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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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What’s your goal? Do you want to blow off steam or find solutions?

By David McElroy · August 29, 2011

It seems as though I’m seeing stronger and stronger expressions of political anger lately. If you read that and thought, “Well, of course we’re angry. The other side is so unreasonable,” this is for you.

The people you’re angry with are just as convinced they’re right as you’re convinced that you’re right. “But they’re dishonest,” you say. “They must know that they’re wrong. They have other motives.”

I’m here to disagree with you about that. There are a very few people who get into politics purely as charlatans, but very few. Mostly, they got into it because they were attracted to the political process (and the power involved in it) and they believed that the political position they took was obviously the right one.

The vast majority of liberal progressive Democrats sincerely believe that conservative Republicans are selfish, greedy racists. The vast majority of socially conservative Republicans honestly believe that liberal Democrats are immoral, evil idiots. Various other groups have similarly distorted views about people they oppose. The truth is that almost everybody honestly believes he’s right. The problem is that we have a system that allows only one group to get its way.

I used to get very angry in political discussions. For that matter, I used to get very angry and bent out of shape about a lot of stupid disagreements. I took policy disagreements as personal rejection of some sort. I’m embarrassed at how strongly I felt that way. I’m also embarrassed about some of the ways I’ve acted in online arguments — even when I was right — when it would have been so much more mature (and less time-consuming) to simply disagree and walk away.

For me, that was a character flaw based on a deep fear of rejection, but other people have different reasons for their own extreme anger. A lot of people are frustrated because they don’t know what to do. A lot of other people are scared by change they see going on (and the discomfort makes them angry). As the country’s demographics naturally change — as they always do — we’re going to see more anger from these sort of people, because massive change is coming, no matter who decides what happens in the future.

You need to ask yourself what your goal is. Why are you involved in politics or writing or agitation or whatever it is you’re doing to express your anger? Is your goal to express your anger and make sure that others know why you’re angry? Or is it your goal to find solutions to get what you want?

If you’re just blowing off steam, I have a suggestion. I realize most people won’t take it. (I probably wouldn’t have been either until my psychological epiphany about the source of my anger a couple of years ago.) I’m going to suggest that you’re hurting yourself — not your opponents — with your rage. Further, I’m going to suggest that you aren’t accomplishing anything that will help get you closer to where you want to be.

In the sermon I heard Sunday night from Dr. David Platt at the Church at Brook Hills, he asked how many of us were praying for our political enemies. “It’s hard to hate someone who you’re praying for,” he said, paraphrased as best I can without the audio recording.

Whether you care about loving your enemies or not, the expressions of anger we see around us aren’t doing any good. They’re simply adding more powder to an increasingly dangerous pile of explosive material. It’s going to be ugly if the fuse is ever lit on that powder — and nobody wins that kind of fight.

The problem isn’t the people we disagree with. The problem is a system that requires us to fight against everybody for supreme power. Reject the notion that we have to fight. Accept the notion that there are solutions outside the current political system. Accept the idea that you’re going to be happier to find a solution that will work for you and your children and future generations. The “call to anger” that you’re putting out to everybody is only making you bitter and raising your blood pressure.

Our opponents aren’t generally evil. They’re just wrong. We need to work toward solutions that can get what we all think we want — even though I think a lot of groups will be unhappy with what they claim they want.

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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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