The back-up position is, "OK, what he literally said was that there were fine people on both sides of the debate over whether to dismantle all symbols of the Confederacy. But even if that's true, anyone who opposes dismantled a Confederate symbol is just the same as a neo-Nazi, right? Ergo, he said Nazis who run down and kill people with their cars were fine people."
Yes, I'm not quite sure how to push back against this kind of what Jeremy McLellan described so well as "bargaining" (link to Twitchy) except perhaps to point out that that is what someone is doing. I don't imagine doing so will have much effect but it's worth a try.
Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible?
Lewis goes on to say:
If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything -- God and our friends and ourselves included -- as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.
2 comments:
The back-up position is, "OK, what he literally said was that there were fine people on both sides of the debate over whether to dismantle all symbols of the Confederacy. But even if that's true, anyone who opposes dismantled a Confederate symbol is just the same as a neo-Nazi, right? Ergo, he said Nazis who run down and kill people with their cars were fine people."
Yes, I'm not quite sure how to push back against this kind of what Jeremy McLellan described so well as "bargaining" (link to Twitchy) except perhaps to point out that that is what someone is doing. I don't imagine doing so will have much effect but it's worth a try.
Or one could try C.S. Lewis' question :
Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible?
Lewis goes on to say:
If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything -- God and our friends and ourselves included -- as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.
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