A couple of weeks ago, I thought that I'd get a twitter account and see what that was all about. I now follow a couple of news feeds and some accounts related to college football. It's hard to believe how uninformed and how ugly many of the comments are. Nothing in my life has prepared me for how vitriolic some people can be. And they're especially vile on platforms where they can type to an unknown person rather than confront them face-to-face.They remind me of strutting roosters: big-talking, puffed-up, self-important chickens.
Uh oh... Maybe I'm the same thing since I'm talking a bit of smack here in my little corner of the ether. Yikes.
My most recent post Big Laws, Little Laws had a comment from Barbara:
"I guess I'm a conservative too. Maybe that's how I'll label myself from now on. Interesting thoughts and ideas. Much to think about. Thanks for sharing."
Her comment gave me an idea for this post because I like ideas.
Ideas are like architectural foundations. For illustration, consider these examples:
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| Bedrock Foundation in Belize |
This is a house foundation dug to bedrock. It is well-supported and the structure to be built on this foundation is unlikely to shift over time. Those who have never built a building may not realize how much work goes into it's foundation, yet this unseen structure provides more integrity to the building than all of it's other features.
In New Orleans, large pilings (usually wooden) are hammered deep into the soil until they reach bedrock. The buildings then sit securely on an immobile foundation.
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| Pilings in New Orleans |
Contrast this with the post-modern idea of architecture: the floating building.
This wonderful structure appears to be all out of kilter. It shocks our minds and stimulates our wonder. It's appearance is almost magical.
There is one thing to point out, however: it, too, has a solid foundation. Although the architect has taken pains to give the appearance of defying gravity, it's simply a trick. He cannot defy the principle of gravity and maintain a stable structure.
Neither can we defy natural laws and expect to survive as a society. If we attempt to defy natural law, we, like a building without a foundation, will eventually collapse under our own weight.
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| Post-Modern Architecture |
It is my contention that ideas should drive everything, but, nowadays, we seem to let issues lead us by our noses.
I was watching FoxNews the other day and I heard Julie Roginsky say something that was refreshing. She is a liberal and a democrat. As such, she was crushed by the election. While most other liberals in the national media were blaming and calling names, Julie resisted that urge and took some time to think about what had happened. She listened to what the blue-collar workers in the mid-west were saying and concluded that she, as an elite liberal democrat, was out of touch with many of her fellow democrats who live in the heartland of America.
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| Julie Roginsky |
I'm not saying that she has abandoned her liberal beliefs, and neither is she. What I am saying, though, is that she put some thought into the situation. While I disagree with most of her positions, I applaud her bravery.
She said that she, as a liberal elite, hasn't had to worry much about the financial issues that confront those in the mid-west. While she was worrying about the fairness of transgender bathroom access, they were worried about paying their bills.
In a way, this encapsulates the whole concept of Issues vs. Ideas.
In my role as an educator, as a parent and in professional settings, I have always tried to distill any issue into the underlying ideas or principles. I fought hard to teach my children to think this way.
The first step, in my view, is to decide what our own principles are. Ideally, that kind of education should begin before the issues come up. In other words, if we already know what we believe and why we believe it, we are then able to make decisions which are consistent with our own beliefs.
When we do it the other way 'round, we get stalled in a fog of arguments which may be irrelevant. Some of the issues identified in this fog, however, may actually be relevant, but, because we jumped to issues before principles, sometimes we have a hard time deciding which is which.
I'm going to step out here and talk about a controversial topic for illustrative purposes.
Abortion is a topic that causes quite a lot of controversy in America. So how might one handle this topic in a idea-based fashion?
The ideas surrounding this topic basically revolve around the sanctity of life vs. the right of each individual woman.
As such, one step that we must take is an examination of our own view of life. When does it begin? Is it sacred? How important is protecting a life?
See, these are ideas or principles. If one doesn't consider life to be sacred, then one has a clear path to support abortion on demand. If one believes that life is God-given and that it's sanctity should be protected, then one will choose to oppose abortion.
Notice that I've not mentioned all of the qualifiers that usually accompany this debate. What about rape? What about safety of the mother? There are many extenuating circumstances that are brought into the debate too early and they create the aforementioned fog. It's not that these aren't important questions; it's that they are asked too early in the debate. One can't begin the debate with an example of a particular situation. We must begin with principles. We can, and we should, ask the hypotheticals, but if we ask them first, we are engaging in an issue-driven rather than a principle-driven debate.
Issue-driven debates tend to be more emotional; principle-driven debates tend to be more didactic and thoughtful.
Unfortunately, in America, we are tending to do things in an emotional, issue-driven fashion. We yell and scream at each other and we demean one another personally. We begin with an issue and never consider the principles.
An approach like that will never lead to good decisions, neither in our personal lives nor in our collective American lives.
It would please me greatly if we could, once again, be passionate, yet civil, in our interactions. I demean no one personally for their positions, but I retain the right to fight a position with which I disagree. And my fight will always begin at the beginning: with principles and with the reasons that I hold them.
Yours on principle,
TheCurmudgeon
