral majority", especially with Baby Bush at its head. Perhaps all the party needs is a change of leadership. Well... a radical change of leadership.

Then again, a new or currently marginal party rising from the ashes of the Republicans' self-destruction wouldn't make me unhappy, either.

In addendum to your frustration, I would like to add an account of my own.

It displeases me to no end that, after carefully weaving a neat flow of logic, a conservative reduces it all to "a clever spin on the issue."

Again, another problem with the unevolved conservative meme-plex, which acknowledges that they create reality according to faith, and there is nothing to be gained from reasonable inquiry.