I am tempted to do a "name and shame"

[fpb]

Minutes after I had posted about dignity and honesty, I meet with the exact opposite. A (former) friend had posted that the current writer's strike in Hollywood seemed "Ayn Randian" to him, because the writers had brought the industry to a halt by withdrawing their brains. Now that seemed like nonsense to me. I reminded him that what was going on was called trades-unionism, and that Rand did not have much time for that sort of thing. Yes, you know, unionism - the kind of thing that Reaganthatcher was supposed to have consigned to the dustbin of history?

And that was it. Nothing personal; no insults; only a disrespectful reference to a few conservative idols whom everyone knows I have no time for.

So I wake to find my comment deleted and myself banned.

Wow, laddie, that is really brave. That shows integrity, belief in your convinctions, and confidence in your ability to defend them. That absolutely does not suggest that you are terrified that all your ideologies may be built on sand.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I quite agree. That is not to say that serious political differences do not make any social contact, let alone friendship, difficult: but we should not assume that they will. After all, GB Shaw and GK Chesterton were close friends, and as wide apart in politics and religion as anyone can very well be.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

Sure: if people have any depth at all they will care deeply about stuff, and that will sometimes make for deep disagreements that are hard to talk around. I have a sense that many people interacting online are doing so at a much shallower level, though, fighting over shibboleths rather than ideas. That may be my own lack of charity or insight speaking, though.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is probably the case. But it hardly began with the Net, you know. I think it was Dr. Johnson who said something like: "There must be thousands of fit young fellows in England today who hate Popery without knowing whether it is animal, vegetable or mineral". Many people use the violence of their feelings to convince themselves - and their opponents - that they are serious and well-rooted, when they are nothing of the kind.