A Moment of Unity Slipped Through Our Fingers

I feel like we let a moment of unity slip through our fingers. It seems that when we collectively watched the killing of George Floyd, we were all horrified. I have friends across the political spectrum, and even those I most disagree with – the die hard Trump supporters – were as outraged by that murder as anyone. And then came the first peaceful protest, and it seemed that everyone was absolutely behind it. For a moment.

Protesters gather in downtown Minneapolis. Unrest in Minneapolis over the May 25th death of George Floyd.

Then on the fringes of the peaceful, heartfelt protests came the fringe elements – the violence, vandalism, looting. Even then, for a moment, it seemed that the facts and the narrative were that this was a few bad actors and a few bad cops causing a disturbance at an otherwise peaceful demonstration.

And then very quickly our politicians and the media, jumped in to divide us again. Inadvertently perhaps, but now we're not just divided, we're fractured. Now there are multiple "camps" within the left and right, all disagreeing with each other.

I believe this is because we have gotten so accustomed to having quick, easy answers to what's going on. We need to determine, before we have any facts, who is responsible for the rioting and looting. We demand to know and the media is compelled to fill the airwaves with something, anything, to fill our need to know. And politicians are eager to point blame at whatever entity will help to score points with their base. We collectively want to blame one group of people for this, and assign a single motive. That makes it easy.

  • Angry black people fed up with the way they're treated
  • White people who want to instigate and turn the protest violent to make black people seem out of control
  • Undercover police who want to further the narrative that these protesters should be handled with violence
  • Opportunistic people of any race who want to take advantage of the situation for whatever reason<
  • Radical left wingers who want to destroy our country
  • Radical right wingers who want to destroy our country

Maybe it's all of the above. Maybe there are far more reasons for it than we've heard. But it's still a small number of people amongst the masses of peaceful protesters. But now, because our focus is on the violence, that's the narrative. Now when we say "protester" we think burning buildings and looting. That's so not fair.

It is not fair to anyone, and detrimental to our unity, when we see some photos of white looters, and conclude that all the looters are white. It's not fair to anyone, to see images of black people looting and decide that all the looters are black. It's not fair to see images of cops being brutal to peaceful protesters and conclude that all cops are out of control. It's not fair to see images of some police kneeling with protesters and conclude that all cops are good and want to connect with their diverse communities.

All of that is happening, all at once. We have to open our minds to the idea that this is not something that we can wrap up in a neat package, put a label on it, and feel good that we have the answer. We don't. None of us do. This is complicated. We need to unify to resolve it.

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What’s In A Label?

Conservative. Liberal. We act as if we know what these labels mean. Conservatives are traditionalists, fiscally opposed to anything that smacks of gambling, private, often religious, and pedantic on what they consider “appropriate” in either government or personal conduct. Liberals, on the other hand, are often taken for progressive, willing to spend social capital to repair perceived problems, tolerant, agnostic if not atheist, and overly-concerned with a definition of justice that ought to be all-encompassing rather than what they perceive as sinecure for the privileged. Well. Over on Facebook I posted a brief quote (my own) to boil down the actual underlying distinctions. Conservatives are those who don’t like what other people are doing, Liberals are those who don’t like what other people are doing to other people. It was meant to be taken as humorous. But I’m not being entirely flip here. When you look at it, and try to define the common factor in much that passes for conservative posteuring—of any country, any background, anywhere—it always comes down to one group trying to stop another group from Doing Things We Don’t Approve. I heard a news report this morning (on NPR—I unabashedly don’t pay attention to any other news source, I find them all utterly biased) from Pakistan about the university scene there, and one bit caught my attention—at a campus in Punjabi, conservative students who find men and women sitting too close together interfere and move them apart. At a game of Truth or Dare, conservative students pulled participants out and beat them. How does this apply here? Well, here’s a clip from P.Z. Meyers’ Pharyngula to illustrate: Rising Sun School in Maryland has the standard default take-it-for-granted attitude that Christianity is just fine — there’s the usual well-funded and usually teacher-promoted evangelical groups, like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes — and when one student tried to form a club for non-religious students…well, you can guess what happened.

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The conservative rewriting of U.S. history

McClatchy has published a video and a written summary of conservatives' recent efforts to rewrite history. This evidence-free approach to history is surreal. How can this possibly be happening? It is apparent that these rewrites of history are evidence of the confirmation bias running at full throttle. I recently came across this vivid description of this phenomenon in a book called A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives (2006), by Cordelia Fine:

Reasoning is the vain brain's of . . . powerful protectorate. This might seem a little odd. Isn't reasoning supposed to be the compass that guides us toward the truth, not saves us from it? It seems not--particularly when our ego is under attack. In fact, the best we can say for our gift of thinking in these circumstances is that we do at least recognize that conclusions cannot be drawn out of thin air: we need a bit of evidence to support our case. The problem is that we behave like a smart lawyer searching for evidence to bolster his client's case, rather than a jury searching for the truth. As we've seen, memory is often the overzealous secretary who assists in this process by hiding or destroying files that harbor unwanted information. Only when enough of the objectionable stuff has been shredded dare we take a look. Evidence that supports your case is quickly accepted, and the legal assistants are sent out to find more of the same. However, evidence that threatens reason's most important client--you--is subjected to grueling cross-examination. Accuracy, validity, and plausibility all come under attack on the witness stand. The case is soon won. A victory for justice and truth, you think, conveniently ignoring the fact that yours was the only lawyer in the courtroom.

(Page 13) Fine adds this additional description toward the end of her book:

Evidence that fits with our beliefs is quickly waved through the mental border control. Counter-evidence, on the other hand, must submit to close interrogation and even then will probably not be allowed in. As a result, people can wind up holding their beliefs even more strongly after seeing counter-evidence. It's as if we think, "Well, if that's the best that the other side can come up with then I really must be right." This phenomenon, called "belief polarization," may help to explain why attempting to disillusion people of their perverse misconceptions is so often futile.

(Page 108)

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Conservative Rewrites the Bible

We've featured Andy, son of Phyllis Schafly and his anti-reason heavily monitored blog site, Conservapedia before. His latest project is to create an edited version of the Bible better suited to American Reactionary philosophy. Yes, he is removing all those Liberal parts where the inerrant Word of God must be wrong. Mark C. Chu-Carroll (Good Math blog) wrote The Conservative Rewrite of the Bible where he gives specific examples of what is being edited and why. Like removing any mention of "government", and merging all the names of God to avoid confusion. Even God, in his 10 Commandments, says to forsake all those other Gods over which he has no control and only worship him. Schlafly represents this as a new, better translation. But he is using the KJV as his primary source. The English translation with the most known inconsistencies from original source material is his best version from which to start. Well, might as well. After all, he will be "fixing" God's Word. Even conservative Christians that I know think that this is a crazy project.

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Traditional Marriage

We often hear religious conservatives arguing that we need to preserve "traditional marriage." What do they mean by "traditional marriage"? At Daylight Atheism, Ebonmuse delves into the details of one conservative version of "marriage," and it's not about "1950s, smiling-wife-and-picket-fence families." It is not a partnership of equals. In fact, it appears to be a relationship based on power, where abuse of that power has no ill-consequences for the abuser.

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