![]() He’s a mass shooter who came to Kenosha looking for trouble and found it, and when confronted for it took the cowardly way out. Let’s take the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who was captured on video shooting three people, killing two of them, during the protests against the Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin. They just push us toward less understanding of our foes, while failing to sway the opinions of others toward our viewpoint, and most unmistakably, provoking the fierce defensiveness of those opponents. ![]() These are usually subtle distortions of the truth, and they don’t in fact serve us the way we have intended. We’re constantly nudged one way or the other in our interpretation of the intentions and the motivations of those we disagree with, and when we add up all those little nudges, it puts us on the other side of a vast gulf. ![]() And what creates this danger is our constant habit of viewing the actions of our opponents in the worst possible light in order to achieve our full moral separation our maintenance of the view of ourselves as in the right, and them in the wrong. This felt, and still feels, like the most dangerous moment for our country that I have ever experienced, at least in my half a lifetime. The horrific shooting of Jacob Blake set off a renewed wave of protests, in which the ultimate price has been paid by supporters of each side. Following a cycle of increasing polarization for decades on end, and the violent paroxysms of the past few months, the last week of August into September was a soul-rending chain of unmitigated pain. The events in Wisconsin late last month, I think, truly made our collective heart ache.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |