I recently friended a fellow on Facebook who had, until a few years ago, worn clothing fashioned with a Confederate Flag. He came around and changed his mind...threw out the bandana, realizing that it was a racist symbol he wanted no part of.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=536147699883195& set=a.103147593183210.7351.100004639080481& type=1
About 8 years ago, I was one of the people who stood for Civil Unions for gay people, based on my reckoning that it seemed a decent compromise. Gay people would get the benefit of marriage. Religious people could rest easy that their customs and religions would be preserved.
Then I saw a comment by a gay person online that pointed out that civil unions were essentially the same principle as "Separate but Equal" that defined Jim Crow laws and that consigned gay people to second-class citizenship. I found that compelling and changed my position.
In today's balkanized media markets, our differences are easily preserved and exacerbated. I'm just wondering what it takes to make someone change their mind about something. What makes a person shift...start to see things differently?
Another example: My Intellectual History Advisory at college, Alan Kors (google him: he's a moderate conservative, huge on free speech) and I were having coffee at the Student Union and arguing about stuff, which we often did. He was arguing that rape is no different from any other kind of physical assault. All are physically invasive and traumatic, only our own sexual hangups make rape worse.
I pointed out that rape carries with it the risk of forced pregnancy, a completely different kind of intrusion.
Dr. Kors raised his pipe towards me and said in this thick Jersey City accent: "That is utterly compelling. That is an utterly compelling argument."
I think that was my proudest moment in college, but most of the credit goes to Dr. Kors for being fair minded and having intellectual integrity. He was a great advisor, and I respected the hell out of the guy.
Have you ever changed your mind on a political or personal matter? Has your position on an issue ever shifted. Did you ever decide/realize that you were just plain wrong about something and proceed differently thereafter? Have you ever undergone a paradigm shift?
One more example:
When I was in my late 20s and early 30s, I had a major resentment against my father because I felt like he did not understand or try to really know me, and so I felt very unsupported by him. I was angry at him all the time, and it caused me a lot of pain.
One day, and this kind of came out of the blue, I heard the words, "I am dust," in my head. It was like a lightbulb went off, and I realized that what my father thought of me or what anyone thought of me just didn't matter. I was dust...animated dust with consciousness, which made me really fucking lucky to just be sitting here imagining I had a problem with my Dad.
In that moment, I just accepted that he was who he was, that he was doing the best he could, but that I didn't have to or need to depend upon him (or anyone) to feel okay about myself. Because feeling okay about myself was bullshit anyway.
It was very freeing. I went from feeling victimized and short-changed to feeling fortunate and satisfied. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted without needing a parent's approval, and that was cool.
So have you ever had a change of mind or heart or a paradigm shift that changed your opinion or perspective on an issue, a range of issues, or about your life in general?
Please explain.... and if you have to walk away and think about it a while, that is cool, too.
I have had a few stop in my tracks moments in life where someone completely changed my view based on their action or statement. You have to believe the action or statement is sincere to change too.
NEVER!
My younger years were around the riots and there was a lot of animosity and complaining going on about race by family and neighborhood folks. Around this time, my sister asked my grandfather if it were ok for a white person to marry a black person. Now my grandfather never said a racist word in his life tha tI heard but from the environment I was in, I was expecting an ISSUE was about to erupt. Instead, my grandfather just said, yes, if you both love each other. That was huge for me and I still think it changed my entire way of thinking, speaking to people and viewing the world.
I'll fucking cut you.
It changed my life forever. It shined a light on the struggles of the gay community and told the story of an incredible man who became the first gay city councilman in the city of San Francisco only to be assassinated. This documentary made a huge impact on me and my attitude. It helped me to recognize that gay people are ordinary people just like me looking for love, happiness and acceptance.
My attitudes changed through first hand experience. Spend a decade working with diverse cultures, with immigrants - with illegals, and that will change anyone's tune, in factories, in warehouses, in restaurants and in some of the worst neighborhoods in Koch and Dinkins NYC.
One striking event was working for an office refurbishment company in Passaic, driving these 3 guys home to East Orange - came to find they were all gang-bangers, ex-cons. I asked "Why the hell are you working here?" - "Sink or swim" was the answer. "You can't live on welfare, and if you try to survive selling drugs you'll die or spend your life in jail."
I realized the truth about 'welfare queens' right then and there. I saw what they lived in. Barely any furniture. A TV. A boom box. Wife and kids, blazing hot apartments. But they worked. Worked their asses off too.
Can't wait for Kayne West or maybe a speech from Cait.
I'll meet you half way and say BBQ sauce is acceptable.
I won't get into policy details or specific issues because I don't want to ignite a political discussion. I will only point out that the issues that turned me around were the financial meltdown and the issue of universal single payer health care. These two issue made me do a lot of research and a complete re-evaluation. That was my most significant change of heart and mind. I think that's as far as I can safely go and hope I've not gone too far already.
As an aside, some BBIers may note that although I am basically liberal now, I still do hold conservative views on some issues.
I'm still mostly a lefty so maybe it was not that big a revelation for me.
I'll meet you half way and say BBQ sauce is acceptable.
Deal.
Actually, my dislike of fringe religions and observing stupidity of their messages has probably brought me closer to identifying with alternate lifestyles. I know too many gays today or in the past to believe that it is a choice to be that way. I have been exposed to too many cultures to believe they are doomed because they may not believe in the same deity.
I've gone from a Die-Hard Republican Alex P. Keaton to a rainbow loving Harvey Feirstein.
Immigration has a very small negative impact on Americans and is largely beneficial.
Ain't it the truth -- in my experience inside government - government will fuck up anything it possibly can
Quote:
to accept ketchup on a hot dog.
NEVER!
NEVER squared!
The experience may change your mind on what the answer is or is not. Or expand your mind to a whole other level: that human beings in any kind of institution are extraordinarily talented in fucking it up. =:-)
With at least a 3:1 mustard:ketchup ratio.
I was washing the floor in The Bungalo, where David often stayed (Koresh to you outsiders).
Someone stuck their head in the door and said:
"good job Number 7".
Right then and there, I knew three things.
I knew that I had moved up from Number 8.
I knew we wouldn't be seeing the old Number 7 any more.
and...I knew what the hogs had been so excited about around breakfast.
But by then, the center of gravity of the GOP had nearly completed an inexorable drift to the south (and, consequently toward the religious right).
I admired Eisenhower-type Republicans. I liked George H.W. Bush and Jerry Ford (though I always found Reagan to be a bit of a simpleton). I ever sorta liked and respected Nixon (mostly retrospectively, given my age), even though he was clearly pathological and a very troubled man. These guys were, at their core, practical and generally interested in doing right by their country.
But as the GOP became increasingly religious in tone and tenor, I became increasingly alienated. Unsurprising, given that, although raised very Catholic, I had figured out by 1990 or so that I just didn't believe any of it.
And as the GOP became more religious, it became more dogmatic. More absolutist, not just on matters of faith, but on everything. Taxes. Foreign policy. Abortion (naturally).
They stopped being a party of practicality and became a party of increasingly bizarre and uncompromising doctrines. At least, that's how I saw it.
So I stopped being a Republican. First I registered independent, then eventually as a Democrat. It has now been years since I voted for a Republican at any level.
Immigration has a very small negative impact on Americans and is largely beneficial.
If you have the time, could you point to an article/study you'd recommend on the gender wage gap?
I won't get into policy details or specific issues because I don't want to ignite a political discussion. I will only point out that the issues that turned me around were the financial meltdown and the issue of universal single payer health care. These two issue made me do a lot of research and a complete re-evaluation. That was my most significant change of heart and mind. I think that's as far as I can safely go and hope I've not gone too far already.
As an aside, some BBIers may note that although I am basically liberal now, I still do hold conservative views on some issues.
If there's anyone who doesn't hold a mixed liberal/conservative view, they really aren't worth listening to; they're idealogues.
Quote:
to accept ketchup on a hot dog.
NEVER!
NEVER EVER!!! And no mustard on burgers either.
I've found that as I get older I'm much slower to accept new ideas without first investigating the source- obviously not perfect at it, I don't think anyone is. I think much of that has to do with the incredible amount of information (and bullshit) available at your fingertips and in your pocket nowadays. I'm also not really all that sure if my skepticism is any sort of wisdom or if it stems more from cynicism. Meh, whatever.
Kinda off topic- if it's a man raping another man or a woman raping a man are those lesser crimes because the victim cannot get pregnant against their will?
As a kid and up through my later teen years I was of the mind that if a joke was funny,regardless of how distasteful it was, it was still just a joke and only as harmful as the offended allowed it to be. Then one day just shooting the shit around the barracks a few of us were trading brutally off-color jokes. As the laughter grew so did the audience. I decided to throw out a particularly crude joke about the Special Olympics. A Vietnam vet who did three tours and could've snapped me in half like dry timber approached me, got nose to nose with me, and sternly stated: that might not be so funny if you had a daughter with cerebral palsy, asshole".
I was mortified and embarrassed at my insensitivity. I later apologized to the man, and he was gracious enough to accept that. I told him that he opened my eyes to my ignorance, and I haven't told one of those jokes again. That was 14 years ago.
She lost her fucking mind.
Literally.
Personality completely changed. Turned nasty. Got into the habit of shitting in the tub, never broke her of it. Licked all the fur off her belly. This wasn't an older cat - maybe she was 4. Then she started fighting with our other cats - wound up giving her to my sister in law.
I'll never declaw another cat.
Do you know someone like that?
My life experiences made me more conservative (on fiscal issues at least), so no one event, just the accumulated life experiences of growing up in a family with a single mother raising three kids, going to college, getting an apartment, getting married, buying a house, having kids, raising kids, etc. has shifted a lot of my views.
I suspect when I become a senior citizen and am no longer a contributing member of the workforce my views may very well change again (as it suits me and my family).
I can empathize with that. My father also died at 42, and although I didn't sell everything and go fishing, it was a tough year for me.
Far too many people refuse to be humbled or are never humbled. Want to relate to someone else's plight? Live that plight or experience aspects of that plight and you will undoubtably appreciate someone else's misfortune or plight.
Far too many are self absorbed and self righteous.
First time you cross the line in the sand to stand with one of your friends who isn't the same race or the same sexual preferences as you.
16 years old in the Port Authority and a child comes up to you and says I'm lost and my parents said to talk to an adult. 1968?
First time you do what is right no matter what the cool crowd thinks.
I can think of many instances that shaped my heart and mind.
My ex wife was (is) a beautiful woman from Puerto Rico. My first trip to the islands involved some apprehension on my part regarding how I would fit in and how comfortable I would be in that culture. Turned out to be an incredibly marvelous experience and I am richer for it.
I am glad I did not go through life insulated from other cultures. I learned that while cultures are certainly different, people are not.
In a nutshell.
Really that simple.