Thread by @1JoshGreenberg

THREAD

HOW WE GOT HERE: PART IX—CHARLOTTESVILLE AS A CASE STUDY

This thread contains excerpts from Part IX of “How We Got Here.” This part uses the 2017 events in Charlottesville to illustrate many of the arguments from the treatise.

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medium.com/@1JoshGreenber…

“I do not wish to re-open old wounds, but I would like to revisit the 2017 events in Charlottesville—because they are illustrative of many of this treatise's observations. It is my hope that readers will consider this case study with an open mind.”

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medium.com/@1JoshGreenber…

“As with virtually all Trump-related political crises over the past four years, a substantial portion of the country was unmoved by the political left's uproar. How could this be?”

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“I believe the reason—which is extremely unpopular to suggest—has to do with the following: Trump's statement held an ounce of truth.”

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“I know this remark is difficult to swallow for many readers; however, no matter how much we may despise the hatred espoused by the extremists present in Charlottesville, we cannot deny that these individuals were real people with real lives.”

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“Even if we may not want to acknowledge it, there is much more to these citizens and their lives than being racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic. Many of them have families and ambitions, and serve in communities—just like the rest of us.”

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“Just as someone who is imprisoned for a crime can remain a decent person, so can someone who expresses hate.”

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“Moreover, the hatefulness that these citizens stand for has roots in legitimate social and political grievances, even though the ultimate expression of these grievances in the form of hate is morally reprehensible.”

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“In addition, even though the explicit expression of hate may have been confined to the fringes, the grievances of those in Charlottesville reflected the grievances of a much larger group of citizens—a group that cannot be flippantly dismissed.”

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“As paradoxical as it may seem, all of the foregoing discussion is to say that someone can still be a decent person even if he or she harbors hateful beliefs—for our lives are far more complex than any single dimension.”

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“Thus, the ounce of truth contained in Trump's statement was that those individuals present in Charlottesville may have indeed been decent people—and, at the least, were real people with real experiences that we (like Trump) must legitimize.”

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“Trump understood exactly what he was doing. He understood that many citizens in our country—that is, many of his supporters—would appreciate his legitimization of their lives. He also knew how progressives would react to his comments.”

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“In fact, many of Trump's tactics operate in this fashion. His statements almost always contain a kernel of truth or plausibility which makes them compelling when viewed from the lenses of his supporters.”

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“To see the kernels of truth, we must exercise humility and empathy, rather than always rushing to judgement.”

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“But humility and empathy were not part of progressive America's response. Its response was not only to denounce the hate that Trump expressed but to entirely write off the protestors—and all of the citizens they may have represented—as evil.”

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“I must point out that this occasion was hardly the first time that the Democrats and their allies made such a mistake; Hillary Clinton did the same when she wrote off many of Trump's supporters as a ‘basket of deplorables.’”

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medium.com/@1JoshGreenber…

“Nevertheless, I must emphasize that I found Trump's position on the Charlottesville events morally detestable.”

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medium.com/@1JoshGreenber…

“As a strong supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, I believe our society should have no room for the hate expressed by the protestors. As a Jew, I have also been a target and victim of the genocidal ideology advocated by neo-Nazis.”

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“However, my point is not about the moral tolerability of hate but about the manner in which we respond to hate.”

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“It is not enough to be on the morally right side of an issue; the methods we employ in pursuing the moral truth must also be morally right.”

20/35

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“Some readers may assess my position herein as ‘weak’ in fighting hate. The contrary is true. Our current responses to hate have merely amounted to stifling hate. But we should not be satisfied with stifling. We must seek to eradicate hate.”

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“In this effort, we must establish justice in our society, and we must hold accountable those who commit hateful acts. But, to fully eradicate hate, we also must summon the capacity for forgiveness.”

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“We must begin with the extraordinary task of empathizing with our oppressors. In this task, we begin by acknowledging that the same hate of our oppressors exists inside of all of us, even if we may not actively oppress others with this hate.”

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medium.com/@1JoshGreenber…

“We must offer love in the face of stigmatization, kindness in the face of cruelty, compassion in the face of evil. We must see past the hatred into our shared humanity. We must offer our hearts even when our hearts have been indelibly hurt.”

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“As a member of a people that has been subjected to repeated persecution throughout human history, my natural instinct is to denigrate the oppressors of the Jews, to render a blanket judgement against them as pure evil, and to seek retaliation.”

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“Before racing to act on these instincts, however, I pause to remind myself that we Jews share 99.9 percent of our DNA with our oppressors.”

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“In this fashion, I must—somehow—find the strength to empathize with evildoers like Hitler. I cannot otherize Hitler because I know (as psychological research has shown) that I am capable of committing the same acts of evil that he perpetrated.”

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“The moment we begin to otherize fellow humans because they do evil is the moment we also otherize ourselves and forget our own capacity to do evil—for the capacity to do evil, like the capacity to do good, is a basic feature of all humanity.”

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“Because we have not exercised the humility to empathize with the opposing side—to empathize with our oppressors—we have been unable to compete with Trump.”

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“At the outset of the Trump presidency, we faced a basic choice: persuasion or opposition. By exercising empathy, the progressive movement could have broadened its forces—or at least dampened extremism—by winning over key populations.”

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“Instead, the progressive movement chose outright opposition, further alienating those key populations while hoping to win by merely outnumbering the opponent.”

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“Altogether, a much more effective response to the Charlottesville incidents would have been to denounce and refute the hate, while also (1) responding with more positive words of peace, love, harmony, and non-violence; ..."

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"... (2) giving legitimacy to the grievances of the protestors and offering them the opportunity for forgiveness, education, and rehabilitation; and ..."

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"... (3) building constructive ways in which multiple vulnerable groups in society could come together to seek resolution for shared problems.”

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“Beyond Charlottesville, this form of response would have also constituted the strategic basis for institutions to implement anti-extremism efforts aimed at rescuing our country from crisis.”

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PS

https://twitter.com/1JoshGreenberg/status/1313296081489260544