Logic Dies When Identity Speaks
- Mother Knew Best
- Moral Relativism: The Tyranny We Call Kindness
- Why Therapy is So Hard For Men
- According to Research, You and I Are Probably Wrong
- The Diary of Existing Beliefs
Do your best to read this with an open mind and an attempt to discover something new.
The Super Bowl halftime show was talked about more than the game. This has been the norm for the last few years. But this year, because of the strong political divide, there were two halftime shows. One for “each side.” This phrase alone is incredibly stupid to say. What’s a side? You have no side. They don’t care about you. And the fact that they’ve duped you into thinking you have a side that resembles any form of allegiance to you is stupefying.
So in come the predictable and tired political slogans and hateful rhetoric aimed at the “other side.”
“All Spanish! Yay diversity!”
“All Spanish?, we speak English!”
“It’s goIng to be sexy and lit!”
“It’s going to be vulgar!”
“Only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
“How many women does he love? His first song suggests too many!”
The next predictability were those praising the other halftime show. It was terrible. Lee Brice was ok. The others were very subpar. Until it got to Dr. Phil’s redneck cousin. Kid Rock was amazing. And I’m not a Kid Rock fan. Overall, it wasn’t a great show. But good luck telling that to MAGA.
“This was the best. Screw Bad Bunny!”
“I ain’t watching no Spanish show. ‘Merca!”
But the not so predictable part was when many turned on against Kid Rock for singing about Jesus.
The angle was that he, at one time, was a womanizer, and maybe even pedophile. There’s no evidence for the latter. But he was definitely the former. And wild. And crazy. And redneck. But like all people, we change. He did too, apparently. This takes me to my main point.
Tribalism Enters Center Stage
In one show, you have a man who is clearly currently a total womanizer who blatantly disrespects women and does an entire show about how every woman wants him and he does what he wants to them and leaves. But his most notable message was “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
On the other show, you have a character who has also ruffled some feathers, past and present, who ends up with a message saying “You can give your life to Jesus, till you can’t.”
Both artists controversial. Both have disreputable pasts. Both brought a strong positive message. This causes me to ask two questions?
- Why is one better (or worse) than the other?
- Why are we dismissing the message because of the messenger?
The only possible answer to the 1st question: Tribalism. And the answer to the 2nd question? See 1st question.
- Solomon gave us the wisest book of the Bible.
- King David gave us the most passionate book in the Bible.
- Moses is the father of Jewish law and a foundational pillar of the Christian faith.
- One left his first wife, hopped in bed with every chick this side of the Euphrates, decided to have multiple wives, who, eventually, were his downfall.
- Another had an affair and killed her husband, who was his most loyal soldier, to cover up the affair.
- Another killed a man because he got pissed off.
Do we throw their message out because of their mess-ups? I hope not. I have a lot of good things to say to help people live their best lives. But if you knew me in high school, you may not listen. Because I was a jack-wagon. Ernest Hemmingway and Robin Williams had plenty of good to say but ultimately couldn’t live by their own words. There have been many people in places of leadership that have positively altered the course of people’s lives, changing them forever, yet found themselves in a career-ending scandal.
There’s a strong psychological pull to dismiss a message once we discover flaws in the person delivering it. When someone lives inconsistently with what they teach, the instinct is to label everything they said as invalid. That reaction is understandable, but it isn’t always objective. Information can still carry value independent of the character of the person who delivered it. Sometimes the messenger is simply the vehicle. While the insight itself remains useful, constructive, or even transformative.
The tribalism has to end. There’s no real progress until we see through each other’s eyes.
I thank God every day there were no smart phones when I was in school. I thank God I’m forgiven. Thank God I’ve been given a second chance.
Don’t throw the message out with the mess-ups.
Stay Classy GP!
Grainger