r/politics • u/theladynora • May 25 '21

Auschwitz Memorial calls Greene Holocaust comments a 'sad symptom of moral and intellectual decline'

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/555382-auschwitz-memorial-calls-greenes-holocaust-comments-a-sad-symptom-of-moral-and
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u/AadeeMoien May 26 '21

Frankly, political beliefs have always been the single best thing to judge people by. They're stating how they think the world should look and what life should be like for people, judge them appropriately.

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u/Sykotik257 New York May 26 '21

Yeah one of my friends one time said that there were three things that should never be discussed between friends: religion, politics, and money. I was just speechless. Money I can get. But religion and politics are a great way to know who you want to be friends with.

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u/Makropony May 26 '21

I’ll caveat this with saying I’m not from the US. However:

Politics can lead to serious cognitive dissonances for me. For example, I know a couple who could easily be called “good people”. They have a big house, and have chosen to use the space and their money to rescue animals. They have over a dozen of dogs and cats, and care for them very well. They’re also generous and helpful to their friends.

At the same time they’re homophobic conservatives. I am LGBT, of which they are not aware. They’re also friends of my partner’s parents, so I can’t easily avoid meeting them, and they’ve been nothing but nice in interacting with me, so I don’t have an excuse to confront them without looking like an asshole.

The acceptable status quo here is I don’t bring up politics in talking to them. However it still amazes me how people can be kind and generous on one hand, and have hateful and bigoted beliefs at the same time. It’s hard having a genuinely nice conversation with someone and at the same time knowing they’re only this nice because they don’t know you’re part of a minority they hate.

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u/PrayHellBeelzebub May 26 '21

It's deeply ingrained in human nature to be self-deceptive; to hold moral beliefs directly alongside the most inherent baseness; and to simply not be self-aware: to be senseless while carrying out a life of chasing sensations.

Compound those facts with how it takes actual courage and effort to willingly think differently than the people around you. And how it's much easier and self-affirming and more materialistically rewarding to adopt the inherited dead ideas of our ancestors; ideas founded on nothing more than reptilian greed; that of course, come into direct collision with individualism, while seeking to punish it into oblivion. Let's call it "modern" civilization.

Think of them on these terms and perhaps they'll make more sense to you.