Good advice to those intent on defining their opponents
And it may be especially useful to apply this advice to weblog publishing in the age of instant gratification. Think about it before you hit that post button. From Edwin Tait via Shawn McElhinney:
We always make our opponents out to be more radical than they are, so that we can position ourselves as part of the mainstream. But in times of great social tension this polarizing game can become an extremely dangerous form of self-fulfilling prophecy. We use the alleged radicalism of our opponents as an excuse to become radical ourselves, and thus prompt our opponents to follow suit, turning them into the monsters we thought they were all along (and so justifying further extremism on our part).
I am the presidential candidate from the Mystic Party. It's new. We are running on a platform of harsh asceticism and contemplative prayer. So far Cajun Mystic is my running mate to secure the southern vote. Apollonius of Thrace is my campaign manager. We are talking to an ascetic who chained herself to a pillar in Turkey 20 years ago about Secretary of State. Coming from Turkey she'd have a lot of foreign policy street cred, plus we'd pick up the women's vote. She actually doesn't speak either, but she's indicated interest with foot gestures. That's all our members so far, but we think we have a fighting chance.
ReplyDeleteI agree about radicalizing your opponents. It happens to us all the time. Our opponents laugh at us and try to brand us as kooks. They say we don't have a sense of reality. We live in some other dimension. That just drives us into deeper states of ecstasy.
If I were mean I'd drop a dime on them about what I saw when I was bilocating the other night.