Like hope and change, eh Matt?
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Like hope and change, eh Matt?
So, besides my column in the Independent Florida Alligator today (found online here The Independent Florida Alligator: Opinion - Obama to decide fate of Afghan War), there was another really good column published today
I hope no one takes offense to the following column. After all, who on this board isn't guilty of both writing idiotic statements and failing to stop idiotic statements and ideas by giving them room to breathe?
Again, some may take offense to the examples Mr. Morford uses, but it's the end message that is important.
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HOW TO TALK TO COMPLETE IDIOTS
by MARK MORFORD-San Francisco Chronicle
There are three basic ways to talk to complete idiots.
The first is to assail them with facts, truths, scientific data, the commonsensical obviousness of it all. You do this in the very reasonable expectation that it will nudge them away from the ledge of their more ridiculous and paranoid misconceptions because, well, they're facts, after all, and who can dispute those?
Why, idiots can, that's who. It is exactly this sort of logical, levelheaded appeal to reason and mental acuity that's doomed to fail, simply because in the idiotosphere, facts are lies and truth is always dubious, whereas hysteria and alarmism resulting in mysterious undercarriage rashes are the only things to be relied upon.
Examples? Endless. You may, for instance, attempt to explain evolution to an extreme fundamentalist Christian. You may offer up carbon dating, the fossil record, glaciers, any one of 10,000 irrefutable proofs. You may even dare to talk about the Bible as the clever, completely manufactured, man-made piece of heavily politicized, massively edited, literary myth-making it so very much is, using all sorts of sound academic evidence and historical record.
You are, of course, insane beyond belief to try this, but sometimes you just can't help it. To the educated mind, it seems inconceivable that millions of people will choose rabid ignorance and childish fantasy over, say, a polar bear. Permafrost. Rocks. Nag Hammadi. But they will, and they do. Faced with this mountain of factual obviousness, the bewildered fundamentalist will merely leap back as if you just jabbed him with a flaming homosexual cattle prod, and then fall into a swoon about how neat it is that angels can fly.
But it's not just the fundamentalists. This Rule of Idiocy also explains why, when you show certain jumpy, conservative Americans the irrefutable facts about, say, skyrocketing health care costs that are draining their bank accounts, and then show how Obama's rather modest overhaul is meant to save members of all ages and genders and party affiliations a significant amount of money while providing basic insurance for their family, they, too, will scream and kick like a child made to eat a single bite of broccoli.
Remember, facts do not matter. The actual Obama plan itself does not matter. Fear of change, fear of the "Other," fear of the scary black socialist president, fear that yet another important shift is taking place that they cannot understand and which therefore makes them thrash around like a trapped animal? This is all that matters.
This is why, even when you whip out, say, a fresh article by the goodly old Washington Post -- not exactly a bastion of lopsided liberalthink -- one that breaks down the rather brutal truth about the real cost of health care in this country, it will likely be hurled back in your face as an obvious piece of liberal propaganda. Go ahead, try it. Or better yet, don't.
Option two is to try to speak their language, dumb yourself down, engage on the idiot's level as you try to figure out how their minds work -- or more accurately, don't work -- so you can better empathize and find a shred of common ground and maybe, just maybe, inch the human experiment forward.
This is, as you already sense, a dangerous trap, pure intellectual quicksand. It almost never works, and just makes you feel gross and slimy. Nevertheless, plenty of shrewd political strategists believe that the best way for Obama and the Dems to get their message across regarding everything from health care reform to new environmental regulation, would be to steal a page from the Glenn Beck/Karl Rove/sociopath's playbook, and start getting stupid.
It's all about the bogus catchphrases, the sound bites, the emotional punches-to-the-gut. Death panels! Rationing! Fetus farms! Puppy shredders! Commie medicine! Gay apocalypse! Forced vaccinations! Exposed nipples during prime-time! Let one of these inane, completely wrong but oh-so-haunting verbal ticks bite into the below-average American brainstem, and watch your cause bleed all over the headlines.
The big snag here is that the Dems, unlike the Republican Party, aren't really beholden to a radical, mal-educated base of fundamentalist crazies to keep them afloat. Truly, the political success of the liberal agenda does not depend on the irrational, Bible-crazed "value voter" who's terrified of gays, believes astronomy is a hoax and thinks Jesus spoke perfect English and really liked giving hugs.
In other words, there really is little point in the liberals adopting this strategy, save for the fact that the major media eats it up and it might serve to counterbalance some of the more ridiculous conservative catchphrases. What's more, it could also give the whiny, bickering Dems something slightly cohesive to rally around -- because the truth is, the Democratic Party isn't all that bright, either.
And now we come to option three, easily the finest and most successful approach of all. Alas, it also remains the most difficult to pull off. No one is exactly sure why.
The absolute best way to speak to complete idiots is, of course, not to speak to them at all.
That is, you work around them, ignore them completely, disregard the rants and the spittle and the misspelled protest signs and the fervent prayers for apocalypse on Fox News. Complete refusal to take the fringe nutballs even the slightest bit seriously is the only way to make true progress.
This also happens to be the invaluable advice of one Frank Schaeffer, noted author and a former fundamentalist nutball himself, who made a simply superb appearance on Rachel Maddow's show recently, wherein he offered up one of the most articulate, fantastic takedowns of the fundamentalist idiot's mindset in recent history. It's a must-watch. Do it. Do it now.
Now, you may argue that, while Schaeffer may be dead right and also rather deserving of being quoted far and wide, it's also true that calling people stupid is no way to advance the debate, and is itself rather childish and stupid. And you'd be absolutely right.
But you'd also be missing the point. When you ignore the idiots completely, you are not calling them anything at all. You are not trying to advance any sort of argument, because there is no debate taking place. You are simply bypassing the giant pothole of ignorance entirely.
You are not kowtowing to the least educated of your voting bloc, like the GOP is so desparetely fond of doing. You are not trying to give the idiotosphere equal weight in the discussion. As Schaeffer says, "You cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot." By employing option three, you are doing the only humane thing left to do: you are letting the idiotosphere eat itself alive.
Do it for the children, won't you?
Read more: How to talk to complete idiots / Three basic options. Choose wisely, lest you go totally insane
Yeah great stuff from the Bob school of journalism, Matt.
No wonder the San Fran Chronicle is going out of business. Three people in San Fran read that one.
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I think the column that Matt posted is about right. Ignore rude, inappropriate behavior. The following seems about right too:
"I grew up in Trenton, a west Tennessee town of five thousand people. I have wonderful memories of those first eighteen years, and many people in Trenton influenced my life in very positive ways. My football coach, Walter Kilzer, taught me the importance of hard work, discipline, and believing in myself. My history teacher, Fred Culp, is still the funniest person I've ever met. He taught me that a sense of humor, and especially laughing at yourself, can be one of life's greatest blessings.
But my father was my hero. He taught me many things, but at the top of the list, he taught me to treat people with love and respect...to live the Golden Rule. I remember one particular instance of him teaching this "life lesson" as if it were yesterday. Dad owned a furniture store, and I used to dust the furniture every Wednesday after school to earn my allowance. One afternoon I observed my Dad talking to all the customers as they came in...the hardware store owner, the banker, a farmer, a doctor. At the end of the day, just as Dad was closing, the garbage collector came in.
I was ready to go home, and I thought that surely Dad wouldn't spend too much time with him. But I was wrong. Dad greeted him at the door with a big hug and talked with him about his wife and son who had been in a car accident the month before. He empathized, he asked questions, he listened, and he listened some more. I kept looking at the clock, and when the man finally left, I asked, "Dad, why did you spend so much time with him? He's just the garbage collector." Dad then looked at me, locked the front door to the store, and said, "Son, let's talk."
He said, "I'm your father and I tell you lots of stuff as all fathers should, but if you remember nothing else I ever tell you, remember this...treat every human being just the way that you would want to be treated." He said, "I know this is not the first time you've heard it, but I want to make sure it's the first time you truly understand it, because if you had understood, you would never have said what you said." We sat there and talked for another hour about the meaning and the power of the Golden Rule. Dad said, "If you live the Golden Rule everything else in life will usually work itself out, but if you don't, your life probably will be very unhappy and without meaning."
I recently heard someone say, "If you teach your child the Golden Rule, you will have left them an estate of incalculable value." Truer words were never spoken."
From The Power of Attitude by Mac Anderson
"I grew up in Trenton, a west Tennessee town of five thousand people. I have wonderful memories of those first eighteen years, and many people in Trenton influenced my life in very positive ways. My football coach, Walter Kilzer, taught me the importance of hard work, discipline, and believing in myself. My history teacher, Fred Culp, is still the funniest person I've ever met. He taught me that a sense of humor, and especially laughing at yourself, can be one of life's greatest blessings.
But my father was my hero. He taught me many things, but at the top of the list, he taught me to treat people with love and respect...to live the Golden Rule. I remember one particular instance of him teaching this "life lesson" as if it were yesterday. Dad owned a furniture store, and I used to dust the furniture every Wednesday after school to earn my allowance. One afternoon I observed my Dad talking to all the customers as they came in...the hardware store owner, the banker, a farmer, a doctor. At the end of the day, just as Dad was closing, the garbage collector came in.
I was ready to go home, and I thought that surely Dad wouldn't spend too much time with him. But I was wrong. Dad greeted him at the door with a big hug and talked with him about his wife and son who had been in a car accident the month before. He empathized, he asked questions, he listened, and he listened some more. I kept looking at the clock, and when the man finally left, I asked, "Dad, why did you spend so much time with him? He's just the garbage collector." Dad then looked at me, locked the front door to the store, and said, "Son, let's talk."
He said, "I'm your father and I tell you lots of stuff as all fathers should, but if you remember nothing else I ever tell you, remember this...treat every human being just the way that you would want to be treated." He said, "I know this is not the first time you've heard it, but I want to make sure it's the first time you truly understand it, because if you had understood, you would never have said what you said." We sat there and talked for another hour about the meaning and the power of the Golden Rule. Dad said, "If you live the Golden Rule everything else in life will usually work itself out, but if you don't, your life probably will be very unhappy and without meaning."
I recently heard someone say, "If you teach your child the Golden Rule, you will have left them an estate of incalculable value." Truer words were never spoken."
From The Power of Attitude by Mac Anderson
Yeah great stuff from the Bob school of journalism, Matt.
Bob should thank you for the compliment.
I don't get it. MattChristLive comes in here and posts a long diatribe from the chronicle that insults and attacks a whole slew of people on this board, including:
- fundamentalist Christians
- conservatives
- people who watch fox news
and he is a "role model" who posts "great articles" that are "hopeful and cogent". WTF! You folks have some pretty twisted double standards.
How in earth could someone on this board NOT take offense to this article in some way Matt? I mean really. :roll:
- fundamentalist Christians
- conservatives
- people who watch fox news
and he is a "role model" who posts "great articles" that are "hopeful and cogent". WTF! You folks have some pretty twisted double standards.
How in earth could someone on this board NOT take offense to this article in some way Matt? I mean really. :roll:
He is a role model because many people his age are sitting around their dorm rooms drinking beer and playing video games... His views may not be yours, but he sets a pretty high standard for working and thinking for his age group.
lighten up 30ashopper - where is your humor? while I do not blame you for being offended by the audience being targeted, its not about who that guy is targeting as idiots, its who YOU may think is an idiot because of their views and seeming incoherence or lack of knowledge when expressing them. the article targets certain individuals or groups with extreme views (fringe nutballs) - the article is not at all nice about it either. so, I do not blame anyone for being offended. but the whole point is that you can either appreciate a view or a debate, or you can choose not to participate - it applies to all people of all views. as rude as the article sounds, in the end it is really saying ignore the nutjobs (apply this to any nutjob) and move on.
I think the article is spot on. step away from the idiots. move on to something productive. certain arguments are just not worth it - no one wins. do not feed the flame. rise above. find a discussion that suits you. and all that jazz.
I happen to agree with assessment of a certain group of people who consider themselves morally correct in their views as conservative christians - but I do not think they are idiots. I do get frustrated with the seeming willful ignorance of anything beyond their own little lives. However, they are just good people, just like anyone else... I think they are coming from an entirely different experience and perspective as me. I do what the article suggests. ignore. move on.
regarding Matt Christ - he's a local yocal representin' at UF, and we're proud of him! many of us are honored to have his contribution to the board. he's a writer and will probably be pissing off audiences here and there with his viewpoints, which are written beautifully. but he posted the viewpoint of another in order to get you thinking. and it worked. he's doing a terrific job.
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your list includes the trinity that caused our current problemos, si?