Hyper-partisans kill national spirit

Our current poverty of national spirit is largely due to the hyper-partisan nature of our national discourse. We tend to forget or perhaps never realized that bias is genetically hardwired into the human brain; probably through the process of evolution as we see such bias throughout the animal kingdom. We commonly see animals tend to congregate with similar kin for example. We humans prefer what is known and familiar to us and prefer to avoid that which is not familiar. And it is not just ethnicity, gender, age, economics, etc but also we prefer others with similar ideas, spiritual beliefs, as well as tastes in music, art and sports. It is how we deal with such bias is what makes a coherent society possible.

We are all individuals, which is why communal ideologies (communism and Marxism) have always and will always fail miserably. As individuals, we are absorbed in self-interest, but the key is to have enlightened self-interest with our individual biases tempered by responsibility to the community as a whole. This is especially true when it involves those who have been marginalized for whatever reason.

We have lost — hopefully temporally — the ability to discuss things respectfully. We talk at each other and not to each other. Demanding ideological purity with adherence to the party line is paramount.

Many reject what has been in history fundamental values such as freedom of speech and belief, marketing in free trade, stable families, accountability, compassion, work ethic and fidelity to community. You cannot have a hopeful society while avoiding these fundamentals and then promote violence wishing to fundamentally transform society to the social idealism of communal/socialist beliefs.

Vladimir Lenin himself has been quoted, “A revolution without firing squads is meaningless.” On the other hand the 20th century Italian fascist Benito Mussolini is quoted, “There is no revolution that can change the nature of man.”

John Manning

Palmdale