The Price of Sensitivity

I just had a text exchange with my red pals and I feel like it was a doozy. I keep that text chain going for two reasons. First and foremost, I shared some good times with these guys and have fond memories of many great motorcycle trips with them. Secondly, I find it important and fascinating to stay in touch with the mindset of people who I think should be ideologically aligned with me but are not. In fact, one of them is 180 degrees opposite me and the other is perhaps 120 degrees away from my thinking. We therefore tend to mix it up quite a bit on issues of politics and economics. They are both very successful businesspeople and clearly have developed very strong political views (one is from the Chicago area and the other is from New Jersey). But neither of them have either the economics or political science training that I have (my majors at Cornell were Government and Economics and my MBA was in Finance), so I find myself dealing with a lot of practicum when it comes to these topics rather than well-developed theory or policy considerations. I am wise enough to understand that theory does not always overwhelm the practicum, but I do find that it still has its place in these conversations. I have concluded that their views are simplistic and efficient where my views are more complex and involved (and sometimes trending to the over-thinking state). I do feel that the world is now getting more and more complex and that the simplistic approach comes up shorter and shorter and more involved thinking is required with the world’s problems. I suspect they would challenge me on that.

The exchange this morning began because the redder of the two texted two memes. The first was a typical red meme that “Democrats warn Trump’s unelected shadow government is dismantling their unelected shadow government”. This is clearly a defense of the Elon Musk DOGE approach to life and a not-so-subtle reference to the Republican Big Lie that Biden didn’t really win the 2020 election. There is nothing new in any of that and I do not take much offense at that sort of meme, as much as I disagree wholeheartedly with every aspect of it. It was the second meme that really bothered me. It was a old 1950’s style Betty Crocker lady saying with a smile, “So the people who made us rename everything from military bases to football teams to pancake syrup are VERY upset about this ‘Gulf of America’ thing, aren’t they.” This meme I find horribly offensive so I asked if my pal so no difference in changing the name of a military base carrying the name of a Confederate General who fought to bring down our Republic or causing a racist image of a black Mammy to get changed to help reduce racist thinking and Trump expressing hemispheric dominance by arbitrarily changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico? If that’s so, then I said I found that very disappointing indeed. His comment back was that I was too sensitive.

I understand that the entire basis of this whole “Woke” aversion is that we liberals have gone too far in demanding equal rights for people of color or different ethnicities. I understand that they feel we are too sensitive and that that sensitivity is leading to both unproductive efforts and outcomes and that it is all intended to somehow make them feel bad about themselves. Woke aversion has now expert ended in extremis to DEI and ESG efforts and those initials have become rallying cries for the MAGA world. Thoughtful, liberal-minded people have no trouble admitting that some DEI or ESG initiatives may have gone too far and need to be recalibrated, but the MAGA world wants them ripped out in their entirety and stricken from the policy vocabulary. It is as though they are saying there is absolutely no room for sensitivity in our culture.

My retort was that this meme-sender was too insensitive to it’s racial undertones. Sensitivity never hurt anyone. These “woke” initiatives to rename military camps are not the same as economic reparations, which I acknowledge are problematic due to their cross-generational impact. These renaming efforts are just about trying at the margin to change our clearly racist national nature by having some respect for people of color. Isn’t that the least we can do at this stage? And why is that so damn hard for us to do? These things are not jokes. These racist feelings truly exist and are deep-seated and need to at least be gradually reduced if possible. It simply isn’t that much to ask of our citizenry. There is a need to set aside the tribalism that causes people on the red side of life to slap down any and all efforts to do right by citizens who we have oppressed for centuries and been very slow to grant entry to our social fabric.

This is when my less-red friend weighed in with a surprising but welcome note of support. He said, “Confederates memorials have no place on any public property. They killed Americans and American soldiers. It’s completely outrageous and wrong that this was ever allowed. It’s like naming a Fort Osama Bin Laden or Fort Adolf Hitler.” I found myself needing to say a few more things. The problem from my standpoint is that the Tribalism that is rampant in our politics (particularly on the Right) and the whole Jan 6th crowd mentality has saturated the Republican Party and even those who disagree with it are still prepared to stay silent for the sake of that Tribalism even though they know that the whole Jan 6th thing was wrong. Trump made a mockery of our judicial system with his pardons (and NO, they were NOT the same as Biden’s preemptive pardons) by releasing duly convicted felons just to gain more points with his MAGA supporters. I would settle for commuting the sentences of the non-violent Jan 6th folks (but leaving their transgression on their records as a warning), but releasing and pardoning the violent offenders was an entirely un-American act that was disgraceful and should never have happened. I ended my rant with the observation that all of this vitriol from me was brought forth by that one stupid meme and that there is no place for that sort of offensive humor in our society.

The predictable response from Mr. Deep Red was to scream “Free speech!” This, of course, is one of the tropes that the Right likes to hide behind, so I had to conclude our exchange with another indictment. Offensive speech, free or not, does nothing but make things worse, and smart people know that and try and avoid it. Everyone has every right to post stupid and offensive memes if they wish, but they should be adult enough and astute enough not to do it. I reminded him that I, like most people, have made many such mistakes in my life and have always found that the best path is to simply apologize when I offend and try not to do it again. But then, apologies don’t come easy to Republicans these days. Our Idiot-in-Chief never met an apology he was willing to make and instead just prefers to double down and go his merry way.

The price of sensitivity is so very small and yet the imbedded anger or bullying mentality runs so deep that this easy and painless path is not taken as often as it should be for reasons that will only resolve themselves when the cost is more dear.