“That’s a lot of reply for fairly simple questions.”
I try to be thorough in my responses, and to flesh out my thinking whenever possible.
“viewing the discourse from a Transcend and Include perspective”
It’s very difficult to include perspectives that are themselves proudly exclusionary.
“you assume the most noble, angelic, righteous motivations and executions for “Progressives” yet have a sinister, malevolent, evil view of anything that might impede your “Progressive” agenda.”
Interesting, because again, I’ve spent more time criticizing the “woke” left than I have conservatives over the years. As I’ve said multiple times in this very conversation, the left often goes too far, which then prompts the right to go too far. I think this set of laws is very much going too far.
“A majority of parents do not want civil servants on-the-sly teaching their children “avant gard” morality.”
It was once “avant garde morality” to say that blacks should be treated with the same dignity, kindness, and respect as other people. Now it’s the norm. Would you say that’s a good thing?
“viewing the discourse from a Transcend and Include perspective”
If we were to go meta, and try to find common ground here, there are a great many less authoritarian approaches than restricting free speech and making it illegal to talk about gender or sexual orientation and creating a new class of “forbidden knowledge”.
Want to make sure that all books in elementary school libraries have no graphic images or illicit sexual content? I can get behind that!
Want to make it so that it is illegal to say “gay people exist” or “it’s okay to love whoever you want to love”, because some parents might be homophobic? I absolutely cannot get behind that. There is no possible way to integrate with that kind of position, without restricting someone else’s freedom to be exactly who they are.
“Integrating” does not mean “let’s meet at the halfway point”. If person A says “I want to murder all gay people”, and person B says “we shouldn’t murder anyone”, the integral perspective is not “well I guess we should only murder half of all gay people”.
I expect our schools to adhere to worldcentric universal codes of moral reasoning, and not cater to ethnocentric codes and belief systems. I don’t care if you think the world is 5000 years old, your kid should be taught critical thinking, the scientific process, and how that led to the contemporary theory of evolution. If you don’t like it, do homeschooling instead.
That’s how we were able to extend rights to the 50% of women, to the 11% of African Americans, and to the 5% of gays in this society — progressive triumphs, every last one of them. By teaching universal moral standards from a very early age. And I expect that moral arc to continue indefinitely into the future.
Another problem that we should take into consideration. I just learned that, as of now, the average age for a kid in America to see pornography on the internet for the first time is just nine years old.
The idea of a kid being exposed to sexual health, gender roles, and sexual orientation for the first time through porn is horrifying, and sadly becoming the common reality for many families. Because many parents are terrified to teach their kids about sex, gender, and identity, and now schools are also being made to feel terrified to teach any kind of sexual education. Well, at least there’s the internet, I guess!
Don’t you think our society has an obligation to protect kids from the evils of pornography exposure, by pre-emptively giving them an age-appropriate education on sex and sexuality before their hormones start getting the better of them? And if you happen to disagree with this position, would it be appropriate for me to label you as a “pedophile porno groomer”, and accuse you of trying to corrupt kids with this sort of sexual deviancy? Or would that be an unfair debate tactic, in your mind?
Very insightful and Meta/Transcend post. Thanks for sharing.
Can we expand the definition of “family” while honoring the current definition of family?
It’s interesting when we shift from well know commonly used vernacular like family, communities, state. The common usage of Ethnocentric roughly equates to Racism. Here on IL it is seemingly used situationally.
I don’t know many people that have any issues with inclusion, kindness, caring, respect. These are all values we all strive for, and love when we receive in return.
I’ve posted several times links to Tiff surveys that show the “Save the Whales” vs “Save the Babies” disconnect we have going on. We talk past each other on much, and find it difficult to create joint action plans, communities. And I don’t think it’s getting any better.
The PERCEPTION is that the Left has been Hijacked by multiple at-all-costs activists with each their own agendas. Ive posted a clip of the DNC chair exhibiting at-all-costs behavior. I didn’t readily find a the clip on CNN or MSNBC.
The latest being the Trans debates. With conflating, a banding together of, a Allied approach of L, G,B,T,Q,+,+ it enables Progressives to argue from all sides how ever best suits the situation.
Perhaps a clear example are the biological male Trans athletes crushing women’s records and taking all the gold. We implemented Title IX in order to support women, yet now we are seeing highly Regressive “Progessives” destroy the progress we’ve made. Regressives cloaked in Progessive mantras are limiting a women’s ability to flourish.
I supposed now we need to setup Olympic games for each 0.5% of humanity.
I always wanted to play basketball. Maybe we can start a league just for me?
From an Integral perspective I think we can can view the de-globalization taking place as a Cleaning Up of unhealthy stage.
And regardless of how serious this all seems, we elect new Reps every 2 years, new Senators every 6, and new Admin ever 4. Coarse correction is always up for election.
Here’s clip from the DNC Chair. Seems clearly Win/Lose paradigm and I couldn’t quickly find on the MSDNC or DNN.
Here’s clip from the DNC Chair. Seems clearly Win/Lose paradigm and I couldn’t quickly find on the MSDNC or DNN.
Wait — this clip is responding to Cotton saying that Justice Jackson would have defended the Nazis. Why did he say this? Because she was doing her job as a public defender.
Doesn’t that seem far more “win/lose paradigm” (and far more out of bounds) than any of these emotional reactions? I haven’t seen any comments from you denouncing Cotton’s remarks, instead you are focusing on the DNC chair’s response to those remarks. Which, I agree, aren’t great. But Cotton was beyond the pale.
Regressives cloaked in Progessive mantras are limiting a women’s ability to flourish.
Absolutely agree. But I would expand that — regressives cloaked in both progressive and conservative mantras are limiting a woman’s ability to flourish.
I agree this is a fairly complicated issue! I think there are two options:
Using the four quadrants, we recognize that athletic performance is primarily a product of our Upper-Right biology, not our Lower-Left gender or Upper-Left identity (though the other quadrants obviously have an impact on our performance). Therefore, the olympics, and probably the rest of sports, should classify by sex, not by gender.
Instead of separating sports by sex/gender, instead introduce intramural ranked divisions, and group similarly-talented athletes together. Can a woman-identified athlete compete as well in tennis as the best male-bodied competitors? Then she goes in that top division, regardless of what body she was born with or what gender she identifies with. And then the problem just sorts itself out.
Personally, I think #1 is probably the best option, there are too many problems and unintended consequences with #2.
I feel like this is a somewhat easy problem to solve if we can just learn to properly differentiate our terms:
Sex: male/female (and intersex, etc.) in the upper-right
Gender: man/woman, boy/girl, etc. in the lower-left
Identity, orientation, sexuality: he/she/they, gay/bi/straight, masculine/feminine*, etc. in the upper-left
Systemic: public/private sphere, economic roles and expectations, etc. in the lower-right
Note that “gender” and “identity” often overlap, but are both distinct from “sex” in the UR. Also note that masculine/feminine polarity can also be enacted as cultural constructs in the LL.
I feel like this just clears up so many issues, so quickly, whether we are talking about gender and identity in schools, trans athletes at the olympics, or Supreme Court Justices being asked to define “woman” for some reason. Which, again, I wish she had responded to by saying:
“This is irrelevant to my position, unless it applies to a specific legal context. But personally, I think a ‘woman’ is a culturally-defined role that is often, but not always, associated with biological females. I think it is related to, but distinct from, our biological sex, and everyone who identifies as a ‘woman’, whether male-bodied or female-bodied, has their own unique way of expressing and defining that word for themselves.”
The other thing I like about this, is it just gives people so many beautiful ways to express themselves and their inner nature. Every new generation gets to define their identity for themselves. Some of it gets selected for in the long run, some of it fades and becomes outmoded, but the spectrum of human expression continues to become more diverse. Evolution is a beautiful and sometimes ugly process.
They better pass some laws to protect those kids from their heterosexual family members and family friends then, since that’s where the majority of “grooming” happens!
We do! And the good news is, those laws already apply to classrooms too. You must be so relieved to learn that
Besides, no one has ever explained how being able to say “sometimes men love other men and women love other women” in any way leads to “grooming” or “pedophilia”. If anything, it helps prevent it.
Did you know that conservatives have accused homosexuals of being pedophiles for decades, often leading to violence against gay communities?
Thought experiment. Imagine being 8 years old, in third grade, and you have two loving moms raising you. You’re in class, you hear your teacher say something like “all animals, including frogs and dogs and people, have moms and dads!”
So you ask, “what about kids who have two moms, like me?” And the teacher says “Sorry we can’t talk about that, you have to go talk to your parents.”
How much shame does that generate, right there in the moment? Wait, I’m different? My family is different? Do all my classmates think we are different now? Why am I not allowed to talk about this?
Y’all talk about protecting kids from getting hurt. But this is the stuff that can really damage kids.
I appreciate both the tone and the clarity in your post, so I also thank you.
quote=“FermentedAgave, post:1008, topic:22464”]
Can we expand the definition of “family” while honoring the current definition of family?
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I think for many of us the definition of “family” is already expanded, and as for honoring the “current definition of family,” I’m not sure what you think is the ‘current definition.’ I speculate that you are too smart and too liberal actually (yes, you–liberal! at least in certain ways and areas) to deny that a gay or lesbian couple with or without children, for instance, is a family, but there was a time not long ago when many people did not think so, and some still don’t. There was the social debate around whether gay and lesbian couples should be able to be adoptive parents, for instance. I think an expanded and worldcentric view of family (i.e. all humanity in kinship) begins with and includes an expanded view of what is an individual family unit.
I’m glad you emphasized through caps PERCEPTION, which tells me you understand that perception isn’t always an accurate reflection or account of reality. And people perceive the same thing differently. You’ve seen those pictures where one person sees two faces looking at one another and another person looking at the same picture sees a bat? Or one person at first sees the bat, and then sees the faces. Perception has a lot to do with intention–we see/perceive what we intend to see/perceive, even if that intention is relatively unconscious. Intention helps shape perception. I know that many people on the political Right do perceive the Left in the way you described. It pains me a bit to point out (because we’ve been here so many times before) that many people on the political Left perceive the Right in a similar way–hijacked; that’s a fitting word. I don’t see how we will ever be able to “create joint action…” as you say unless we get past this, unless we begin to question the role of intent in how we perceive the “other side,” or ‘other’ period.
Well, nevermind what I was going to say on this; Corey said it much better. It is complicated.
You know, I had already read about Harrison’s comment, and Cotton’s as well about Judge Brown Jackson. Neither inspires any confidence in government representatives/officials. I personally view as a major permissive and normalizing root of all this name-calling and over-the-top accusation DJT himself. Politics has always been coarse, but it became coarser with Trump. But that’s no reason for it to continue. It’s again exploiting the right to free speech to serve dubious if not wicked purposes.
I want to press down here a bit. I am so curious about how you see things, but I do find it hard to get past how angry you are. I am never clear as to why you are so angry at liberalism other than you seem very hurt by it. This to me seems to be a dynamic in our world and I think it’s worth exploring. I too would love to create joint action plans and communities but find it impossible to do that with people who think I am a murderous pedophile and I’m sure you find it impossible to do with people who think you are a racist homophobic misogynist.
How do we get past these characterizations? Why do these characterizations continue to come up?
One thing I am very interested in is the continuity of the spiral. I think a valid critique you have of Integral is they tend to function with an overly simplistic and liberal leaning ideation of the stages while all of this continues to be examined in the gross reality more so than any other. All of this sets up stagnation.
What I see is an evolving of each stage. Traditional stage of today is not what it was in the 70’s when grew up. I really do not understand it anymore. I don’t know what the values are other than “we hate liberals more that we hate anything else” . I understand you can find examples of extremism but who can’t. I would love it if you could articulate what is the core you are working for.
Here is what I am hearing:
You want marriage defined as being between a man and a woman, and man and woman to be defined in solely biological, reproductive terms. Why is this important? My late husband and myself were not able to reproduce and I asked my dad once if that meant we were not really married. Of course, he said no, that was not the point. I asked him what was the point and he just got flustered. I really don’t want to fluster him, but again, I am curious and I can never get my questions answered.
You want all conceptions to result in births. You are indifferent to the conditions of the birth. The reality if a child can be cared for is not the concern, it’s only the birth. Again, why? This is another issue I have come across in trying to communicate. I did adopt and would hear all the time “there are no babies to adopt”. This is not even close to a factual truth. There is a small truth to it being difficult to adopt 100% white healthy children, but otherwise it’s quite overwhelming how many children there are to adopt. Again, when I would point this out to those who use adoption as a solution to the issue of raising children…no response, or they would go to an extreme of killing poor children. It’s like the only boundry that can be set is one extreme or another. Why can we not have a conversation about where boundaries need to be set without these extremes? It’s exhausting.
You don’t want populations like trans to be given “special” exceptions. Why? I hear you say that they should not be given special exceptions because you are not given them. You want a basketball league, I assume you have limited talent, so creating a league for the talentless would be ridiculous in your mind so don’t do it. What I hear here, is you feel excluded and have had to deal with it, so you feel others should have to deal with exclusion as well. Having a social process for thinking through who and what should or should not be excluded is bothersome to you. (Again, setting boundaries) Feminism that questioned the exclusion of women, bothersome, but now women are included, that is no longer bothersome. That is now included in the traditional stage (boundary expanded). It seems to be what bothers people has less to do with the actual group then it does with the process. It’s the process of setting boundaries that seems to be what is the most difficult. This does make sense since it is what the stage is still working on.
I think this gets to the heart of the matter. Those who are more attached to a traditional stage feel protective of it, the questioning process feels shaming and difficult because those at this stage are less fluid with boundaries so the whole “liberal” process is destabilizing. This shaming and boundary questioning has only intensified in recent decades. If this rings true, is there a way to speak to the emotional effect of the conversation first, then get to the material issues? Or, would this just require awareness that is not possible, so fight on?
I want to add one last note, I do think a conversation is necessary. I do think boundaries need to be set and I don’t think “progressive” boundaries are a given. I just don’t see this conversation happening anywhere, even here, at least no in the way I wish it was. It’s also possible that my expectations for the tone and care of the conversation are unrealistic. Evolving a more beautiful conversation may not be an option.
Hi @Michelle , Thanks for the deep and well thought out questions - and for wanting to explore this in-between, this gap, this chasm perhaps we’re living in and through.
To start I don’t see the current Left, the Progressives, including the mainstream DNC and Media as Liberal at all. Classic Liberals might vehemently disagree with others, but vehemently defend the rights of those they disagree with to have and express their opinions. You are probably a classic Liberal, but many that claim to be Liberals or Progressives are very Illiberal and quite Regressive. As an example recommending censorship of Millions of American’s expression is by definition Illiberal and Regressive. I’m not trying to create division with this statement, just stating what 10M’s of Americans witness coming from “the Left”.
Sadly given our 2-Party political system, the Left has shown that they in fact are serious about their Illiberal agenda and willingly will change the rules to the game of American culture, society, and governance to insure they “win”. And I’m sure the Left sees something similar from the Right.
I’ve been probing on the Integral feedback mechanisms but don’t see so much of a spiral based development but a straight forward higher than, lower than altitude (and attitude) assessment and judgement. Not as much Meta or Transcendence views as we might hope, the kind of views that would bridge the gaps, close the chasms, bring humanity together. I also am concerned at rigourous self and external assessment within and with out Integralism. Stagnation or lack of vibrancy within Integralism is a concern, but even more disconcerting baking in of psychoses with the altitudes. Seemingly those that see psychoses building within Integralism eventually disengage and move on.
And you might ask why I’m so interested in Integral Theory. About 20 years ago I found Wilber’s Integral Theory along with several others including Pinker, McWrother, Foucault, Kohlberg, Piaget, Ericsson. Wilber’s Integral Theory help me assimilate much of this and helped me “grow up” or take a more Transcend view in my life. Wilber’s structured analytic approached resonated well for me.
***So I don’t know any Conservatives that “hate Liberals”, if the Liberals are in fact Liberal.
I don’t know if when you use “you” if you are referring to me specifically or those on the right in general. But in either case I’ll try to provide my views of both.
Marriage - The classic definition of marriage since foundation of most of our widespread religions has been a sacred partnership between a woman and a man. You seem to be wanting to use the term partnership, which is widely used today and perhaps more prevalent a description than marriage in today’s society. I completely understand and support equal rights and benefits for non-traditional marriages. What I didn’t understand is why, as an example, the Gay and Lesbians also demand the entire world, every religion, every institution adopt their new definition of marriage. At this point, I think it’s a settled issue and the definition of marriage has been redefined.
You mention marriage as “solely biological, reproductive”. In many religions reproduction this is likely the primary component to marriages, but not the sole component. My layman’s understanding is that withholding children from a marriage is essentially withholding oneself from the marriage and the Sacred. Given that religions are trying to help us experience the Sacred, it seems fairly basic. While children are considered Sacred by most religions, very few that I am aware of would consider inability to have children as invalidating the sacred nature of marriage itself. Adopting a child is an amazingly Sacred thing to do.
Abortion - We’ve seen many debates on “viability”, “women’s rights”, “choice”. And yes ideally I would like to see every conception result in a beautiful healthy new life, the most Sacred. Most people that are pro-choice aren’t anti-baby just as most people that are pro life are not in favor of banning all abortions.
We’ve had many discussions given the recent abortion law changes. What do I personally think? I think a banning abortions is not best for our society. I think abortion laws similar to what Texas has implemented are essentially abortion bans.
Now here’s where the chasm explodes. One of my best friends introduced us to his soon to be wife who was a retired public school guidance counselor. She felt it necessary find out our politics and if we were Hillary supporters - she was the only one at the table. She then felt it necessary to ask how we felt about minors getting abortions and parental consent. Everyone answered, of course the parents should be required to provide consent and be made aware of any discussions state employees have with their children.
If we go back to children as Sacred, dis-intermediating parents and children is seen as unacceptable.
So here we are - I think children and every human is sacred - but I’m also not in favor of banning all abortions. But I also think it very unhealthy for a society or individuals to destroy 100,000’s of babies every year?
Don’t want populations like Trans to be given “special” exceptions - Are we headed down the classic Critical Theory, Intersectionality playbook where society carves out “special” groups to bestow “enhanced” benefits (funding, enforcement, preference). Personally I’m quite okay if someone wants to “do their thing”. I just don’t want to pay for it, nor have enforcement of arbitrary laws meant to give advantage to specific groups.
You’ve taken the basketball league concept in an interesting direction. There are actually many basketball leagues for people at all skill and athletic levels. Is the issue that they don’t pay well enough to make a living? Is it that they aren’t celebrated by Millions? Does society “owe” each and every person a highly celebrated role with high pay? Should we teach the children that don’t work very hard at basketball that they’re “just as good as” the player that practices hours every day?
Do these discussions eventually uncover me or you wanting to get paid for our hobbies or kinks in order to feel validated? Hmm…
There is wisdom here and hope you don’t feel shamed in asking. I definitely don’t feel shamed in you asking nor me answering.
Questions that I have are:
Do you think we sincerely respect what progress we do make? Does the Left care if progress is being made if they aren’t getting the validation?
Does a Liberal Democracy not iteratively “discuss and negotiate” through our elections?
Have we just redefined “family” in such a way that we should NOT feel a closer bond to the people we have committed our lives to support - our wife, husband, children, sisters, brothers, parents, cousins?
I’m actually quite Libertarian in outlook. You do you, I do me, and if whatever you’re doing makes you happy then do more of it. Do we disagree is when I want the State to give my lifestyle, tribe, family, friends preference over your lifestyle, tribe, family, friends?
Have we ever in the history of humanity just all nodded in agreement? Do we even want a monolithic “Borg” culture? What if we are in fact sorting all of this out?
If we set aside all the political machinations and posturing, didn’t we just have 2 Republican Senators up for reelection in Ranked Choice states vote to confirm the most activist justice in history?
Disney is “going to bat” for whomever it is they are going to bat for against Florida’s parents rights law?
What’s puzzling is Harrison controls the current majority party and KBJ was actually confirmed. Even having “won it all” the head of the DNC comes unhinged and is out to destroy. Wonder what that’s all about?
No, I did not say that, and am not saying that, and if that is what you got from my comments, then you are either reading into my statements something that was not there or misinterpreting, either unintentionally or intentionally, what I said. What I was saying is that a person may be more likely to be worldcentric in view (i.e. have care and concern for all people in the world, as a “family of humanity” so to speak) if they have an acceptance that there is a diverse array of what the individual family can look like (and probably vice-versa: if one has an acceptance of the non-traditional family, they are maybe or even probably more likely to have a worldcentric view, than if they hold to a purely traditional view of what a family looks like).
I don’t understand what you’re saying here.
I think I’ve made it clear that I know that conflict and disagreement are an ongoing part of life, of culture. Of course we are in fact just sorting everything out, and one of my contributions to that sorting process is to point out that our intentions, conscious and unconscious, affect what and how we perceive/see in life, culture, ‘other.’ What do you think Cotton’s intention was in seeing and describing KBJ as a “defender of Nazis,” and what was Harrison’s intention in seeing and describing Cotton as a “maggot-infested man?” Do you think there was any similarity in their bottom-line intentions? Maybe both, to borrow and paraphrase your words, wanting to “win it all” through destruction of an ‘other’?
KBJ chose a career as a public and then private defense attorney. She claimed “I worked the cases assigned” by her supervisors. Cotton pointed out that after leaving public service she chose a firm that enabled her to continue defending Guantanimo Bay defendents. Gitmo as we know is where we drop people that are trying to destroy the US. Cotton said something to the affect that she would have chosen to defend Nazis if she had a chance, which I have no doubt is true given her record. She handed out the lightest sentences she could legally give to some people that were found guilty of some very inappropriate behavior. Booker and Durbin can giggle, but KBJ isn’t someone you would want sentencing the drug dealer that helped you daughter OD, if you had children still alive.
Senator Cotton was elected by the Citizens of Arkansas and then appointed to Judiciary Committee by RNC to move forward their respective agendas.
Last I checked, Harrison is an unelected DNC operative. Didn’t the last couple DNC chairs get fired for throwing primaries for Hillary or corrupting Presidential debates?
Sorry. Delete the “Do” and might make more sense.
On Family - Here we are with common vernacular vs a new definition of “family”. Most people are comfortable with using common definitions like family, extended family, community, city, state, nation, region and global.
One community might be your children’s “school community”. And it’s been fairly common to defer to a child’s actual family on matters their family cares about. Would it be appropriate for you or I to have “private” conversations with an 8 year old neighbor?
Of course not. Doesn’t really matter what the topic might be.
And just to be clear, at least on the Righty news outlets there are multiple videos of training calls from LGBTQ curriculum experts laying out how to train Pre K -5 on Intersectionality, LGBTQ+++ , Gender, Sexuality. Not sure why the Left is so hell bent on 1. Keeping it on the down low and 2. So adamant at justifying why grade school kids need this training, but to use an old Army term “not sure why they’re choosing this hill to die on.”
What’s kind of ironic is we go through annual child abuse and grooming identification training and NCIS background checks thru church in order to volunteer for anything. We all have pledged to call the police immediately if we saw any of this type stuff.
So I’m not saying all of these tax payer funded civil servants are groomers or pedophiles, but we would have to call the police on any and all of them if we say any of this material being taught. Weird situation really.
But hey, we will get it all sorted out.
As a side note, there is also much being written that we have already seen “Peak Woke” and “Peak Intersectionality” due to awareness gained during the lockdown and DNC majority rule.
What’s also well understood is that failing to tow the LGBTQI+++ orthodoxy will result in personal attacks of being Transphovic, Homophobic, Racist, etc etc…
When really all the parents want is “Hey teacher, leave those kids alone.” But at least NEA is nailing the “we don’t need no education”. Lol
It’s interesting to me that when we can have a better conversation how easily it is to find space where the differences feel less polarized and the solutions that could come from them more workable. Getting to this conversation is just so difficult and on the national level it seems impossible.
I personally like to think of the stages as buckets. The buckets are foundational and we all function with them, but the content of the buckets is personal. There will form a collective experiencing of them that is cultural and generational. This evolution of the collective bucket (stage) can be confusing to people, and I think gets misunderstood as regressive often. I think the chasm you are speaking to and the massive polarization we are witnessing around the world is not due to a regression but instead to an evolution (horizontal) of the traditional and pre traditional stages. I think this is what the integral conversation is missing IMO. They tend to see development as linear and not spiral.
I can see what’s happening with the progressive left in this light easily. I think it is happening in a very educated and controlled way so, where it’s still blue (amber) and not green as many want to categorize it, it’s not something that disturbs me to any great degree. Differences in this stage are always hard, however, so there is a lot that is still bothersome to me. I do find success when I address it within that blue (amber) perspective, not argue with it from a postmodern perspective. Just a quick example from yesterday. My daughter has a trans friend. I am totally fine with all of this but I misgender them all the time. My daughter feels the need to constantly correct me which is so annoying. Instead of having a conversation about gendering I had a conversation about being corrected all the time. I am fine with the green gendering; I hate the blue knuckle swatting. This she totally got. If I would have approach this, as most do, from the issue of gendering it would have been an argument.
Where I am struggling more is in understanding what is happening to the right. Today’s conservatives are not my parents’ conservatives, or mine for that matter. I do think you seem to have a blind spot to this, but I get it (I think). My guess is it doesn’t bother you as much the same way progressives don’t bother me as much. I think as Integralist we should be able to have a deeper conversation and bring about a more complex and nuanced understanding to this newly emergent red/blue development.
I can summarize easily the new rules and roles that the progressive left is trying to install. I can easily see the cultural controls they are trying to put in place. I can also see the need for all of this to move into a more modern and postmodern sphere, but they need to but installed first. That’s the point of development, you can’t evolve a skill until you have it. The skill of truly respecting vast difference does matter. Even if trans people are a small group they deserve the freedom to live their life openly and safely. Black people deserve to have their historical trauma, which is extreme, recognized. They deserve to have their contribution to this country recognized. This country needs to have a moral evolution for how ism’s are addressed. We cannot get to a “higher” conversation until this is fully established in the blue stage. I get it and I can be patient for that higher national conversation that I am ready for because I see the country as a whole still needs this blue stage development. Denying it is regressive and that is what I see the right doing, blocking evolution…but I’m open to learning if there is more to it.
I cannot see what Trump, QAnon, the Proud Boys are going for, other than blocking this development. The only other thing I see looks like anarchy, a very non conservative principal. Can you articulate what is going on?
I think that whole first section addresses the first question. The Left is trying to establish new rules. I think once these rules are in place they will move to the next stage, as all humans do. Blocking this development will only delay the progression to the next stage. Validation is helpful in all development. I get there seems to be hurt feelings that the “first go around” from blue to green is not being recognized. I feel that too. If there was more acknowledgment of the extraordinary developmental path that took place over the past 50 years we would be in a better place, but unfortunately that cannot be seen. It’s just the nature of development. Teenagers always think their parents are idiots. It’s the unseen gift of progress, the new generation literally cannot imagine what came before, they only see it from the shoulders of the giants they are standing on. Our job is to be the strong giants that shoulder them. Hopefully they too will one day feel the pressure of shouldering the progress.
I think the cultural evolution is reflected in election not directed by them. Elections are about representation; we need to be in control of what is getting represented.
at least in certain ways and areas) to deny that a gay or lesbian couple with or without children, for instance, is a family, but there was a time not long ago when many people did not think so, and some still don’t. There was the social debate around whether gay and lesbian couples should be able to be adoptive parents, for instance. I think an expanded and worldcentric view of family (i.e. all humanity in kinship) begins with and includes an expanded view of what is an individual family unit.