I try to resist cynical interpretations but I have to say, your analysis is compelling.

I don't know what goes on in Joan's heart or what she's up to (though I do take her at her word when she claims she wants to be in a position to effect reconciliation between the Clinton and Obama camps when the time comes for that).

I'd still like to hold out hope that Joan has some integrity and something consequential and noble to contribute from her platform here, largely because I try to be charitable in my assessments of people's motivations and character, but I have to say, your analysis is certainly plausible.

I guess I'm just most frustrated by Joan's anti-intellectualism and her refusal to wrestle seriously with liberalism from a philosophical rather than a political vantage point.

I'd like to know what Joan stands for beyond liberal platitudes like fairness and equal opportunity.

So much of what she writes is superficial and rife with unexamined premises that a serious thinker would be eager to examine, especially considering the intellectual level of her readership!

Just imagine the insights and knowledge we might attain here if the editor (it starts up top) were committed seriously, in a philosophical way, to liberalism. Or if she were opposed to it, whatever, just that she take some kind of philosophical/ideological position and really be prepared to stand by it or to revise it in accordance with new ideas, data, etc.

There are so many very valid criticisms here of Joan's essay, criticisms that are well thought through.

Joan should be grateful that so many people are offering her constructive criticism: it's a writer's dream!

I'm not talking about the petty insults, of course, but the substantive, earnest criticism.

Sigh.

Cheers!

Here's the thing. I'm at a point right now where my liberalism is being seriously tested.

To me, liberalism is premised on the fact that common ground can always be found and that this can be done through the cultivation of empathy for the other.

So for instance, an extreme liberal view, responding to 911, would attempt to place him or herself in the position of the hijackers, imagine their culture, their world, their language, their religion, everything. In a word, their "nurture."

The next step would be to ask oneself what it would take to become one of those hijackers and to ask whether the difference between us and them is situational, ethical, or some combination of the two, and in what proportion.

A liberal does not forgo this imaginative exercise by resorting to facile superstition ("They hate our freedom!) and facile, often disproportionate indignation.

The keynote is empathy. In order for liberalism to work, that empathy has to be stretched to the breaking point and beyond, it has to be expansive. It cannot be selective, otherwise it doesn't work.

One reason for this is that liberalism is premised on the belief that, by controlling the conditions of life, one can control (to some degree) outbursts of violence, war, etc. This is why liberals are committed to justice: they believe that in a just world, people basically won't want to cut one another's throats.

Now, the reason I say my own liberalism is now challenged is because I feel like the critiques that have been leveled here are so clear (whether you agree with them or not) that to fail to see their merit is nothing but willful myopia.

So we're at an impasse. The impasse Obama talks about.

We can't even get "one of our own" to try to step outside of her box and expand her mind.

What's the next step, then? When persuasion fails, naked power.

This is what Clinton offers. I certainly see the appeal, but I can't, in good conscience, be taken in by it.

There must be a better way.

Thank you for that.

Most interesting.

That got a giggle out of me, thanks, to which I can only reply, "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!"

Seriously, though, I've appreciated your posts here and thank you deeply for them.

Ditto!

*Beep-beep-chirp-bot*

I think this is a fair statement:

"Carol, yes, you're right. I'm beginning to think that perhaps Clinton and Obama supporters use different sides of their brains. Would that be offensive to say? Or is it OK if Rev. Wright says it first?"

I don't want to get into brain chemistry because I have no expertise in that, but the pattern (generally speaking) seems to be that Clinton supporters are closer to the view that the end justifies the means (i.e., "win" at all costs) whereas the Obama supporters are more committed to instantiating the change they wish to see by focussing not on ends, primarily, but on means.

I think there is a big difference between the (general) mentalities and there's merit to both approaches.

Perhaps you should write more about that because it's illuminating and cuts through a lot of the bullshit.

If I weren't married, I'd propose to you Carol.

Strife (from wiki):

Eris (Greek Έρις, "Strife") is the Greek goddess of strife, her name being translated into Latin as Discordia. Her Greek opposite is Harmonia, whose Latin counterpart is Concordia. Homer equated her with the war-goddess Enyo. Eris, the solar system's largest known dwarf planet, is named after the goddess.

It's a day!

:)

"Seriously: I really have no clue how I got off track. I think it has something do with what happens when Joan's blog goes past the 642 mark!"

You gotta hand it to her, she sure knows how to real 'em (us!) in.

Word to the wise: Carol is a satirical genius.

You might re-read her comments with that caveat.

I'm speechless.