[Zen] Unity in spite of differences.

Good afternoon All,

This message was posted to the Zen Forum at Yahoogroups by my friend Al. I wanted to share it with you because I believe he hits the nail right on the head. When did it become cool to be so mean, rigid, and unwilling to listen to a diffeent point of view?

My wife and I chanced upon a few minutes of Jerry Springer the other day. My goodness. And the "discussion" by the t.v. news talking heads isn't any better.

I hope we can dig our way our of this craziness.

Be well.

Al <actionheroes@earthlink.net> wrote:

To: <Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com>
From: "Al" <actionheroes@earthlink.net>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 08:32:16 -0500
Subject: [Zen] Unity in spite of differences.

This PETA & Cat Zen discussion has really illustrated something to me. It
all started with news about a guy who tried to kill a rat and it burned down
his house.

It has continued with some interesting information, but also a lot of folks
demonstrating deep feelings or hardened attitudes and opinions about cats,
dogs, PETA, and various other issues.

Some person joined to state that she was going to be banned because of her
love for animals, and then she quit (banned herself?). Are so many people
nuts?

Then this morning I was listening to the radio, and Michael Medved came on
to push some book he wrote about how he used to be a volunteer for Bobby
Kennedy & George McGovern and then became a "Reagan Republican." Medved then
went on to ridicule and lambaste liberals, Democrats, etc.

What I realized is that people no longer respect each other. There is no
respect for ideas or other people. We should all be able to have a
light-hearted discussion about cats, dogs, or politics without hurting each
others' sensibilities. But nowadays, there seems to be an nasty attitude
that permeates all discussions. That smug anti-intellectual attitude is that
there is only one right answer for any question, and that anyone who
proposes a different opinion is either stupid, deluded, or anti-American,
anti-British, subversive, mentally unbalanced, "has issues" or is somehow
incapable of intelligent thought.

This smug, snide, and superficial attitude is propagated by Rush Limbaugh,
O'Reilly, and every so-called Conservative radio host I have heard.
Unfortunately, what passes for Liberal radio is just as bad. I have heard
Randi Rhodes and that guy who used to be a comedian on Saturday Night Live,
and they exude the kind of obnoxious smugness that makes people want to
throw up.

Anyhow, I guess I can't change anything about the way civilization is
de-evolving. Back in the era of Enlightenment (the 1700s); people published
some incredible books and had some incredible debates filled with hope and
ideas that were radically different, and debate flourished.

People can have totally different opinions and still be friends, meet for
lunch, go to the park and have a picnic, or go to the movies together. We
should not seek to associate only with clones of each other.