Equal and Opposite
You can't touch something without it touching you. I wonder how well anyone grasps such a basic idea.
Not some abstracted karma where whatever you do comes back to you later through someone unknown force, but every action is an two-sided interaction with immediate effects (which is redundant if you think about it; how can you have an interaction without both sides being affected?).
Maybe it's the idea of "equal" that throws people off? The amount of effect is equal on both sides, which is not the same on what that amount does to either side. (ex. an water ice cube on your hand heats up the same amount as your skin is cooled down. However, that same amount of effect causes a bigger change to the ice cube (ice to water) than to your skin. A cube of colder substance will have a bigger amount of effect but still an equal exchange/interaction between the cube and the skin. The same could be said for social interaction. If you grew up with the idea that you should throw everything you've got when someone irritates you, then you should expect the same reaction in return. No amount of "those stupid idiots just don't get it" will change that. If the initial interaction doesn't succeed, then you should expect to be deadlocked in a standstill indefinitely. Unless something else comes along more important (which fewer and fewer things are as more time is invested in this), you continue to hold up the wall just as much as it continues to hold you back.
Perhaps that is what unsettles me about partisan speech, whether "liberal" or "conservative". Yes, there are things near and dear to your heart. Does that there are no downsides and upsides to those things? How about a cause for example, like the push for gay marriage. The people most vocal are those who feel slighted because something they don't have, like the same level of health coverage as married couples or the societal recognition. If the issue is about fairness, would they accept the option to do away with marriage and the associated benefits all together? If the downsides were fewer and the upsides were greater by getting rid of marriage altogether, do you think that would matter at all to those fighting?
What about this in comparison to a second cause? What if governments took the money from programs involved with marriage benefits and put it towards children's education instead? There are numerous laws establishing a Free Appropriate Public Education as a civil right, like the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education) Act of 1990/1975, Title IX of 1972 ("No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...") and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (which was the current re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which was authorized until 1970, but has been reauthorized every five years since then.)
So we have laws to help education inequalities with disability, sex and income. Using the same ideal involved in the push for domestic partner benefits, money spent on special education should not deprive gifted education programs of similar funding. Why should the most talented children get less than those with disabilities? Talented children might be able to keep up with the baseline easier than their disabled classmates, but how much higher could they reach if they had an equal amount of resources? Arguing that "disabled classmates should have more help" is no different than arguing that couples who can have (or currently have) children need more help than partners who do not or cannot have them.
Since I was a kid who rated off the scale for testing but was hamstrung by a hummingbird mind and family income problems when my parents divorced, so I ended up marked as "at-risk" since my performance was so below my potential. Since my school didn't have a gifted program, I went into the disabled program. I know there was an IEP (Individual Education Plan) but I was never told what qualified me as disabled or how they expected to fix it. What this meant in practice was that I spent one class period a day (study hall usually) from 4th grade until high school graduation in a tiny room with a tutor and two or three other kids. It was like being in time-out for being too smart. The other kids were always struggling with class, so I was left alone in the corner each day to finish classwork that was dull and lacked challenge instead of making friends in study hall. yay. the triumph of equality. The other disabilities and the slighted domestic partners can cry me a river. How is the underdevelopment of talent less of a loss to society as the other two?
Or we throw in a third cause which doesn't have the same emotional charge or photogenic spin as the first, like growing antibiotic resistance due to demanding antibiotics on any visit to the doctor or not taking the entire amount proscribed because they "feel better" now. It lacks the immediate feel of the other two, so it's more often dismissed as a serious danger.
Whenever I hear someone rant about some emotional issue, it's rare to hear about both the costs and benefits. It becomes an ideology and identity instead of a social problem. Can you solve a dogma? Do you really want an issue to be resolved if it's a linchpin of your identity to rail against it? Warped justifications are then developed to bolster the position in place.
Speaking of oversimplification and ideologies, this essay on the Monkeysphere ideology that discusses it far better than I could: http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/03/monkeysphere-ideology.html
The Monkeysphere is a cheap bastardization of the already fuzzy idea of Dunbar's Number. That average number has the same problems with focusing on the average of any ability. Some people choose to have fewer contacts. Some people have the capacity for vast numbers of contacts and act as connectors, linking together the people clusters of Dunbar's number in a way that runs counter to the Monkeysphere.
There is no action without a push going in both ways. Whenever I hear someone rant about the trade deficit, they ignore the connected idea that it takes both us buying and them selling to us. The biggest trade deficit is going to be expected in the biggest market. The problem isn't when jobs move overseas yet are still serving locals (like call centers), but when those jobs move and only deal with customers elsewhere.
Or price spikes in US scrap metals exports due to overseas demand for overseas construction rather than products that get shipped back here for import.
While I might get called a devil's advocate with a tone of annoyance, I want to make sure to see both the push and pull in each situation.
Not some abstracted karma where whatever you do comes back to you later through someone unknown force, but every action is an two-sided interaction with immediate effects (which is redundant if you think about it; how can you have an interaction without both sides being affected?).
Maybe it's the idea of "equal" that throws people off? The amount of effect is equal on both sides, which is not the same on what that amount does to either side. (ex. an water ice cube on your hand heats up the same amount as your skin is cooled down. However, that same amount of effect causes a bigger change to the ice cube (ice to water) than to your skin. A cube of colder substance will have a bigger amount of effect but still an equal exchange/interaction between the cube and the skin. The same could be said for social interaction. If you grew up with the idea that you should throw everything you've got when someone irritates you, then you should expect the same reaction in return. No amount of "those stupid idiots just don't get it" will change that. If the initial interaction doesn't succeed, then you should expect to be deadlocked in a standstill indefinitely. Unless something else comes along more important (which fewer and fewer things are as more time is invested in this), you continue to hold up the wall just as much as it continues to hold you back.
Perhaps that is what unsettles me about partisan speech, whether "liberal" or "conservative". Yes, there are things near and dear to your heart. Does that there are no downsides and upsides to those things? How about a cause for example, like the push for gay marriage. The people most vocal are those who feel slighted because something they don't have, like the same level of health coverage as married couples or the societal recognition. If the issue is about fairness, would they accept the option to do away with marriage and the associated benefits all together? If the downsides were fewer and the upsides were greater by getting rid of marriage altogether, do you think that would matter at all to those fighting?
What about this in comparison to a second cause? What if governments took the money from programs involved with marriage benefits and put it towards children's education instead? There are numerous laws establishing a Free Appropriate Public Education as a civil right, like the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education) Act of 1990/1975, Title IX of 1972 ("No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...") and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (which was the current re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which was authorized until 1970, but has been reauthorized every five years since then.)
So we have laws to help education inequalities with disability, sex and income. Using the same ideal involved in the push for domestic partner benefits, money spent on special education should not deprive gifted education programs of similar funding. Why should the most talented children get less than those with disabilities? Talented children might be able to keep up with the baseline easier than their disabled classmates, but how much higher could they reach if they had an equal amount of resources? Arguing that "disabled classmates should have more help" is no different than arguing that couples who can have (or currently have) children need more help than partners who do not or cannot have them.
Since I was a kid who rated off the scale for testing but was hamstrung by a hummingbird mind and family income problems when my parents divorced, so I ended up marked as "at-risk" since my performance was so below my potential. Since my school didn't have a gifted program, I went into the disabled program. I know there was an IEP (Individual Education Plan) but I was never told what qualified me as disabled or how they expected to fix it. What this meant in practice was that I spent one class period a day (study hall usually) from 4th grade until high school graduation in a tiny room with a tutor and two or three other kids. It was like being in time-out for being too smart. The other kids were always struggling with class, so I was left alone in the corner each day to finish classwork that was dull and lacked challenge instead of making friends in study hall. yay. the triumph of equality. The other disabilities and the slighted domestic partners can cry me a river. How is the underdevelopment of talent less of a loss to society as the other two?
Or we throw in a third cause which doesn't have the same emotional charge or photogenic spin as the first, like growing antibiotic resistance due to demanding antibiotics on any visit to the doctor or not taking the entire amount proscribed because they "feel better" now. It lacks the immediate feel of the other two, so it's more often dismissed as a serious danger.
Whenever I hear someone rant about some emotional issue, it's rare to hear about both the costs and benefits. It becomes an ideology and identity instead of a social problem. Can you solve a dogma? Do you really want an issue to be resolved if it's a linchpin of your identity to rail against it? Warped justifications are then developed to bolster the position in place.
Speaking of oversimplification and ideologies, this essay on the Monkeysphere ideology that discusses it far better than I could: http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/03/monkeysphere-ideology.html
The Monkeysphere is a cheap bastardization of the already fuzzy idea of Dunbar's Number. That average number has the same problems with focusing on the average of any ability. Some people choose to have fewer contacts. Some people have the capacity for vast numbers of contacts and act as connectors, linking together the people clusters of Dunbar's number in a way that runs counter to the Monkeysphere.
There is no action without a push going in both ways. Whenever I hear someone rant about the trade deficit, they ignore the connected idea that it takes both us buying and them selling to us. The biggest trade deficit is going to be expected in the biggest market. The problem isn't when jobs move overseas yet are still serving locals (like call centers), but when those jobs move and only deal with customers elsewhere.
Or price spikes in US scrap metals exports due to overseas demand for overseas construction rather than products that get shipped back here for import.
While I might get called a devil's advocate with a tone of annoyance, I want to make sure to see both the push and pull in each situation.