Differing Opinions, Honest Conversations

Fannie Flagg’s book, ‘Standing in the Rainbow’, was published in 2002. One of the central characters is a politician who appealed to a similar electorate as President Trump did – people who felt powerless and voiceless.

One of her characters spoke for marginalized older white men when he said:

What bothered him and other men his age and older was that the things that they had been willing to die for were no longer appreciated. Everything he had believed in was now the butt of jokes made by a bunch of smarty-assed late night-TV so-called comedians making a salary you could support a small country with. All he heard was people saying how bad we were, how corrupt we had been, and how terrible white men were… He had never knowingly been mean or unfair to another human being in his life. Now it seems he was the oppressor, responsible for every bad thing that have ever happened in the history of the world.
– Fannie Flagg, Standing in the Rainbow –

While the postmodernist has valid points that sexism and racism are the causes of many disparities, does it mean  that the way to balance those disparities is by assigning a blanket blame on a large part of the population for the deeds of a few?

We should not be teaching our students the following lesson: “He called you a racist name. That victimizes you.” That lesson says, first, that you should judge your skin color to be significant to your identity and, secondly, that other people’s opinions about your skin color should be significant to you. Only if you accept both of those premises are you going to feel victimized by someone’s saying something about your skin color.
– Stephen Hicks –

It is election year in Canada. I hope voters will exercise decision-making power in an informed manner. The only way they can do so is if there is lots of discussion and vigorous debate between individuals who accept that the individual is not the group they have been assigned to.

In this video, Ben Shapiro interviews Dave Rubin. They discuss identity politics, online censorship and the value of open and honest conversation between individuals who have differing opinions.