At left is something that theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said shortly before he was executed by the Third Reich for his protest against the fascist regime.
Most of us have had the thought he expressed here. We may be talking with an old friend who went to a prestigious college and showed when we were young considerable intelligence, who now, when it comes to world politics is now limited to the talking points of Newsmax and Fox News.
How did this happen?
Nobody knows, but, over the last couple of decades, this subject has caught the attention of neuroscientists who believe that liberals’ and conservatives’ brains are internally connected differently from each other.
As an example, tests show that the brain activity of self-identified liberals and conservatives are vastly different when experimental subjects are shown photographs of potentially threatening animals, like spiders and snakes. Those who think of themselves as conservatives have brain activity that show fear and hatred, while self-described liberals’ brains suggest that they perceive such animals as simply members of the planet on which we live.
Maybe no one is to blame; perhaps we just live in different worlds of consciousness.
Those hankering for a great read on this subject, albeit fiction, should check out Ian McEwan’s masterpiece “Saturday.”
What kind of people are the celebrities in music and digital media as a whole? Not an easy question to answer.
Obviously, they’re talented. Most are well educated and many have the good looks that come from good genetics.
And yes, most of these people have the intelligence to see that Donald Trump is a criminal sociopath on target to destroy the U.S. while enriching himself beyond measure.
For every Jon Voight (see left) that are perhaps 1000 Robert Deniros, Bruce Springteens, and Leonardo Dicaprios.
But why are there any Jon Voights at all? The answer is unclear.
I once met a Princeton grad to whom I explained that a guy from my prep school in Philadelphia went to Princeton, and now is all over social media shouting, “Close the Borders!” and “English Only!”
My new acquaintance laughed hysterically, and said with a smile, “Yes, we have grads like this, perhaps one in a few thousand. What a waste of hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can get that level of education by dropping out of high school and driving a truck.”
At left we see an example of a phenomenon that seems to be happening with increasing frequency: a life-long Republican saying “enough” and refusing vote for the current version of the GOP.
I applaud people who have both:
a) the intelligence to see where a party has crossed a moral line, and is now operating as a criminal enterprise.
b) the inner courage to do this, as it is hard for most people to admit they were wrong after a lifetime of kneejerk reactions, especially on a topic of such importance.
Someone commented on the meme here: “Don’t forget your jihadi prayer group meeting.”
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