Down with stereotypes!

DQ here.

Greg posted the following comment recently:

Hi Don, I see you’re not quite in DQ overdrive but on the way. I wish I had the time to respond to your self-denial. But, as the good swampman pointed out, the issue isn’t the applicability of the label (I mean, it’s a no-brainer that you and Book amply satisfy the criteria), but rather, having worked so hard to get the label, what does it mean to you? I think Book’s already done a lot of the work that’s needed and is much clearer/more honest than you are, concerning the meaning and implications of the beliefs you two promote. I suggest, DQ, that you do yourself a favor and lay this matter upon your heart and see where it leads you. You’ve got a life journey ahead of you — and if it includes a brown shirt, have the integrity and guts to put it on.

In other words, he knows me better than I know myself, and since what I said didn’t fit his stereotype of me I must be dishonest (or maybe in “self-denial”).  The truth, of course, is he hasn’t a clue about me (or BW, or much of anything else based on his posts). 

I would have simply ignored such silliness if it hadn’t been for Trimegistus’s following comment to another post:

American Leftists have consciously chosen to embrace evil.

I don’t think it’s just Bush-hatred, or their fetishizing of anyone who claims to be “oppressed,” or even residual Marxism. I think those are all pretexts; post-hoc justifications.

Leftists are consumed with hatred. They hate religion (except the hate-drenched forms of Islam, which they embrace). They hate America. They hate modern civilization. They hate rational thought. They hate human beings as a species.

In any rational world, Leftists would be recognized as mentally ill, but because great numbers of them are superficially glib or talented at the kind of monkey-typing “creativity” prized in academia, they have too much influence in society for that. So they continue with their self-appointed crusade of destroying everything good and true, and celebrating murder, perversion, and madness.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I suspect “Leftists” no more fit Trimegistus’s stereotype of them than BW or I do Greg’s stereotype of us.  In any case, such stereotypes are singularly unhelpful.  If all we do is demonize each other, how are we ever going to reason with each other?  It we truly believe that those who oppose us are beyond redemption, we will either go on forever ar war or destroy each other completely.

I’m reminded of TR’s famous quote — “Speak softly but carry a big stick.”  Conservatives, at least, understand the need for the big stick.  But both sides seem to have lost the art of speaking softly. 

Which, in turn, reminds me of another famous saying (guess I’m into cliches today) — “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  America is very much a house divided against itself.  If we continue to demonize and stereotype each other we will continue to be divided and we will surely fall.  Are we really left with nothing but counting the days until the fall?  Or can we learn to talk, and, more importantly, to listen to each other?  As always, I’d appreciate your thoughts.