JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, gave the commencement speech at Northwestern. It’s pretty good.
The best way to spot an idiot? Look for the person who is cruel. When we see someone who doesn’t look like us, or sound like us, or act like us, or love like us, or live like us—the first thought that crosses almost everyone’s brain is rooted in either fear or judgment or both. That’s evolution. We survived as a species by being suspicious of things we aren’t familiar with.
In order to be kind, we have to shut down that animal instinct and force our brain to travel a different pathway. Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being. They require the mental capacity to step past our most primal urges. I’m here to tell you that when someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct. They never forged new mental pathways to overcome their own instinctual fears. And so, their thinking and problem-solving will lack the imagination and creativity that the kindest people have in spades.
Then the summary:
Be more substance than show. Set aside cruelty for kindness. Put one foot in front of the other even when you don’t know your way. And always try and appreciate the good old days when you are actually in them. And remember what Dwight Schrute said, ‘You only live once? False! You live every day! You only die once.’
Did I detect a bit of evolutionary psychology in there? If so, I’ll assume that he meant it metaphorically and give him a pass.
I really like:
I’m a cis, het, white, male boomer; and I confess to being somewhat set in my ways; but that needs to be my problem, not anybody else’s.
This is a good point.
.1. The subject of discussion yesterday, Elon Musk.
Musk spends huge amounts of time trying hard to be a world class horrible person.
His own daughter has disowned him.
He is now a supporter of genocide in Ukraine and a huge fan of mass murderer and war criminal, Vladimir Putin.
.2. Donald Trump.
Trump thrives on spreading hate.
.3. Jordan Peterson.
Peterson is an unimaginative conperson who reflects and sells people’s hate back to them.
.4. The GOP and the Red states voters who elect them.
.5. The fundie xians.
The three main sacraments of the fundies are hate, lies, and hypocrisy.
Hmmm, it isn’t all that hard to spot the idiots.
We are surrounded by them everywhere.
When you find a political party for which it can be said “cruelty is the point” you can bet its leading characters are not exactly MENSA material, even if they excel in manipulation and all have a glib tongue.
Example: the tory party. Its leaders have been to Eton and Cambridge, and probably have learned a lot about corporate economy yet they seem curiously clueless, and ignore long-term planning. They have merely been taught the social code for moving in the upper crust of society and share arrogance combined with a lack of curiosity.
Raven @ 2
The ex-muslims will probably want to add an additional religion to the list. They literally face the risk of death if they travel to some particular countries.
-Hippies of old were not cruel, even if they often were stupid. The alternative-medicine believers of today are not cruel, yet their beliefs can kill. But non-cruel stupidity and its dangers would require a quite separate thread.
I suppose this is what billseymour @ #1 is referring to as “evolutionary psychology”. My first thought on seeing Pritzker’s assertion was “is that true?” It’s a common assumption about “primitive” or uncivilized life, for sure, but is that the “natural” reaction of humans?
I happen to be reading The Dawn of Everything by anthropologists David Graeber and David Wengrow who say there’s historical evidence, largely compiled by French priests, that Americans (i.e. indigenous people) in the New France region were appalled at the cruelty, lack of generosity, and inhospitableness of the “civilized” Europeans arriving in their lands. The fact that Europeans tend to be suspicious, fearful, and judgmental about people with unfamiliar ways doesn’t mean everyone is.
I don’t know how valid the book’s claim is but it’s at least worth giving some consideration that the sentiment of suspicion and fear at the unfamiliar or “different” is not shared by all humans.
birgerjohansson @ #4 — “Hippies of old were not cruel, even if they often were stupid.” Based on my experience, I’m not sure about how “often” hippies were stupid at least not beyond the general population. As an old hippie myself, I know…or knew because many are already dead…many hippies. I suppose it’s my prejudice but I found most of them to be intelligent, well-educated, and self-sufficient. Still, some hippies of old were both cruel and stupid: think the Manson “family”.
Robro @ 6
Good point.
As I was born too late, I have only had the (biased) descriptions of film to go after.
They varied like any other group.
Their ideals were peace, love, and understanding and at least they had some ideals.
These days, the ideals of the MAGAts/GOP are hate, lies, and violence.
If Trump gets reelected, his plans include a major witch hunt for illegal immigrants which is millions of people, throwing Ukraine under the bus so the Russians can genocide them, wrecking NATO and Europe if he can, and making abortion illegal in the entire US so more women can get sick and die from pregnancy related causes.
It is just violence for the sake of violence.
Raven @ 8
Re. The ideals of the MAGAts-
Let us not forget “hating facts and logical consistency”. This is what makes it a perfect grift. It is almost like anti-semitism in that way.
The only thing I disagree with is the natural universality of the fear or judgement response. Curiosity can also be a response, and an entirely natural one at that. This isn’t even necessarily about animal instincts versus higher thought. It can as easily be about which part of our animal instincts was nurtured when we were young. I do agree, though, that even if a person’s fear response was fed and their curiosity starved, they can still overcome that bias, that a willingness to let the fear response take over is a sign of a stunted intellect, and that cruelty is fundamentally idiotic.
I spent three years in the ’70s in a “hippie” (we never used that word except derisively) “settlement” (we never could find a word that fit) in the New Mexico mountains, a place with a scary reputation that once in a while lived up to it.
One of my, um, colleagues there got caught by the cops and spent some time in an evaluation center. When he returned, he mentioned with some pride that they had assessed his IQ at over 130. Looking around, I realized that he was average for us, maybe a bit below. (Maybe I was a bit above – I left the year before the big police raid…)
We’re 10th cousins.
I’m 100% down with peace, love, and understanding.
World needs more of that, and less war, hate, and, uh, what’s the opposite of understanding?
“You live every day! You only die once.” Yes, I like that. The perfect antidote to the religious madness that says real life is of no value, only the imaginary after life has meaning.
birgerjohnson @ 9:
I call it “antisemanticism”: being against words having meanings. Up is down, war is peace, hate is love, slavery is freedom, misery is happiness, death is life. Anti-semanticism has the virtue of not requiring thought. It has no other virtues.
It’s good to remind oneself, from time to time, that up is not down, war is not peace, hate is not love, slavery is not freedom, misery is not happiness, and death is not life.
Robro @ 6, Pierce R. Butler @ 11
Looking back, it is clear I conflated the hippie movement with the alt-medicine movement; although there was an overlap, alt-medicine goes back much further in time; you might say it has always existed.
Having said that, the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow -although possibly well-meaning- (when not looking for a fast buck) are not deliberately malign, yet cause real harm. Ask the next of kin of that Apple guy.
And with the onset of anti-vaxxers, alt-med fuse with far-right conspiracy theories, so now we have come full circle.
???
The vast majority of old hippies etc. I know go to doctors just like everyone else.
Even the alt medicine types mostly look on it as an addition not a replacement for real medicine. That is in fact, why they are old hippies.
A cancer patient I knew went alt med but she died a year later, age 36.
The vast majority of old hippies, Pagans, and Wiccans got the Covid-19 vaccines as soon as they could. I’m sure their vaccine uptake was higher than the national average of 81%.
They all took one look at who the US antivaxxers are, which is right wingnut Trump voters and said, no, that isn’t us. You can go die on a ventilator in the hospital and we will get our free vaccines at Walmart.
Birger, you are stereotyping people you know absolutely nothing about, some of whom are are often on this forum, and getting it wildly wrong.
Speaking of dysfunctional kooks, two decades ago, there was a right wingnut who used to attack me often. Never threatened to kill me but it was always implied.
I just found out recently that both his daughter and granddaughter got pregnant at 16. Because no one bothered to teach them about birth control and responsible adulthood.
He was also married many times. Two of his ex-wives ended up committing suicide.
Cthulhu, these right wingnut MAGAts live dismal, dysfunctional lives.
@ ^ raven : Worse yet it seems to me they force others to live dismal and dysfunctional lives too. Not just themselves they hurt but everyone.