He hasn’t done a 180 on the issue, but it looks like he’s capable of humility, which is a personality trait that will serve a person well their whole life and career. That’s my big issue with Hogg: I doubt you can tell that kid anything. At 17 he already knows everything he needs to know, and you’re just a dumb adult who won’t accept his truth. I can pretty much guarantee he’ll be the same at 40.
When it comes to politics and other social topics my position is increasingly becoming, “There are no easy answers, and if you think there are, you’ve either been duped by someone, or you’re a fool who doesn’t think things through.” What bothers me on social media is not that people overshare their political opinions… it’s that the people who tend to overshare their political opinions only see things in only black and white, and have generally closed their minds that The Truth might not be so cut and dry, or might not exist at all.
It’s never as simple as “we’re right, they’re wrong” and it definitely isn’t as simple as “we’re good, and they’re evil!”
It’s not that I don’t believe in right and wrong, and good and evil: I’ve spent more than a decade defending gun rights and trying to convince people I’m right about this. But when you start talking to real people you quickly realize there’s a lot of nuance, and none of this is as easy as you think.
Through the gun rights issue, I’ve discovered I’m a poor grassroots organizer. I tried it, but I think I suck at it. I’ve come to understand that my personality and intellectual traits are better suited to logistical support than leading troops in the field. The best organizers are actually people who believe, 100%, that they are engaged in an epic struggle between good and evil, but who are more concerned about getting a team moving forward than they are about their own self-aggrandizement. The types of people who are good at organizing will tend to struggle with that balance. Certainly most great generals have. I think Hogg will flame out, if he hasn’t already, because he trends too much toward self-aggrandizement.
Cameron Kasky is starting a new podcast “Cameron Knows Nothing.” It’s a good title. If I were starting another blog now, I might have to borrow it. I’d like to tell the kid that it’ll get better with age, but if you’re the kind of person who looks around and sees shades of grey, I’m afraid that’s only going to get worse with age.
“At 17 he already knows everything he needs to know, and you’re just a dumb adult who won’t accept his truth. I can pretty much guarantee he’ll be the same at 40.”
What has always interested me is, when someone who agreed with me had believed the same things ever since they were a kid, it was indicative of strong moral fiber, high principles, and a razor-sharp intellect; and their unswerving opinion was just one more indicator of those things. When someone like that believed in things I opposed, it was invariably a symptom of moral bankruptcy supported on a foundation of absent intellect, and their commitment to their opinion only proved that they were a bonehead.
I know less now in my forties than I did in my twenties. Or even in my thirties.
This doesn’t stop me from showing my ass on social media, but I think I get guilty about it from time to time.
I’m not so sure it’s “humility”. Maybe I’m being too cynical, but in his statement he expressly says that if he didn’t believe the other “survivors” could carry on without him, he wouldn’t have left.
He says he’s spoken with people who choose AR-pattern rifles for home defense and found they are good people, too. He says he’s learned a lot since embarking on this tour, and not everything he’s learned jives with what he “knew” when they started.
But he still 100% believes in the cause and WANTS the March to continue.
Like I said, maybe I’m being too cynical, but I suspect he just couldn’t take the public criticism anymore. He’s still a true believer, but doesn’t want to be the public face.
I truly hope that it’s humility and that he’ll turn around, search for facts, abandon the lies, and find truth. He doesn’t have to become an expert; I’d settle for an informed (by fact) opinion.
But he still supports the cause, which tells me that despite his new-found experience and personable connections, he still believes many if not most (or all) of the lies.
Just my $0.02, worth every bit you’re paying for it.
Definitely interesting. Its fascinating to see him admit he met pro-life women in Texas, something he thought was possible.
For some people, when their bubble is penetrated, they step back and evaluate. For others, they retreat and just scream louder. Sounds like Kasky is the former. Sure, he may always be anti-gun, but I’ll give him credit for at least understanding he doesn’t know everything .
“There are no easy answers . . . ” Truth in 5 words. Think of it like this. All of the problems that have easy answers are solved quickly and no longer draw attention to themselves. How to sharpen a pencil? When was the last time you had to think about the answer to this question? Why do we invest 12 – 16 – 20 years in getting an education if the problems we face (as adults) had easy answers? What will we have to do to persuade young minority males dwelling in the inner city to stop killing themselves? The “easy answer” of taking their guns away does not seem promising.
“The best organizers are actually people who believe, 100%, that they are engaged in an epic struggle between good and evil, but who are more concerned about getting a team moving forward than they are about their own self-aggrandizement.” <—Tragically, this might also be true.
Now, suppose the ranks of PotG are divided into two camps: First, there are the 'NO compromise! Guns for everyone and everywhere' campers. Second, there are the 'No easy answers . . . " campers who are earnestly trying to think-through the criteria for the Prohibited-Person laws and other gun-controls looking for anything that might have some merit, however slim.
How do these two divided camps stack-up against the closed-ranks of the gun-controllers? The NO-compromise controllers want to eliminate all guns, starting with those in the hands of we the People. They are followed by masses of people who believe in "common sense" "gun safety" laws.
On the fields of "battle" called the "soap box" and the "ballot box", the controllers have the upper-hand vs the divided rights advocates. Only the die-hard "NO compromise" rights advocates recognize where this is going. "Politics by other means" as Clausewitz put it. "Political power emerges from the barrel of a gun" as Mao put it. Will the question ultimately be put to the field of the "cartridge box" as Frederick Douglas put it?
We are looking through the fog of dawn onto a battlefield within our generation's future. The naive seek some "simple answer"; and, we are all vulnerable to this seduction. But as long as there IS NO simple answer there can be no easy consensus. Neither side can "win". There will be some unsatisfactory compromise – that is the nature of a republican form of government with a democratic electorate. Yet, there is nothing in human history to suggest that men will refrain from resort to force. Tragically, only a few today can pierce the fog and foresee such a resolution.
I’ve seen people who fit into the profile of “good grassroots organizers” who might 100% believe in their rightness and the antis wrongness, but who are still adept at choosing battles and understanding there’s compromise in politics. The fatal flaw of the no compromise crowd is they don’t know how to pick their battles. Bump stocks are a good example. I’m not willing to endanger semi-autos to save them. The no compromise crowd is fine with that.
“The best organizers are actually people who believe, 100%, that they are engaged in an epic struggle between good and evil, but who are more concerned about getting a team moving forward than they are about their own self-aggrandizement.â€
That one is worth thinking about. I think if you substituted “activists” for “organizers” you would be on to something. But “organizer” implies a skill that can be limited or perverted by the level of commitment to and belief in a cause.
Unfortunately I’d suggest the most effective “organizers” around any issue are those who can look at tactics in a clear-eyed, dispassionate, or even cynical way – i.e., the charlatans who exploit an issue rather than advance it for the long term.
The combination of organizing skill with a commitment to a cause is probably the required formula. A problem is that often some level of dishonesty is required for good organizing, e.g., the ability to motivate people for reasons the organizer doesn’t really believe in.
Yes. There’s a certain amount of salesmanship to it, and sales often requires a certain amount of dishonestly most engineer types aren’t comfortable with :)