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One of the motivators for shutting down public dialogue about certain hot-button cultural and political issues is that some positions are so weak that they are intellectually indefensible. The political Left-wing has frequently staked out positions that are entirely centered around emotions and emotional reactions to the various things that get left wingers riled up nowadays. It's kind of odd that the party of "science" is also the party of sloppy, overwrought emoting.
One example of this is illegal immigration, which is a hot-button issue indeed. Frankly, I think a lot of Trump's rhetoric on the topic gave ammo to his detractors, who blame all opposition to legal immigration on simple racism. Doubtless, many racists don't want to see the demographics of the country changed by a massive flood of humans illegally entering the country, but there are other, perfectly sane, logical, and non-hate based reasons to oppose illegal immigration.
One of these reasons include the fact that employers can undercut the wages of citizens by hiring illegal immigrants for less money. The labor movement in this country fought, often literally, for better wages and conditions for working people, which allowed the working class to enjoy better pay and working conditions. This costs their employers money, so of course business owners who are able to hire illegal immigrants and make them work long hours in poor conditions American workers won't tolerate is great for them. That's why the Chamber of Commerce wants to throw open the borders and both Republicans and Democrats eager for corporate money want to keep the cheap labor force flowing.
The arguments they've put forth for their encouragement of illegal immigration, that it is somehow based on compassion and being the right thing to do, is simply malarkey designed to give people an excuse to virtue signal and ignore real working-class concerns. The bottom line in this, as in many things, is financial.
Arguments that this or that position is inherently virtuous while an opposing stance is inherently evil is a way of framing the debate that more-or-less is designed to shut down all opposing views. In essence, the argument devolves to either you agree with me or you are literally Hitler, so shut up, racist.
The entry of biological men into women's sports and other formerly private spaces is another example of a topic that has become verboten by insisting that anyone who has an opposing view to the mainstream left's position is a hateful, evil person who must be shamed into silence. I have a nuanced view of transgenderism, in that I think people should be allowed to live the lives they find authentic. If that includes people of one sex living as members of another, it's not really my business and I wish them well.
Still, biological sex is a fact of life, and insisting that it isn't is not a very useful or truthful position. There are physical differences between the bodies of men and women, physiological differences that can be altered in appearance but not truly in function. That the party of "Science" denies this in order to protect the feelings of sensitive humans could be considered compassionate by some, but I'm not sure that it really is. The official and very loud transgender movement is not really something I support, especially when biological men are allowed to enter traditionally female spaces (like women's sports) and come to dominate them, as Lia Thomas has done in collegiate swimming.
This sort of destruction of nuance is one of the unfortunate consequences of the polarization and lack of reflective thinking of our time, and I think that an over-emphasis on emotions is as unbalanced and potentially destructive as an over-emphasis on thinking and cold analysis. This polarity is illustrated on the qabalistic Tree of Life by the opposition of Hod and Netzach, which among other things symbolize the thinking mind and the sphere of emotions and feelings. Tellingly, in the standard Golden Dawn illustration of the Tree of Life, the Tower is the path that directly connects these spheres; when one side of the binary is all rationality and thought and the other is all emotion, there is going to be a shattering conflict between the two.
In many cases, the binary set up by our political classes is both dysfunctional and false. The Left claims that its motives for allowing illegal immigration are purely compassionate, but compassionate to one chosen group (the illegal immigrants), as opposed to another (the American working class), who are being ground further and further into poverty by the policies of these "compassionate people". Some people on the Right love dumping on the working class with the comment that "they just don't want to work, they are lazy!". This stereotype is very popular with my Republican employers, who expect people to work very hard indeed while paying low wages and taking advantage of their workforce as much as possible.
Refusing to engage in dialogue with people who have different opinions and instead assigning whatever views and motives you prefer to them is probably satisfying on a personal level but it apparently isn't proving to be very useful when it comes to solving problems, which I would think should be the real function of our political class. In reality, of course, the practical function of our political class is enriching themselves and their donors; this is true of both parties equally, even the "socialists" who still somehow end up being millionaires. The main difference between political parties nowadays is which platitudes a given politician spouts in order to pander to which sector of the electorate. That they are lining their pockets with oodles of money is just a given.
These two "contending forces" could be thought of as being a representation of Thaumiel, the qliphothic expression of the pure unity of Kether, in that they seemingly are at odds but are actually a part of the same dysfunctional system. This has been dubbed the Uniparty, which you can see at work in the way that Democrats now seem to love and admire George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and now support the doctrine of endless foreign wars that they once claimed to oppose.
Dialogue and good-faith interaction are the medicine that can heal the deep political divisions in this country, along with the simple realization that on some topics, people may not ever agree, because there is not one right and good truth that applies to every circumstance. The pride and arrogance of the aristocratic "professional managerial classes'' is currently on full display by Justin Trudeau in Canada, who insists that his political enemies in the form of the Freedom Convoy are whatever snarl words he chooses to hurl at them, without ever once having spoken to them or acknowledged their stated reasons for protesting. Really, that would be like a politician opposed to the BLM organization saying that BLM is protesting because they like burning things. You can criticize the organization for any number of things, but they do have a stated purpose and ideology. As do the protesters in the Freedom Convoy, a purpose and ideology that has nothing to do with racism or transphobia or Qanon or whatever else the mainstream media is trying to link them with to discredit them.
Until we are able to put aside our anger and actually listen to one another, we are not going to be able to heal our political divides. Maybe we shouldn't even try; a lot of Americans would be happy with a "national divorce". It's not a foreign thought to me; if the Coastal states and densely populated urban areas decided to go their own ways, I wouldn't exactly be overwhelmed with sorrow, especially now that the "liberals" have devolved into totalitarian lunatics. Still, for now, it may be worth trying to engage with less polarized, non-extremists on both sides of the political spectrum to see if anything can be salvaged from the great American experiment.
One example of this is illegal immigration, which is a hot-button issue indeed. Frankly, I think a lot of Trump's rhetoric on the topic gave ammo to his detractors, who blame all opposition to legal immigration on simple racism. Doubtless, many racists don't want to see the demographics of the country changed by a massive flood of humans illegally entering the country, but there are other, perfectly sane, logical, and non-hate based reasons to oppose illegal immigration.
One of these reasons include the fact that employers can undercut the wages of citizens by hiring illegal immigrants for less money. The labor movement in this country fought, often literally, for better wages and conditions for working people, which allowed the working class to enjoy better pay and working conditions. This costs their employers money, so of course business owners who are able to hire illegal immigrants and make them work long hours in poor conditions American workers won't tolerate is great for them. That's why the Chamber of Commerce wants to throw open the borders and both Republicans and Democrats eager for corporate money want to keep the cheap labor force flowing.
The arguments they've put forth for their encouragement of illegal immigration, that it is somehow based on compassion and being the right thing to do, is simply malarkey designed to give people an excuse to virtue signal and ignore real working-class concerns. The bottom line in this, as in many things, is financial.
Arguments that this or that position is inherently virtuous while an opposing stance is inherently evil is a way of framing the debate that more-or-less is designed to shut down all opposing views. In essence, the argument devolves to either you agree with me or you are literally Hitler, so shut up, racist.
The entry of biological men into women's sports and other formerly private spaces is another example of a topic that has become verboten by insisting that anyone who has an opposing view to the mainstream left's position is a hateful, evil person who must be shamed into silence. I have a nuanced view of transgenderism, in that I think people should be allowed to live the lives they find authentic. If that includes people of one sex living as members of another, it's not really my business and I wish them well.
Still, biological sex is a fact of life, and insisting that it isn't is not a very useful or truthful position. There are physical differences between the bodies of men and women, physiological differences that can be altered in appearance but not truly in function. That the party of "Science" denies this in order to protect the feelings of sensitive humans could be considered compassionate by some, but I'm not sure that it really is. The official and very loud transgender movement is not really something I support, especially when biological men are allowed to enter traditionally female spaces (like women's sports) and come to dominate them, as Lia Thomas has done in collegiate swimming.
This sort of destruction of nuance is one of the unfortunate consequences of the polarization and lack of reflective thinking of our time, and I think that an over-emphasis on emotions is as unbalanced and potentially destructive as an over-emphasis on thinking and cold analysis. This polarity is illustrated on the qabalistic Tree of Life by the opposition of Hod and Netzach, which among other things symbolize the thinking mind and the sphere of emotions and feelings. Tellingly, in the standard Golden Dawn illustration of the Tree of Life, the Tower is the path that directly connects these spheres; when one side of the binary is all rationality and thought and the other is all emotion, there is going to be a shattering conflict between the two.
In many cases, the binary set up by our political classes is both dysfunctional and false. The Left claims that its motives for allowing illegal immigration are purely compassionate, but compassionate to one chosen group (the illegal immigrants), as opposed to another (the American working class), who are being ground further and further into poverty by the policies of these "compassionate people". Some people on the Right love dumping on the working class with the comment that "they just don't want to work, they are lazy!". This stereotype is very popular with my Republican employers, who expect people to work very hard indeed while paying low wages and taking advantage of their workforce as much as possible.
Refusing to engage in dialogue with people who have different opinions and instead assigning whatever views and motives you prefer to them is probably satisfying on a personal level but it apparently isn't proving to be very useful when it comes to solving problems, which I would think should be the real function of our political class. In reality, of course, the practical function of our political class is enriching themselves and their donors; this is true of both parties equally, even the "socialists" who still somehow end up being millionaires. The main difference between political parties nowadays is which platitudes a given politician spouts in order to pander to which sector of the electorate. That they are lining their pockets with oodles of money is just a given.
These two "contending forces" could be thought of as being a representation of Thaumiel, the qliphothic expression of the pure unity of Kether, in that they seemingly are at odds but are actually a part of the same dysfunctional system. This has been dubbed the Uniparty, which you can see at work in the way that Democrats now seem to love and admire George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and now support the doctrine of endless foreign wars that they once claimed to oppose.
Dialogue and good-faith interaction are the medicine that can heal the deep political divisions in this country, along with the simple realization that on some topics, people may not ever agree, because there is not one right and good truth that applies to every circumstance. The pride and arrogance of the aristocratic "professional managerial classes'' is currently on full display by Justin Trudeau in Canada, who insists that his political enemies in the form of the Freedom Convoy are whatever snarl words he chooses to hurl at them, without ever once having spoken to them or acknowledged their stated reasons for protesting. Really, that would be like a politician opposed to the BLM organization saying that BLM is protesting because they like burning things. You can criticize the organization for any number of things, but they do have a stated purpose and ideology. As do the protesters in the Freedom Convoy, a purpose and ideology that has nothing to do with racism or transphobia or Qanon or whatever else the mainstream media is trying to link them with to discredit them.
Until we are able to put aside our anger and actually listen to one another, we are not going to be able to heal our political divides. Maybe we shouldn't even try; a lot of Americans would be happy with a "national divorce". It's not a foreign thought to me; if the Coastal states and densely populated urban areas decided to go their own ways, I wouldn't exactly be overwhelmed with sorrow, especially now that the "liberals" have devolved into totalitarian lunatics. Still, for now, it may be worth trying to engage with less polarized, non-extremists on both sides of the political spectrum to see if anything can be salvaged from the great American experiment.