From the specific wrong to the General Evil

My daily round trip commute, on a good day, is two hours.

I try to make good use of that time by listening to books on tape. Too much talk radio makes me agitated and edgy, and too much FM radio does the same.

At least if I’m listening to a good biography or history, I can learn something. Keep my brain from succumbing to the 2^nd law of thermodynamics (especially the part about less energy available to do useful work).

I’ve been listening to a biography of Albert Einstein, read very engagingly by Edward Herrman. In it, the author mentions in passing a concept which I’ve either read or managed to observe by myself. If I recall correctly, it was an axiom that stated no theoretical idea can be expressed without having a concrete object to which to point.

When I was trying to explain tough concepts to AdventureBoy, back when he was just a boy, I called it translating. It seemed to me that to learn or understand something, we have to translate it into something known to us, to help us grasp an unknown.

Einstein’s application of this concept was to personalize his thought experiments. One example was an early visualization of himself riding a light wave.

It has occurred to me that perhaps our political concepts are formed the same way. I think of Andrea Dworkin. The poor woman was beaten by one husband, forced to prostitute herself by another, raped by someone else. No wonder she thought men were the very spawn of Satan. She took her particular experiences and generalized them to a larger group. Yes, she found evidence…but, then, again, she was looking for it, wasn’t she?

Personally, I’ve had to be aware of this tendency in myself. It was when I was married to AdventureBoy’s mom, ETEW (the Evil-Tongued Ex-Wife), that I began to see the many failings of Liberalism (and its shrewish sister, Gender Feminism). I won’t go into the many ways this specific woman’s behavior caused me to question the Received Wisdom of my Betters (you know who they are), but am I grateful I was at least able to take that away from the marriage. To say nothing of having AdventureBoy.

But what I must watch for in myself is to be sure I perceive with clear eyes and heart. That when I observe the duplicities and double-standards of the Democratic Party (and their House Ho’s, the MSM), that I am, in fact, seeing what is actually happening, and not filtering it through the prism of the experiences I had with a single individual who self-identified with those shared beliefs.

It’s tough to do.

Further, I wonder: for the shrill, angry Dems: who is the specific person they are generalizing to paint the conservatives as Evil? Who is it for Michelle Obama? For Code Pink? For Andrew Sullivan? For the KosKlowns?

This takes me back to some of the stirring encouragement from John McCain’s acceptance speech. “We’re all Americans,” he said, repeatedly, urging us to fight for what is good and right.

I need to remember that. We're all Americans.