Alan Weiss’s Monday Morning Memo® – 11/11/2024
Rodney King was severely beaten by police in 1991—33 years ago—which led to riots and changes in police protocols and discipline, although the officers involved with his beating were acquitted of criminal charges. He had a history of criminal activity, alcoholism, and drug addiction, and died by drowning in his pool in 2012, attributed to alcohol and cocaine. It was ruled accidental.
He famously commented during his troubles, “Why can’t we all just get along?”
I’d ask that very question now of all of us who are not living with the burdens of King’s addictions and legal problems. There are people publicly “mourning” because of Harris’s election loss, professors not holding class and taking a “mental health day,” and newspaper reports of groups already planning to “block Trump” in every way they can. (The very point, of course, is that most people can’t take a “mental health day” even in a family tragedy, because they don’t enjoy the elite position of those insulated professors.)
Okay, it’s a free country, as it will be when another president takes over in four more years. That’s really not the issue, the American Democracy was designed by geniuses to be run, if necessary, even by idiots. (One of the lessons of this election, perhaps, is that people don’t react well to the geniuses’ names being removed from public buildings.) And we’ve had our share of idiots in government over the past 250 years. The jury on Mr. Trump’s next four years isn’t even in session yet, because no jurors can foresee the future.
The issue in this country is that there is a pronounced, articulated, and unabashed belief by many that they are superior to anyone who disagrees with them. Consequently, why would you listen to an inferior to examine whether or not you are correct? Instead, listen only to those other elevated souls who agree with you in your superior existence—or, what I might rudely call “unexamined confirmation bias.”
All over social media (where even cowards can be bold because you’re not physically facing anyone, and the normal inhibitions of personal space don’t obtain) people are forsaking friends, dropping F-bombs (as if that adds to their moral hygiene), and otherwise rending their garments because their candidate didn’t win. Let me put that another way: because the majority of the people, as also reflected in the Senate and House results, indicated that they have had it with the party and president and candidate in power.
I’m not trying to convert nor proselytize. I’m merely suggesting that we listen to, we don’t condemn, opinions that are contrary to our own. And perhaps recognize (as this election reflected) that “celebrities” and their opinions are worthless, no better than yours or mine, and often worse—because they originate with people who lead elite and protected lives. (Shut up and sing, or act, or host, or whatever, but stay in your lane.)
What we popularly call “polarization” is really a vast expression of low self-esteem: People who are so afraid of other opinions and of being wrong that they defend themselves by castigating those who disagree, sometimes even violently. If you’re confident, you’re not afraid to listen to others and agree with them when the point is a good one. (What happens in most cases when you tell people they’re defensive? They yell back, “I am NOT defensive!!”)
So let’s all calm down, you really don’t have Rodney King’s physiological and emotional problems to deal with. And please note that he tried, to the end of his days, to go through rehab and to try to get better.
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken. —Oliver Cromwell.
A good leader can engage in debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed. —Nelson Mandela
Tradition means giving votes to the obscurest of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around. —Gilbert K. Chesterton
An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person’s main task in life—becoming a better person. —Leo Tolstoy
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