Is the New York Times getting a modicum of common sense? As David Brooks explains Why I Am Not a Liberal, as Bret Stephens shares his insights into Mass Migration and Liberalism’s Fall, and as John McWhorter suggests that the term ‘African American’ be dropped in favor of ‘Black’, there is push-back even at the Gray Lady at one of liberalism's most (in)famous (and most appalling and utterly vile) ideas — that to punish one's own family (often the older generation) for supporting Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, uh, for supporting George W Bush and the neocons, for supporting Donald Trump and the conservatives, the (adult) offspring — proudly — break off all contact with the (grand-)parents.
Now, a speechwriter for Barack Obama asks whether it isn't Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family, pointing out that "ostracism might just hurt the ostracizer more than the ostracizee." Having said that, it is nigh impossible to find a comment among the 620+ in the Times that does not disagree — worse, that does not show disgust — with 's light-hearted article.
Furthermore, as Dennis Prager pointedly mentioned more than a few times over the years, there are few things more cruel than to deny parents the pleasure and grand-parents the right to visit with their children (i.e., with the "tolerant" leftists themselves) and with their grand-children (i.e., with the "tolerant" leftists' own kids). "There are people who call my show, tell me they have never met their grand-children" bewails the head of PragerU. Indeed, what turns into a feel-good piece, Dennis Prager calls a terrible crisis in America.
Let's turn to Obama Speechwriter :
Not too long ago, I felt a civic duty to be rude to my wife’s younger brother, Matt Kappler.
I met him in 2012, and it was immediately clear we had nothing in common. He lifted weights to death metal; I jogged to Sondheim. I was one of President Barack Obama’s speechwriters and had an Ivy League degree; he was a huge Joe Rogan fan and went on to get his electrician’s license. My early memories of Matt are hazy; I was mostly trying to impress his parents. Still, we got along, chatting amiably on holidays and at family events.
Then the pandemic hit, and our preferences began to feel like more than differences in taste. We were on opposite sides of a cultural civil war. The deepest divide was vaccination. I wasn’t shocked when Matt didn’t get a Covid shot. But I was baffled. Turning down a vaccine during a pandemic seemed like a rejection of science and self-preservation. It felt as though he was tearing up the social contract that, until that point, I’d imagined we shared.
Had Matt been a friend rather than a family member, I probably would have cut off contact.
… My frostiness wasn’t personal. It was strategic. Being unfriendly to people who turned down the vaccine felt like the right thing to do. How else could we motivate them to mend their ways?
I wasn’t the only one thinking this. A 2021 essay for USA Today declared, “It’s time to start shunning the ‘vaccine hesitant.’” A Los Angeles Times piece went further, arguing that to create “teachable moments,” it may be necessary to mock some anti-vaxxers’ deaths.
Shunning as a form of accountability goes back millenniums. …
But that was before social media. We live in a world of online fandoms, choose-your-own-adventure information and parasocial relationships. Few people who lost friends over the vaccine changed their minds. They just got new friends. Those exiled from one version of society were quickly welcomed by another — an alternate universe full of grievance peddlers and conspiracy theorists who thrived on stories of victimized conservatives.
… No one is required to spend time with people he or she doesn’t care for. But those of us who feel an obligation to shun strategically need to ask: What has all this banishing accomplished? It’s not just ineffective. It’s counterproductive.
These days, ostracism might just hurt the ostracizer more than the ostracizee.
… When I share stories about surfing with my brother-in-law, people often tell me about relationships in their lives pushed to the brink by politics. Sometimes, they’re proud of ties they severed. More often, they’re hoping for a way forward. How can we pierce bubbles of misinformation? Can friendships fractured in the Trump era be repaired?
… When we cut off contacts or let algorithms sort us into warring factions, we forget that not so long ago we used to have things to talk about that didn’t involve politics. Shunning plays into the hands of demagogues, making it easier for them to divide us and even, in some cases, to incite violence.
There are, of course, some people so committed to odiousness that it defines them. … In an age when banishment backfires, keeping the door open to unlikely friendship isn’t a betrayal of principles; it’s an affirmation of them.
