Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Not conversant

I've have thoughts why I can't talk with others about politics when they don't already agree with me, at least partially. I find myself avoiding my friends and acquaintances Facebook updates because the liberal claptrap, the painful conventional wisdom I see there, actually irritates me too much to argue rationally. It pissed me off that people I like would even consider thinking in ways that are so self-evidently misguided, it pisses me off that I live in a society that drums this shit into people's heads, and it pisses me off that I have nothing coherent I could say that would change their minds.

Part of it is my inability to argue points and remember things (my memory has been failing at a remarkable rate the last two years or so), but part of it is lack of effort, a laziness, and a conviction that it will be futile whatever I do. Sometimes I assure myself all was lost before I began, and other times I kick myself for failing to argue a viewpoint that they may never hear again if I don't personally intervene. A person with opinions who doesn't act on them is worse than someone who believes nothing at all, and I am the former.

And then I wonder if it's just that I'm not brave enough to pick fights with people who will think worse of me, even though it's their beliefs that are ridiculous and offensive, not mine. There's certainly a level of that. Do I really want to post on my brother's friends's wall (who I don't know that well) on how Birthright is a cynical Zionist PR plot designed to force young Jews into a narrow view of their cultural identity that condones apartheid and murder? Maybe I should be that guy. I thought about it, and I guess I'm not. It looks like I'm just the guy who is very picky in choosing brands of hummus.

And I wonder if such otherwise reasonable and smart people could get things so wrong, what might I have wrong, having displayed lacking judgment and intelligence at so many points in my life?

I am not a strong enough person to stand up for anything.