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Marc2b -> RE: Letter to a Christian Nation (11/27/2006 7:47:21 PM)
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quote:
To be frank, you're pigeon-holing... etc.
I am making generalities. Specific exceptions do not necessarily invalidate a generality. Nor is making a generality pigeon-holing anyone. I am not pigeon-holing men if I say that men are taller than women.
Nor am I accusing anti-war protesters of wanting to see Israelis killed. I am using the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as an example of how people’s world view colors their sympathies. C-span will sometime show anti-war and other left-wing rallies and the big three "baddies" seems to be capitalism, the United States, and Israel. There are frequent denunciations of Israeli atrocities and usually no mention of Palestinian atrocities. My point is that if we pigeon-hole people into good guys and bad guys, giving the "good guys" a pass on their misdeeds, and dismissing the suffering of the "bad guys," then we will get nowhere is solving any of our problems.
This process of coloring our opinions based upon our world view, political outlook, religion, ideology, or what have you is what I call the ideological filter. In this example, people who dismiss the sufferings of Israelis because Israel is the bad guy. I am suggesting that you are taking my comments and running them through your own ideological filter. How else could you take the use of some anti-war protestors (apparent good guys in your world view) as an example and turning it into an attack on all anti-war protestors? Do you understand what I am saying? I do not find it necessary to criticize anti-war protesters. I am merely using some of them as an example of my contention that even in seeking to be good, we can still be participants in the bad because we do not apply our beliefs to everyone. If I had used another example, say I pointed out that many of the people who oppose abortion (because "killing is wrong") also favor the death penalty, would you have felt compelled to respond?
As for my comment on the media and people’s perception of it, not being black and white – that is precisely my point! With the internet, print media, radio, and television, there is a wide range of opinion, from far left to far right, available. Yet go to an anti-war rally and you will hear some people proclaim that the media are the lap dogs of the corporations. Then go to a conservative think tank and listen to them pontificate on how the media shrills for the Left. On both sides of the political spectrum are those whose ideological filters are so pure that it prevents them from seeing reality – even when its right in front of them.
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