White Fragility

[Michael Slusser]

Do YOU justify . . . .

Gee, on a Lutheran forum I didn't expect to hear that! 

Peace,
Michael

[Terry W Culler]

In fact I do equate the new Left in America with Nazis and Communists of the past.  Did you happen to note the response to the open letter signed by many journalists, writers, professors, etc. condemning the modern "cancel culture"?  There was a new letter published by so-called journalists defending the silencing of opposing viewpoints.  These people are not liberals, they are thugs who seek an authoritarian system in which they govern the rest of us.  If anyone can't see that they are like the capitalists that Lenin said would sell them the rope with which they would be hanged.  Saying these people are just part of some "movement" and the fringe at that is no more effective than saying that because the Bolsheviks were a small group they couldn't possibly take over Russia.  Paraphrasing George Santayana, those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it.

[D. Engebretson]

The "Cancel Culture," like the pervasive labeling, will have a chilling effect on the very dialogue people think should happen.  Eventually, real dialogue (not just shouting back and force - 'you are right, you are wrong') will go silent and all we will hear is the current politically correct speech, however it is defined at the moment. And with the need to dig deep into people's past (sometimes going back decades into one's youth) to find potentially offensive material to exploit, you will have yet another reason for people to withdraw from the public realm.  Now I do not believe people should have absolute free reign to publish and broadcast deliberately hurtful and hateful speech.  But the disagreements we have in the public square are not all about hateful and hurtful speech. Yet the substance of those honest disagreements is being lost in the rhetoric that seeks to shame those with differing opinions and views.  Forcing apologies and acts of humiliation, even for perceived wrongs done by others, only shuts everything down.  We stop talking and just find safe ways to agree with whoever is yelling the loudest.

[D. Engebretson]

In fact I do equate the new Left in America with Nazis and Communists of the past.  Did you happen to note the response to the open letter signed by many journalists, writers, professors, etc. condemning the modern "cancel culture"?  There was a new letter published by so-called journalists defending the silencing of opposing viewpoints.  These people are not liberals, they are thugs who seek an authoritarian system in which they govern the rest of us.  If anyone can't see that they are like the capitalists that Lenin said would sell them the rope with which they would be hanged.  Saying these people are just part of some "movement" and the fringe at that is no more effective than saying that because the Bolsheviks were a small group they couldn't possibly take over Russia.  Paraphrasing George Santayana, those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it.

A commentary echoing some of your ideas.  Interesting parallels.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/remember-the-red-guards-before-you-cheer-the-woke-mobs/

[Voelker]

real dialogue (not just shouting back and force - 'you are right, you are wrong') will go silent and all we will hear is the current politically correct speech, however it is defined at the moment.

I'd love to have the time (or find someone who does) to dig back into the archives and pull out every old call for "dialog(ue)" — my bet is that at least 50% of those calls turn out to have been, "dialog until the majority gives in and starts saying what we say", usually through exhaustion or force (perhaps you can think of examples of this "death by a thousand cuts" within organizations). Another study would be to see which things were claimed would never happen but which have become orthodoxy today; if a consistent pattern can be found, we would then have a good way to accurately predict what the next few pushes of the envelope will be.

[Terry W Culler]

I'm not at all sure that preventing "hateful and hurtful speech" is even defensible.  Who defines what is hateful and hurtful.  Who then gets to determine what can be accepted and what rejected?  There are lots of folks of seem to think that quoting the Scripture is hateful and hurtful, how would we then prevent the harnessing of the Gospel?  Bad ideas will generally fail in the public arena, but the arena must be a place where things can be debated and argued about.  What is going on today is an attempt to make America a great big echo chamber in which only approved speech is acceptable and all else must be stymied.  That isn't America and never has been and, pray God, never will be.  But I'm very afraid that my grandchildren will have to live in that world.

[James_Gale]

And I thought, Pastor Culler, I was pessimistic!
Do you have any confidence in the general population? Do you believe that we are decent enough people to turn aside the worst of the extreme whether they are on the right on the left? Do you have any confidence that our ability to vote, to electro our leaders, give us a chance to do these things? I like to think that we are a decent enough people to turn aside the worst of the worst.
But, going back into the pessimistic mode, we have a (Sort of) majority party attempting to limit voting rights, to rule by executive order, to lie and lie and lie until more people begin to believe the Big Lie, encourage the racists among us, rewrite history, ignore constitutional limits and see  that convicted criminals who are friends of the big leader don't have to pay for their crimes. 
In my view, knowing that I could be wrong, the people in the streets protesting those aspects of our life. I believe the first affect will be on the vote this November.
If the general population by a large majority affirms what has happened in the last three years, then I believe we have a different, and much more dangerous situation. I try to hold on my optimism, and the view that as a whole we are not going to do that.
P.S. WJV seems to be bothered when Dialogue brings others around to a new opinion that becomes the majority. Sorry, but I thought that's how things worked. People can be convinced that they should change their mind. (I know that sounds terrible to some people here.)
WJV fears that people may change because of "exhaustion," or because they tire of the discussion.
If we are that morally and intellectually weak as a people, then, sad to say, we deserve what happens to us.
Sincerely Yours for optimism and trust in the American public,
The Humble Correspondent.

Wow. 


Your litany of complaints against Republicans includes a few half-truths, some rhetorical frills, and several dollops of bunk.  It's the kind of statement that is all too common in a world in which nuance and sophistication are shunned.  As a result, the insults hurled about generally apply at least as fairly to the hurler's own party as to the intended target.


Here is your diatribe with notes showing how it could be read:  "we have a (Sort of) majority party (the Democrats who won the so-called popular vote in the last presidential election and a majority of votes for House candidates in both 2016 and 2018?) attempting to limit voting rights (by eliminating safeguards against rampant voter fraud), to rule by executive order (President Obama--"I have a phone and a pen"--was a master at this), to lie and lie and lie until more people begin to believe the Big Lie (If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  We did not lie to the FISA court about Christopher Steele.  We did not prosecute General Flynn for lying even though our records show we knew that he had not lied.  Oh, and we're sorry that we somehow forgot to produce the documents proving all this.), encourage the racists among us (The whole critical race theory approach now in its ascendancy is racist to its core), rewrite history (The Democrats are rewriting history now and are proud of it.  They don't even hide what they're doing.), ignore constitutional limits (The Democrats are actively subverting First Amendment freedoms of religion and speech.  They are trying to impose authoritarian and extraconstitutional overlords by creating unaccountable agencies like the CFPB) and see  that convicted criminals who are friends of the big leader don't have to pay for their crimes (Hillary)."

So your diatribe works against Trump.  It works against Obama/Biden.  But it's unhelpful and fundamentally dishonest.  At your advanced age, and with your extensive experience, you should know better.

As for your claim that we should trust the general population, that's not really the problem.  (Although a general population for a time can support or at least abide very wrong policies and practices.  That's precisely why the principles from the Declaration of Independence are enshrined in our Constitution, to protect individuals from the whims of the majority.)  Rather, the problem is that the mob now is having great success at canceling those who dare to support free-speech rights or anything else that it decides to label as racist.  If you don't understand the threat posed by this, and what can come of it, you truly have not paid attention to history.

[Brian Stoffregen]

I've been thinking about the U.S. population and the normal distribution curve. If we consider neutral to be the center and extra-extreme right and extra-extreme left to be 4 standard deviations from neutral, our 328 million population ends up theoretically divided like this:


4sd Left 442,800
3sd Left 7,019,200
2sd Left 44,575,200
1sd Left 111,962,800
1sd Right 111,962,800
2sd Right 44,575,200
3sd Right 7,019,200
4sd Right 442,800


It may be that the 0.27% of the population at the extreme ends are causing nearly all the problems. It's still a large number of people: 885,600, but a small percentage of the whole population.


If our population is somewhat "normal," about 2/3rds (68.27%) of us are 1 standard deviation from the "neutral" or we might say, slightly right or slightly left. If we add in those who are 2 standard deviations from the "neutral," we might call the moderate right and moderate left folks, these two groups would be 95.45% of the population. Those at the extreme ends are only about 0.5% of the population, but they are likely to get most of the attention.

[Voelker]

P.S. WJV seems to be bothered when Dialogue brings others around to a new opinion that becomes the majority. Sorry, but I thought that's how things worked. People can be convinced that they should change their mind. (I know that sounds terrible to some people here.)


WJV fears that people may change because of "exhaustion," or because they tire of the discussion. If we are that morally and intellectually weak as a people, then, sad to say, we deserve what happens to us.


Sincerely Yours for optimism and trust in the American public,
The Humble Correspondent.

More unvarnished drivel from your keyboard. What do we have here: the well-worn "fear" trope, the "look at the weaklings" canard, and the refusal to see that this tactic has been used over and over again by radicals bent on taking over organizations and, now, the nation. Look at your own church body — the answer was no, no, and no again on all manner of issue, but here it comes again, year after year, with enough resisters finally wearing out, dying, or leaving, leaving things in the hands of people who would not take no for an answer, but had to have their way, no matter the consequences ("We had to destroy the village to save it" comes to mind). You might think I'm blaming those pushing for what they want — and I do, in that they're invariably wrong — but the real blame is on the leadership who refused to say, "The answer is no. Now go away and bother someone else or get in line with what we actually believe, teach, and confess." As annoying as Trump can be, whatever blame that can legitimately be attached to him (and there's plenty), he's (amazingly) at least trying to play the adult in the room — but the squalling of the infants at his every move is deafening, it increases daily, and if you can't hear it, you should get your ears checked.

[Voelker]

WJV:
Look at your own church body — the answer was no, no, and no again on all manner of issue, but here it comes again, year after year, with enough resisters finally wearing out, dying, or leaving, leaving things in the hands of people who would not take no for an answer, but had to have their way, no matter the consequences.
Me:
Your premise is that what was being sought was wrong. My premise is that it wasn't. And there you are.
Again, I recall the struggle I mentioned upstream to get women the vote in England and in this country. It took decades. It took going back again and again, to legislators, the states, to the public, to anyone in the federal government, and asking again and again, and using the democratic process again and again until the right thing was done. And on occasion, along the way things got a little impolite and rough.
What will it take to ensure better equality of opportunity, of experience, and better access to the blessings of this land for everyone in it? It's going to take some changes, and some of the changes might seem radical to today's mind.
And some people exposing those changes might not act as politely as you want them to act.
There are some here, I believe, who have such a pathological hatred of liberals, or Democrats that they will excuse almost anything done by people the perceive to be on "their side."
List the lies by the president and they say " No big deal, everybody lies."
Point out the foolishness of the president, and they say "well, he will appoint the supreme court judges as we like."
And so it goes...

Wow.

[Voelker]

WJV writes:
Wow.
I comment:
I'll take that as a yes.
You're welcome.

It's a massive no. Your posts are childlike in the worst ways, and the stances you defend are tribal and have nothing to do with principles or general beliefs. Keep your poison to yourself.

[Dan Fienen]

Once again, I learn the irritation and futility of "discussing" with a nameless someone who can call me names and mock my comments and the church body I serve from behind the cowardly cloak of anonymity.
I'll try to be done here.

Pastor Fienen:Fringe elements regularly call us racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and other pathologies, can't we call them unrealistic or uninformed?Me:Call them whatever you want. But rather than calling them anything, why not take their complaints seriously? Why not stick to dialogue? Why not say, well you're over there and we're over here how can we move closer together? It's almost playground language to say "Wah wah! He called me a bad name!" And then say you're not gonna play with him anymore.This is more serious than a playground spat. You keep looking for reasons not to have dialogue, you keep not taking other's complaint seriously, that's not good.NoW you are about to respond, "but they do it too!" Boring. We have to move beyond that. Maybe you could be the one party to do it.But I doubt it.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Once again, I learn the irritation and futility of "discussing" with a nameless someone who can call me names and mock my comments and the church body I serve from behind the cowardly cloak of anonymity.
I'll try to be done here.

Pastor Fienen:Fringe elements regularly call us racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and other pathologies, can't we call them unrealistic or uninformed?Me:Call them whatever you want. But rather than calling them anything, why not take their complaints seriously? Why not stick to dialogue? Why not say, well you're over there and we're over here how can we move closer together? It's almost playground language to say "Wah wah! He called me a bad name!" And then say you're not gonna play with him anymore.This is more serious than a playground spat. You keep looking for reasons not to have dialogue, you keep not taking other's complaint seriously, that's not good.NoW you are about to respond, "but they do it too!" Boring. We have to move beyond that. Maybe you could be the one party to do it.But I doubt it.

When name calling hooks the "reptilian brain," there can be no more discussion. The rational mind has shut down. The defensive mind is in control. It fights back or withdraws. It doesn't engage in dialogue. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it. If the name doesn't fit, don't accept it. Don't let it bother you.

[Voelker]

Once again, I learn the irritation and futility of "discussing" with a nameless someone who can call me names and mock my comments and the church body I serve from behind the cowardly cloak of anonymity.
I'll try to be done here.

You were called no names, then whine about being called names, finally turning to calling names yourself. Nice. Yes, your posts and the stances you take are identified for what they are. You? No. You're (on this board) a set of pixels, just like everyone else on this board. Until you learn that you (on this board) don't matter, that your claimed experiences don't matter, that your opinions don't matter, but only actually defending the stances you take by making reasoned arguments instead of running off feigning injury time and again, your posts will continue to have no value. Do you care about your church body? Defend it through means other than saying, "We're right, live with it." Do you care about the posts you make? Then have the common decency to pay attention to editing and formatting while using the quote function, all in the service of providing clear, understandable, defensible arguments that are more than today's political talking points. Do you have a position you'd like to convince others of? Then give that a try for once — you might be surprised at the results and what you learn from thinking through your position and working to explain it. You could start by trying to defend as right the taking over of organizations from within with the full intent of subverting and overturning the beliefs and teachings of those organizations.

And, Pastor Fienen: spot on.

[Coach-Rev]

Dr. King broke laws and got arrested.
No, I don't think he would approve of the violence. But, As I tried to explain, a movement may have many sides.
Pastor Cottingham, you (not surprisingly) miss the point. And when you have something to say other than to call me insane; when you show any indication that you can comment on the heart of the matter, maybe I'll consider responding.
Hint: the heart of the matter is not African Americans violence against others of their race.

If you'd bother to do your homework, you would find quotes from MLK in which he condemned violence.
I got your point precisely.  You, as usual, miss mine, in that there is a broader issue here that you choose to ignore.  And also as usual, you twist the words as I did not call you insane, but your thinking.  For a so-called wordsmith, you sure twist things to say that which was not said.

And finally, you'll "consider responding?"  Yeah, the very post I am replying to shows you can't even follow your own rules. 

and now enough responding to you.  You clearly are not worth my time, since you can't even be troubled to look up things that MLK ACTUALLY said.