lack of empathy is a serious charge

by Mike (bart), Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 14:03 (2709 days ago) @ Greg

I have a great many political (with, say, Hullies or fisherj08, or someone like script) and/or stylistic disagremeents (with Moco/Terp, fisherj, etc.) with folks here but I don't know their personal histories or personalities well enough to ascribe a lack of empathy. I spend a lot of time physically in and working with (as in, every day) individuals in rural and small metro areas who are preponderantly Trump supporters.

From what I can gather, what you are describing as lack of empathy stems from a perception that the members of the educated "elite" on this board saying they find the political beliefs of those types of people repellent. Again, from what I can tell, your stance is that it is crude and unfair to impugn these folks for their political beliefs without understanding the derivation of those beliefs, which you contend in large part stems from a reaction to the cultural hegemony espoused by our society's educated/cosmopolitan consensus.

If that's close to the mark I don't necessarily buy that it follows that anger toward or opposition to these individuals for their political beliefs must necessarily reflect a lack of empathy. For one thing, the formation of their beliefs must, at some point, reflect earnest choices as much or more than they simply reflect reaction to that which has been impressed upon them. For another, I think you are discounting the possibility that Hullies, MQ, whomever, can write these individuals off as political lost causes without writing them off as individuals. It is possible that they have indeed written off these people as individuals as well, but I think that's an aggressive conclusion to make based solely off their writing here.

Just wanted to say that - feel free to not respond and I will catch you on the flipside