Response to blogger, Sharing is Good (25 Dec. 2008)
The way to communicate with those who vote conservative, who believe the whole environment-thing is overdone, who think those who would oppose the war in Afghanistan are essentially traitors, etc., is to find a way to like them, to respect them.
How is this possible? The old way of thinking of them as primarily in need of our cavalier attacks on the media that manipulates, uses them, allowed us to mostly focus our attention of their/our collective enemies -- we didn't really have to face up to the fact that we likely thought their tastes, their company-- *them* -- kind of disgusting, we really didn't have to look at them. And so now as some on the left begin to acknowledge that the problem is somehow in the "sheeple" as much as in the "shephards," the left is left with only the knee-jerk response -- "What the fuck is wrong with you people!" --and so we think of national collapse, and hope that the beasts who voted in Harper "enjoy" the hell on earth he will surely provide them with.
If we take a longer, less self-deceptive look at the broad populace, if we allow ourselves to understand ourselves as democratic, with democratic sympathies, while still overtly assessing them in what might easily be made to seem an aristocratic way (i.e., that they are by constituion not as healthy as we are), we can move toward loving and respecting those who would still support Harper, regardless of how often the "Tyee" found its way onto their porches. You'll see in their eyes and their demeanor--they have not known the love we have known. They are the results of childhoods involving a considerable amount of fear and sadism. AND, almost no matter how damaged, how limited their ability to love is, we'll see that they likely still possess the ability to read in other peoples' eyes, true respect. They're not much used to such a response; they'll likely think they probably don't deserve it; but they'll love us for it. And, eventually, as we listen to them with more true respect than we hereto have managed, they'll better listen and attend to our stories, too.
That, in my judgment, is the way to get to them, SharingIsGood. But the truth is, if your childhood was garbage, there's only so much growth possible. Tactically, as always, you've got to get to the children. May every well tempered, progressive person, go into education.
And have kids (though not too many, lest they experience abandonment issues -- one or two will do, nicely).
Link: The Tyee