Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
I Don’t Care About Your Feelings
I’m writing this post for anyone on the Left who might be curious about the political Right. Not for your leaders or political elites, but for you: the everyday person who believes the stories and the rhetoric of the Left, and feels that those on the political Right are to be feared and condemned.
But before I tell you why I don’t care about your feelings, let me tell you about myself and how I suspect you might feel about me.
I’m a Conservative. I live in a quiet community with friendly neighbors who join together to decorate our street for the Christmas holidays.
I like to read the news. I read books mostly about current events. I love dogs and watching TV shows about Alaska and veterinarians. My friends are people who raised good kids, and now in their later years, indulge their grandchildren. They often visit them because they have the time to do so.
Some of us love to cook; others dine out. We get together at Thanksgiving and have a neighborhood Christmas party. Some of us are couch potatoes; others fight off the challenges of aging by getting exercise at the gym.
Some of the guys play golf. Some of the women do, too. We bring meals over when people are unwell. Some of us go to church, others don’t. Some of us take vacation trips; others are homebodies.
In other words, we are ordinary people. In many respects, we are just like you.
We are not white supremacists.
We are not domestic terrorists.
We are not racists.
We want to live our lives in peace; isn’t it your deepest wish to do the same?
But I have come to believe that goal doesn’t ring true for you, at least not at a conscious level.
You trust in your feelings to make judgments and decisions.
You think those of us on the Right are cruel because we rely on not only feelings but on reason.
You hate this country, not for what it has become, but because you think we must bear the guilt of our country’s history, forever.
You want those of us on the Right to take the responsibility for every disappointment, poor decision, and crisis simply because you have become convinced that we are the best people to blame.
Your blame is not connected to evidence, facts, or truth but upon fear and hatred. It is also convenient and easy to blame us, and your feelings confirm your dissatisfaction with our country for not being a perfect place. You feel the country, and those of us who love this country, are guilty. Of horrendous crimes.
* * * *
By relying on your feelings, however, you are living a life of delusion and unhappiness. Feelings can be wonderfully satisfying in certain contexts. But when you rely on your feelings, you create a narrow and limited pathway for comprehending your life. Data outside of your feelings is deemed hateful, non-compassionate, and destructive.
When are feelings a satisfying and appropriate indulgence? When we embrace our friends and families. When we cook our favorite meal. When we make homemade chocolate chip cookies and eat them when they are still warm. When we are overwhelmed with joy at a child’s first birthday party. Even when we grieve the loss of a friend’s passing, our feelings allow us to appreciate what life offered him, and has offered us.
That experience of feelings is a personal investment that allows us to fully engage with our lives in an intimate way.
But it is not sufficient for making important decisions, to explore the pluses and minuses of the world around us; it ought not to be the sole way for choosing our friends and our aims in life.
If we limit ourselves only to our feelings, without expanding our life’s experience with information, or with resources that challenge our own ideas, preferences, and biases, we are locked into a mindset that will isolate us, making our lives ugly and dark.
I’m not suggesting that you use only reason to make your life’s choices. Nor am I saying that relying on your feelings is a poor approach.
I am saying that if you rely solely on your feelings without expanding the way you see the world, the way you see the political Right, the way you see me, I am compelled to make a choice.
I can’t make you change your mindset.
I won’t change my own view of the world.
As long as you indulge your feelings to justify your hatred, your attacks on America, and on our citizens, I will condemn who you are and what you stand for. I’ve made a heart-wrenching choice.
I choose not to care about you and your ideas.
And I couldn’t care less about your feelings.
Published in Culture
For me, making things about feelings is about supremacy. It is instinctual, but I sometimes that “what about MY feelings?”
What is it that makes it that your feelings are more important than my own feelings? Arguments that attempt elevate some feelings over others amount to supremacy thinking. They are better than you, more valid, morally righteous.
That’s why reality has to win out over feelings. Feelings are just a perspective on reality, not reality itself.
Precisely. I’m not even sure we’re capable of knowing what reality is, but it certainly is not predominately feelings!
And when your feelings don’t coincide with reality, reality wins. Fundamentally if I say I identify as a woman that is no different than if I say I identify as Napoleon. Except for some reason society is celebrating one and would certainly treat the other. We need to treat both. It isn’t compassionate to elevate someone’s feelings above reality.
2%iFlAtIoN mAKeS ouR lIveS bEtTer
Excellent viewpoint on where half of us find ourselves now.
When we think about our lives, we certainly feel normal. We lead normal lives in normal homes, the kids’ or grandkids’ drawings taped to the fridge, the music playing on the stereo being the same music our opponents listen to, the books on our bookshelves mimicking the books of those who are Democrats.
But just as we have given up on caring about their feelings, they have no interest in utilizing logic. If Biden, or Hillary or Nancy Pelosi continue to ramp up hatred against Republican extremists, as I predict they will, they will entertain two simultaneous feelings: one being that their leaders deserve their loyalty and obedience, especially as following these leaders will keep Donald Trump from running for office in 2024.
They also will comfort themselves that in entertaining the idea that it might be no holds barred against Trump and those who are most extreme in their loyalty to him, that any thing that happens to “those people” is what they surely deserve, even if corners are cut to bring them to “justice.” They also are convincing themselves that only a few people will be dealt with in this overwhelming and most unusual manner.
This is how a purge starts: a political entity convinces its loyalists that “only a few” need to be taken care of. As long as no one pays attention to any reports of increasing numbers of people being deprived of their lives by spurious accusations of being domestic terrorists, slowly slowly, the political entity can purge 5% to 15% of their opposition and then as necessary expand the operation outward.
Is there a historical precedence for this? We only have to look at what went on in The Soviet Union under Stalin in the 1930’s. This is how during “the Great Terror,” Stalin’s goons were able to kill off between 750,000 political opponents to twice that number, with another 1 million being sent off to labor camps.
At the beginning of this huge purge of human life, show trials were common. The outcome of the show trial is predetermined, with only the Plaintiff, in this case the State, allowed to have any witnesses. Only after sentencing is the accused allow to speak.
What frightens me about this initial use of having “show trials” is that from what I have read about the Jan 6th defendants’ trials, their situation as far as witnesses and statements outlining any type of rebuttal to the State’s case is eerily similar to that of the prisoners that Stalin had indicted.
Feelings masquerade as reason.
Excellent observations, CarolJoy. We can try not to overreact, but recent history keeps reminding us of what is possible.
Yes, without rational thought, all arguments reduce to some form of “I know you are but what am I?”
Yeah, right!
Public goods only.
The Fed stops pushing the economy around.
Every government actuarial system turns into a nuclear bomb.
If you don’t believe that, you are a communist that “thinks” with your f e e l I n g s.
Nobody understands that so then everybody whines about p o p u l I s m and s o c I a l I s m.
Act accordingly.
Gonna talk about my feelings here.
I feel rage – wrath without effect – towards people I
deemfeel are wrong.That these people tend to be leftists doesn’t make this in any way healthy.
Better than 10%, that’s for sure.
Great points. There is a meme theme going around centered on “The world you were born in no longer exists.” Some of it has a creepy.cringe element to it, as any theme can be pressed into service by numerous (sometimes opposing) factions, but the core message is undeniable. Not in a trivial “yeah, well, it’s been mumble mumble years,” sense, but in a fundamental way that is as unwelcome as it is illegitimate.
And it’s a challenge to find the balance between figuring out what it means to “adjust,” and at the same time, when to fight back. Some days I’m just at a loss . . .
The world where socialism works can never exist.
And yet they Won’t. Give. Up.
And this is the fallacy so beloved by what I call the “Logitarians”; those Libertarians whose experience debating philosophy at the University duck pond and dissecting arguments with truth tables think that somehow winning arguments has anything to do with changing things.
That stuff only works in a permissive environment — logic cannot conduct opposed landings. Only force can.
I was compassionate when I could be, or if someone was going to fight, I could drive them into the pavement. There is a certain clarity on the street, and it’s a fine line. Breaking up with your virtual girlfriend may have been traumatic, but that doesn’t allow you to assault your grandmother in a fit of rage, or anyone else including me when the dispatcher sends me to your front door.
I like Susan’s post, and this as well. I mean, we have to care about other people’s “feelings” the broadest sense or we’re all sociopaths. And I care about their “feelings,” as channeled into politics, inasmuch as they have an effect on my life. I guess for me the weariness comes from the assumption that I should accept a postulate or accusation because they feel strongly about it. Oh, you’re passionate about your position? Guess I should reset my ideological constellation, then.
If you’re going to have a committee of propeller heads central plan this, the only number that has a chance of working is 0%. Furthermore, it can’t really be measured in reality.
The whole planet is in big trouble because we haven’t had natural interest rates since 1996, at least. Global socialist planning.
Yes, I’m just appreciating the beauty of a longer fuse while we’re all tied to the bomb.
I’ve thought a lot about this. Greenspan made the end happen way faster than it needed to.
The best Gomez Addams.
I can think of some historic examples of great purges.
Gideon tearing down his father’s altar to Baal and cutting down the Asherah pole. Jehu exterminating the house of Ahab. Elijah slaughtering the prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel.
What about the purge of former Nazis in Germany and Austria? Was that bad? The purge of former Communists in Russia and Eastern Europe? Do you oppose that?
It is a useful shorthand. I don’t disagree with it. I only felt compelled to point out it is a shorthand because some of my younger conservative friends have started acting as if it isn’t a short hand for something and engaging in twitter like behavior in RL. This makes me uncomfortable, so I am trying to work out how I feel and what I should do to correct what I consider an error, or a least a breach of decorum. I certainly agree though the idea that someone’s emotional passion’s should trump a careful considered rational view of a problem is farcical.
In an office setting anger is a ‘prestige’ emotion – meaning some people (management) can express anger while for other people it’s unacceptable. Some people’s feelings are more socially valid than others’.
That said, hasn’t this been going on for a long time in terms of politics and culture? On a heap of subjects (not just Left/Right, but also things like Pro-choice/Pro-Life, Israel/Palestine, I’m sure you can think of others). The only thing that seems to be changing is whose feelings are socially valid and whose are not.
It depends on the company. Hostile work environment and all that. Also people can be attacked publicly in some places for expressing ideas that aren’t woke.
What I meant was, it’s valid for management individuals to be openly critical of the work produced, productivity, quality, etc.
It’s a lot less valid for workers to be openly critical of failures of management.
?
Have people been attacked publicly in the past for expressing ideas that are outside the consensus? Or been fired?
If so, then what’s (partially) changed is the consensus rather than freedom of expression without fear per se.
Nobody needs to criticize poor management. Just denounce it in the name of DIE.