![]() ![]() I don’t feel the need to announce my criticism every time he says or does something I disagree with. And I factor that into my expectations with regard to his conduct. Like your view that you acknowledge Trump when he deserves it, I condemn Trump when I think he deserves it.īut at the same time I have a bit of a different view of who Trump is, and how he came to be the way he is. So, when I read your post, and consider myself included in the “followers”, I’m therefore stand accused of “excusing his rampant lying.” But I’ve done no such thing. That’s a distinction that’s not obvious in the language you have chosen to employ. Or do you not equate “followers” with those - like me - who support his actions in office? You say those who support Trump’s actions in office “excuse his rampant lying”. It’s the gratuitous slaps - where none is really necessary to the point being made - that gives rise to the incivility in response. Its kind of like listening to my wife deliver a 10 minute flood of emotion and distill it down to “she’d like me to walk the dog more often” rather than arguing point by point over all the “you nevers” and “always” steveg (a9dcab) -ħ - Steveg has it exactly right IMO. Maybe the better thing for me to do is to be measured in my writing, but probably more importantly, mentally strike words by re-reading a post and dropping all the nonsense. I’ve been writing like I speak for over half a century and unless I really tighten the screws of discipline it creeps out. I know that I can’t do it… can’t take my own advice. Sometimes to have a reasoned, measured civil conversation we have to be a little boring. We all know politicians lie, you feel Trump lies more than even that low bar standard, so you use the word rampant. “rampant lies” Its my opinion that arguments get started over words like rampant, not over the word lies. Its your post so I’m going to take a slice for illustration purposes only. I think one of the ways we get in trouble is when we have a little fun and add a flourish. He decries Donald Trump in the fiercest terms possible, but he is willing to have a polite conversation with anyone about that or any other topic. I hope to be civil in the way Sam Harris is civil. If that’s what you’re taking from this, you’re not getting it. Like the last time I announced a similar commitment, this announcement can easily be misunderstood as a declaration that I will no longer criticize Donald Trump or something. But a commitment to try ensures that I’ll try harder. I am not perfect and my adherence to this commitment will not be perfect. ![]() I’m going to again recommit to trying to have civil conversations without engaging in the type of behavior that derails it. It’s another reason I like listening to Harris. But that’s another discussion.) So Harris believes that the left and Trump are both destroying civil conversation. He once tried to speak with Jordan Peterson, and a two-hour conversation was completely hijacked by Harris’s inability to get past Peterson’s odd concept of truth as a malleable concept whose meaning somehow depends on its evolutionary value. (Truth is important to Harris, and to me. He also makes the point elsewhere that Donald Trump, together with any followers of his who excuse his rampant lying, is also helping to destroy civil conversation by removing the concept of truth from the tools of meaningful discourse. (He made the point in the context of decrying the left’s tendency to reject conversation by using threats and violence to shut people up.) As I recently listened to an older Sam Harris podcast, I heard him make the point that “all we have is conversation.” In other words, to change things, we either have force or we have conversation. ![]()
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