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[Jim Allman <jim AT ibang.com>]

On Nov 4, 2004, at 2:47 PM, Tony Spencer wrote:
> Categorizing church goers and/or those that vote for a Republican
> candidate as intellectually sub-par, simpletons is not the way to 
> boost the
> democrat party.

I think the problem is that we truly baffle one another. So people leap 
to the only interpretations they can think of: Those guys must be 
morons, or sheeple, or up to something sinister. Which is not such a 
big deal, unless they're running the country. I imagine that 
fundamentalists feel this dissonance (Oh crap, I'm living in an insane 
asylum!) most of the time.

It might help if we all try harder to understand the people "over 
there," because there's a hell of a gulf between us. Same planet, 
different worlds. Here's George Lakoff's attempt to "unpack" the tacit 
conceptual models behind American politics:
        http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/467716.html

(Just an excerpt, but pretty cool. Has anybody here read the book? I'm 
interested, but then I'm the kind of liberal weenie that responded to 
Sept 11 by wanting to know more about modern Islam. Silly rabbit!)

Lakoff makes the point that most people don't have a conscious map of 
their *own* assumptions, let alone their opponent's. This kind of 
archaeology might help us find common ground, or key points of 
difference. Anything beats yelling insults at each other for another 
four years.

  =jimA=

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Jim Allman
Interrobang Digital Media
http://www.ibang.com/
(919) 649-5760