Ego wrote:Ironically, I needed to step away from the forum for a while because I became fed up dealing with those whose primary reason for seeking financial independence is to get away - not just from those who are different - but from EVERYONE.
Yeah, lately I am leaning towards the Libertarian half of my Libertarian/Sesame Street Socialist identity, because I do want to get away from EVERYONE, including all of the members of my Running-with-Scissors-cast-of-a-Wes-Anderson-film extended family. Also, I am a bit of a burnt-out case from my gig of substitute teaching in the gritty mix of the city.
I am quite familiar with the Popper Paradox. It sounds good. I have quoted it myself on occasion, but what does it really mean in application?
When my son was a toddler we lived in graduate student housing. One day in the communal sandbox, he picked up a stick and repeatedly hit a little Asian girl over the head saying "Ugly eyes. Ugly eyes." I was shocked, appalled, angered. I apologized to the girl's mother, picked up my own child, marched into our apartment without saying a word, plopped him on his bed, shut the door, and left him there until I had calmed down. Then I talked to him about never hitting ANY other people over the head with a stick. I did not have a discussion with him on the topic of xenophobic/tribal tendencies in the human species exhibited in the very young in the form of stranger anxiety/aggression, but I did have a talk with myself on that topic while I calmed myself down, and I could certainly have such a discussion with him now that he is 28 rather than 2 years old.
Last year, I was teaching a very low-income, very ethnically diverse group of 4th graders. In order to maintain anything resembling order in such a situation, I have to come out of the box when I first address the children with very clearly delineated expectations for their behavior. First offense-Warning. Second offense-Name on the Board. Third Offense-Office. Halfway through the day I was feeling bad (once again) because every child whose name was on the board or was sitting on the bench in the office was either an African-American boy or a boy recently immigrated from some village in Yemen which would be not unlike 1930s Appalachia in America. I was trying to be patient with another difficult child, an African-American girl who was constantly seeking attention. She got into a bit of a scuffle with one of the African-American boys whose name was already on the board, and then she showed me a note upon which was scrawled "Ugly Bich Nigga" and told me that the boy had given it to her. Unfortunately, I had good reason to believe that she had written the note herself in order to get the boy in trouble, and in order to gain my sympathy. There were 25 other children in the room needing my attention at the moment, and some slim possibility that maybe I could teach a few of them enough mathematics to pass a basic competency exam before the bell rang and I tried to stop them from running down the stairs to eat their free government lunch of chicken nuggets and shrunk-wrapped grapes.
My point being that "tolerance" is not just some magical property that can be invoked from the nether. Make me a map. Show me the diagram inclusive of stocks and flows that makes it possible to flow enough resources into our systems to make it a reality. And after you have performed that task, please make it more clear what you wish to see happen when intolerance is not tolerated. I am not strong enough to pick up most other humans and plop them on a bed, and shut the door, and then calm my own anger, and then talk to them about not hitting other humans over the head with a stick. If they are 10 years old, I have to send them to the office. If they are 20 years old, I have to call a police officer to take them to the jail. All of these processes, all of these actions, all of these verbs which are so easy to type, require resources to fulfill. We are running out of resources. We are running out of time. I am currently numb out of patience.
Both sides are saying some things that are true. The true thing that the Red side is saying is that you can't create a culture of liberal tolerance without some balance of conservative order.