The Frustration of Open-mindedness
In teaching my ethics course, I spend some time telling students that one of the benefits of the course will hopefully to help them learn the value of keeping an open mind to the views of others, even when they are quite different from their own. I say that the value comes from both gaining the respect of those you interact with and in broadening your own views. The problem I don’t really share with them is that the frustration of keeping an open mind can sometimes be overwhelming. I am feeling that way right now.
I have two friends that I text with almost every day. One of them was recently the subject of my Dear Roger story. The other has also figured prominently in my blog stories recently as the person who introduced the assault rifle manufacturer into my motorcycle group. His name is Kevin. I have traveled with both Roger and Kevin quite a bit over the past ten years and can honestly say that I have enjoyed the travel. They are both highly conservative thinkers (self described) who live in Florida, or at least are listed for tax purposes as Florida residents. We often reference that given the current state of political leanings, Florida is the perfect state for the two of them while California is the perfect state for me.
The three of us have a text group that we use to share thoughts and views with the common understanding that these are likely to be mostly views where we highlight our differences more than our agreements on issues. And that is exactly what happens…every day. When Kim or other like-minded friends of mine ask me why I engage in this texting banter with them, I say that its important to hear the views of others who disagree with you and that it sharpens my arguments and convictions about what I believe. That sounds a lot like what I tell my students. Roger is rabidly red to the point of participating in many Republican activities including election monitoring in Fulton County during the January 5th, 2021 special election. His comment to me after that day (but before the January 6th Capital debacle), was that he saw no instances of voter fraud, but that he was certain that it was going on. I noted at the time that he was falling into the conspiracy theory trap of the extremist Republican views rather than trusting the facts of what he saw. He disagreed. Kevin is quite different in his stance. Kevin likes to be the fly in whatever ointment exists. He is the classic shit stirrer who enjoys being as controversial as possible in his own impish way. He is an avid outdoorsman and hunter, who is a strong advocate of the Second Amendment and a libertarians’ libertarian. Where Roger has consistently been a staunch Trump supporter, Kevin has shifted from voting for Trump twice to saying he would still vote for Trump over Biden, to now saying that he feels Trump is hurting the conservative cause and wishes someone would “take out” Trump altogether. Both of them are strong Ron DeSantis supporters.
I like both men’s wives when we have travelled together but there is one notable difference. Roger’s wife is perhaps more militantly conservative than he is where Kevin’s wife seems quite liberal. I imagine that both family situations have their challenges (who’s doesn’t, right?), but I tend to think that Roger’s views get amplified by his better half where Kevin’s get moderated by his. We all share another common friend named Bruce, who is also a Republican of some significant reputation. He, like Kevin, has a rather liberal wife and I find that his views are also somewhat moderated by her views even though I can’t say I’ve had the opportunity to meet her. The thing we all share is that we know exactly where each other stands on the political spectrum and it does not interfere with our friendship…much.
Yesterday I had a series of text interactions with Roger and Kevin that were connected in the text string, but quite separate in the emphasis. The first was prompted by Kevin due to the rampaging truck incident in Brooklyn where a U-Haul driver ran into pedestrians. He used the story to tweak me about my views on gun control, suggesting that trucks are as dangerous as guns and need to be controlled. I take things like violence in Brooklyn quite seriously since I have a son and daughter as well as two granddaughters who live there. I was less than amused by the analogy and told him that he was being stupid trying to liken guns and trucks. I mentioned his preference for lawlessness, which woke Roger up and allowed him to enter the chain with a comment that illegal aliens crossing the border is the lawlessness that should once run us. Where Kevin is more a gun advocate, Roger’s favorite theme is illegal immigration. They both share a common dislike of Biden, Kevin mostly on geriatric grounds and Roger on pure policy and political grounds. Roger declared Biden as someone who promotes lawlessness. That caused me to mention January 6th as an example of true lawlessness.
Roger has a stand that January 6th was not an insurrection. He initially called it a political protest and now calls it a riot. He refuses to acknowledge that it was an insurrection. That is a red flag to me and I quote the court cases that say otherwise and suggest that a judicial adjudication is a fact, not an opinion. That caused Kevin to weigh into the middle of the two-way argument with a favorite view of his that it was wrong that we allowed our capitol to go undefended that day and that our military should have stepped in and put an end to the mess. Roger’s reply was that he thinks “the swamp”, which he takes to mean the Democrats in Washington I suppose, wanted to make it look as a bad as possible, so they let the situation get as bad as it did. Kevin agreed and that set off my bullshit detector. The heat shifted to Kevin as he said it was “a push” to call it an insurrection and then sent us a Cambridge Dictionary definition of insurrection which read, “an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country usually by violence.” I challenged him to suggest where that definition didn’t fit the events that occurred. Kevin is a master at deflection and would not answer the question, getting mad at me for insisting that he do so.
As a change of subject, I mentioned that their mutual buddy De Santos was getting “woke-up” in Tallahassee due to his recent banning of the AP African American Studies Course, and eventually suggesting the banning of all AP courses. This prompted Roger to send me a copy of the six concerns published by the Florida Department of Education about the AP African American Studies Course. My comment back was that burning books does not solve problems. I asked why parents can’t engage their children to help express their divergent views about something they are being taught rather than to get into the historically ineffective and somewhat barbarous practice of banning and burning materials that express views you don’t like. That was where the conversation ended because Roger shared Kevin’s unwillingness to admit to anything that disagrees with his fundamental beliefs.
To be fair, perhaps we are all three just too dug into our positions and we are doing more harm than good for each other trying to use texting and debate logic to change views that won’t change. Maybe its time to stop the madness and stop the texting. The whole experience has left me in a place of extreme frustration of open-mindedness. I want to remain open-minded, but there is only so much head banging I or anyone else can take. Kevin got pushed over the edge on the insurrection definition, even though it was he who supplied it. Roger got pushed over the edge on both the insurrection issue and the course banning topic, which I prompted by bring up the DeSantis protests. I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall with these two on gun control, immigration, January 6th, voter suppression, ESG policy, course banning and countless other topics. When I stop and wonder why I do it, the best I can conclude is the the old joke that it feels so good when I stop. So maybe I should just stop.