Cries for Civility Ignore Disgusting Reality Created by Freeloading Bullies

Today's entry will consist of a few things that I've encountered on the Internet in the media that provide some insight into our culture and the human condition during partisan times.

My first entry for consideration: "Democracy Is a Blessing: Phatic Ritual and the Public Sphere in Northeast Brazil".

The essay gets fairly academic. However, "Democracy Is a Blessing. . ." provides some interesting perspective that Brazilians may have forgotten in the last decade or so. The essay might help us innovate some ideas and practices to address some parts of our existential crisis. Frankly, I might characterize a fair amount of people in the GOP and Trump supporters as White Supremacist deplorables. A lot of them also people might have what George Lakoff calls Authoritarian Hierarchical Personalities that feel frustrated at the levelling off of relations between people, the generations, etc. etc.

A lot of this thinking on my part comes from hearing Baby Boomers complaining that younger generations showing too much familiarity, not enough respect, expecting the world from the people around them, and not paying their dues. At the same time, though, most older generations on their way out make this complaint about the generations under them. Even elder politicians told Barack Obama, a late Baby Boomer, that he should wait his turn as Obama clawed his way to the top (for a podcast version of Obama's story, check out WBEZ's Making Obama series).

Read enough about politics and businesses, and you'll run into younger generations "not paying their dues" or "not waiting their turn". At the same time, the younger generations complain that older people are "keeping them down" or "not teaching them how things work".

The United States definitely has proven an interesting testing ground for the tensions between tradition and progress, conservatism and liberalism, young and old, hierarchy and informality. This country has also acted as a Person on the Frontier trying to act as the City on the Hill, a youngish country ignoring its tradition while trying to create and "protect" its tradition (read up on the Magna Carta, An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown, and you'll see where some of our traditions and Constitutional Amendments come from!).

I appreciate the tension between the slackening of formality and the phatic demonstrations of less digital people in the world. Lately I've wondered if this country's focus so much on growth and efficiency has led to people enjoying each other less and trying to avoid human interaction as it gets in the way of improvement and accomplishment. At the same time, I'm probably the person most likely to complain about people interrupting me and how much of my day goes into interacting with people.

Maybe my appreciation of that tension comes from a yearning of more connection with people in real time, hoping for more experience of positive emotion, not just guilt at not accomplishing as much as I should have. Even before a study pointed out loneliness as a public health crisis, my mind had fixated more on the rational fact that I need to connect with people for my health, to fend off bad health, not necessarily because of some authentic, instinctual gregariousness.

All of which feels like a ruminating transition to an interesting discussion on an episode of the NPR Individisible limited series podcast (not associated with the "grassroots" political organization by the same name). Kerri Miller (NPR host in Minnesota) hosted the episode, trying to focus on and understand how partisanship since 2016 has built walls and has created so much tension.

A portion of the episode explored our sense of what we consider the sacred (or inviolable) lines that we think others shouldn't cross. Amongst family, friends, co-workers, strangers on the streets, people we meet in bars, etc. we cross each others' line, working ourselves up when we learn someone else has voted for Trump or Hillary, how they feel about immigration, their thoughts on capitalism or socialism, abortion, and so many things now.

I have a criticism for these kinds of discussions by the media about the loss of civility. The pundits that just want civility and peace don't appreciate that these situations cause real harm. The discussions don't, but the events and interactions that create these topics do. People who need asylum because of horrible conditions behind them get turned away, leaving them with nowhere to go (after the United States swore never again after World War II, when the country turned away Jewish people trying to escape the Holocaust). Just yesterday, after the shooting at UNC Charleston, I wondered if shootings and hate crimes would soon become an everyday experience. Will we bat a lash at a White Supremacy act of terrorism next year?

Finding some kind of ritual or set of gestures that could diffuse tensions and glue together social bonds would do a great service for this country. At the same time, my readings into evolutionary anthropological morality shows that these tensions and conlfict has existed from day one of human existence, and maybe even longer before that. The Republicans since at least Reagan like to complain about freeloading welfare cheats, just sucking up our taxes. A theory that has just started revealing itself to me today has argued that bullies act as a type of freeloader, too. How did older societies regulate freeloading on the bottom and at top? Shame, which most of us seem to wield as a weapon until someone picks up a physical weapon or explosive (even though in more serious cases, people would be expelled from society or even killed).

Suffice to say, the United States has some serious issues that people need to talk about and resolve (and possibly more). Good will and faith needs exercising, but the will, faith, and civility can't come at the cost of actually discussing the issues to resolve them in a way that uses facts, truth, real respect, and kindness.

Because right now, we have people in positions of power that look to push into reality found community causes like Dominionism that seeks to "redistribute the wealth up to priests" and to make the United States into a Christian theocracy. One person with a powerful political position that believes in Dominionism: Ted Cruz. Just take a look at this video of Ted's father, Rafael Cruz, give a speech about how Ted will further the cause of Dominionism (first few seconds is part of the speech, then you have to wait a bit to get back to the speech, but these other parts provide some further context):



I just became exposed to Dominionism today. It has helped make a lot more sense of Trump's administration to me.

We really need to get our act together, fellow country people. The freeloading of bullies needs to stop.

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