Thanks for the thoughts. This is an interesting issue to discuss but the present situation in US governance is not academic. It is real so the philosophical issues are irrelevant.
It is a fact, as but one heinous policy action, that the Trump cult via RFK jr has already killed q
100,000’s people many of whom are kids. There is no
rationale possible for this inhumane action.
Second, Trump is a mentally damaged person. He, as his niece Mary has written (she is an md psychiatrist) CANNOT allow himself to lose. He is mentally ill so his thought process CANNOT be rational.
Bottom line: let’s talk after we do work necessary work to end the Trump mob/cult from corrupting democracy beyond repair.
I wish you had pointed out the challenges of seeing the potential redeemability of the left as well as the right. Since you're choosing to use Judaism and Anne Frank as your hook, Frank was murdered by Nazis in 1945 because she was Jewish. Today, she'd be murdered for the same reason by Islamic radicals. I find it as hard or harder to imagine the decency of the people who tear down, ripping to shreds with their nails, pictures of kidnapped Jewish children as I do the decency of someone who voted for Trump, yet democracy demands that I do--just as it demands that we are free to discuss these difficult questions with civility and tolerant of those who may reach different conclusions.
You're absolutely right to call out the asymmetry in my focus, and the example you chose - people tearing down hostage posters - gets to something crucial. But I think it also illustrates why the left's certainty trap presents a different kind of challenge.
When I think about someone who voted for Trump, I can imagine doing the work of moral imagination - trying to understand their concerns about economic displacement, cultural change, or institutional distrust, even if I think their conclusion was wrong. Frank's Paradox applies because we're still operating within a shared framework where moral reasoning is possible.
But someone who tears down pictures of kidnapped children isn't just reaching different conclusions - they're operating from within a totalizing worldview that reduces everything to power dynamics and makes certain basic human recognitions impossible. The challenge, arguably, isn't extending moral imagination to them; it's figuring out how (and why) to get out of a mental framework that has made moral imagination itself suspect.
I don't know how to apply Frank's Paradox to someone who sees the very attempt at moral complexity as a form of complicity with oppression. The real work is helping people recognize when they've adopted an worldview that shuts down the kind of moral reasoning democracy requires.
That's a different and arguably harder problem than what I focused on in the piece. It is, however, something I focus on elsewhere.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I guess having just walked through those posters all crumpled and shredded on the ground and with Mamdani’s primary win in NY so fresh (either because of or in spite of his Globalize the Intifada rhetoric), my most immediate worry for democracy feels more local. The decency of the Trump voter is relatively low-hanging fruit!
I totally get that. I also think the two situations are linked. The more Democrats push the Mamdamis of the world, the more the Trumps of the world will be attractive to people who don't agree. And, in many cases, the people supporting Mamdami are tearing down posters and condemning Trump voters.
Thanks for the thoughts. This is an interesting issue to discuss but the present situation in US governance is not academic. It is real so the philosophical issues are irrelevant.
It is a fact, as but one heinous policy action, that the Trump cult via RFK jr has already killed q
100,000’s people many of whom are kids. There is no
rationale possible for this inhumane action.
Second, Trump is a mentally damaged person. He, as his niece Mary has written (she is an md psychiatrist) CANNOT allow himself to lose. He is mentally ill so his thought process CANNOT be rational.
Bottom line: let’s talk after we do work necessary work to end the Trump mob/cult from corrupting democracy beyond repair.
Thx for reading
Stan Green
I wish you had pointed out the challenges of seeing the potential redeemability of the left as well as the right. Since you're choosing to use Judaism and Anne Frank as your hook, Frank was murdered by Nazis in 1945 because she was Jewish. Today, she'd be murdered for the same reason by Islamic radicals. I find it as hard or harder to imagine the decency of the people who tear down, ripping to shreds with their nails, pictures of kidnapped Jewish children as I do the decency of someone who voted for Trump, yet democracy demands that I do--just as it demands that we are free to discuss these difficult questions with civility and tolerant of those who may reach different conclusions.
You're absolutely right to call out the asymmetry in my focus, and the example you chose - people tearing down hostage posters - gets to something crucial. But I think it also illustrates why the left's certainty trap presents a different kind of challenge.
When I think about someone who voted for Trump, I can imagine doing the work of moral imagination - trying to understand their concerns about economic displacement, cultural change, or institutional distrust, even if I think their conclusion was wrong. Frank's Paradox applies because we're still operating within a shared framework where moral reasoning is possible.
But someone who tears down pictures of kidnapped children isn't just reaching different conclusions - they're operating from within a totalizing worldview that reduces everything to power dynamics and makes certain basic human recognitions impossible. The challenge, arguably, isn't extending moral imagination to them; it's figuring out how (and why) to get out of a mental framework that has made moral imagination itself suspect.
I don't know how to apply Frank's Paradox to someone who sees the very attempt at moral complexity as a form of complicity with oppression. The real work is helping people recognize when they've adopted an worldview that shuts down the kind of moral reasoning democracy requires.
That's a different and arguably harder problem than what I focused on in the piece. It is, however, something I focus on elsewhere.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I guess having just walked through those posters all crumpled and shredded on the ground and with Mamdani’s primary win in NY so fresh (either because of or in spite of his Globalize the Intifada rhetoric), my most immediate worry for democracy feels more local. The decency of the Trump voter is relatively low-hanging fruit!
I totally get that. I also think the two situations are linked. The more Democrats push the Mamdamis of the world, the more the Trumps of the world will be attractive to people who don't agree. And, in many cases, the people supporting Mamdami are tearing down posters and condemning Trump voters.