On 09/26/2016 11:32 PM, xorc...@sigaint.org wrote:

Maybe fix your mail client to attribute quotes?

>> Right, to understand people, you need to see things as they might.
> 
> Of course!
> 
>>
>> But that doesn't mean that you agree with what they say and do.
> 
> Of course not! :) .. the way far-out example I usually give to this is
> someone like a serial killer. If they were sexually, physically, and
> mentally abused by their mother for years, and then she dies before he's
> had a chance to confront her in any way, it is easy to see how someone
> might feel a deep hatred and intense, driving compulsion -- an incredible
> hunger -- that can only be sated by killing prostitutes that happen to
> look vaguely like his mother did.

Well, we all have shit like that going on, albeit far more subtle ;)

In _Foundations of Psychohistory_, Lloyd Demause discusses the evolution
of child-rearing methods in recent centuries, and explores implications
for economics, politics, etc. Behavior of societies collectively
reflects their members' childhoods.

> I can understand compulsions. Hungers.  I can understand that, left to his
> own devices, it is impossible for him to resist that urge for long.
> 
> None of that understanding means that I think they shouldn't be locked up,
> of course.

For sure, after due process.

> But neither am I so swift at judging him in the emotional way that people
> do, calling him a monster. He's not a monster. He's a human being. One
> that was broken before he knew how to talk, probably.

We're all broken, in one way or another.

> Not that I'm above finding people monstrous.
> 
>>
>> And it doesn't even mean that you are willing to take a position about
>> them. Sometimes, there's just no point, because there's nothing useful
>> about it. You just do what you're committed to, based on your own
>> principles and values.
> 
> Indeed. I tend to look at things in terms of, what can we work together
> on, rather than what can we fight/argue about. I'm not interested, at all,
> in "converting" a die-hard National party type to my way of thinking. Nor
> am I interested in destroying someone's religious faith. They are entitled
> to their beliefs. I don't need them to agree with me to validate my own.

Sometimes, when I'm finding myself disagreeing with others, I get that
we're just using different language, or different frameworks, to say the
same thing. Or maybe it's just that we don't have a clue, really ;)

> To me, its rather like being the type of asshole that needs to get into
> bar fights and all that nonsense. Just a deeply frustrated person looking
> to prove themselves.

Some claim that it's all just good fun ;)

> To the extent that a good, Church-going Christian and I can work together
> to DO something we both want to do, I'm happy. I'll even make small
> changes to my behavior to accommodate their sensibilities, if needed. I'd
> certainly have no issue with not swearing, for example. Other things I
> wouldn't change..for example there are some people.. women, and homosexual
> men.. that I give hugs to when I greet them.

Right, and they don't harp on the damned goin' to Hell thing ;)

> Hell, I like to THINK that I'd be OK with working with a Nazi who wanted
> to do something positive too.

Nazis are not uncommon in privacy/anonymity circles. Just sayin'.

>> I have no clue about that. He might just have good advisors. Or maybe he
>> and US leaders all work for the same people, and are just playing their
>> assigned roles. It's really very hard for outsiders to know.
>>
> 
> That is an excellent point. In his defense, I'd just say that from what
> I've seen of him, in unscripted exchanges, he seems far more erudite, and
> together than any Western politician I'm familiar with. Not that I'm a
> student of such things, so I could certainly be out of my depth on that.

Well, Kissinger likes him ;)

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