Hitler or Taylor Swift for your inspirational pick-up?

This week I saw someone edit a Linkedin post because of feedback that the person they were quoting was a ‘troll’ (irrespective of the evidence within the quote); I observed three people sharing a Piers Morgan soundbite with the careful caveat ‘it’s rare I agree with this guy but…’ ; I saw someone else I respect get chastised for liking an X/ tweet from a persona-non-grata; … and I had a long, (depressing) conversation with my 10 year old about why it’s wrong for children to chant ‘Furry!’ as a slur at another on the playground (!?).
Whilst I didn’t immediately connect the last to the others, it occurred to me that many adults now also need this reminder.
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When did ad-hominem and who’s saying something become more important than what is being said? It’s particularly tiresome in an election period. Discredit the player (or throw a milkshake at them (www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c...) ) and the substance goes unevaluated. Undeniably, it’s effective as the more x-ist, nutty or ‘extreme’ someone is branded, the fewer platforms they get. The problem is that it typically forces them further to their extreme, often taking many fans with them, so counteracting the efforts of the ad hominem detractor.
A test for you. What’s your gut response to the following quotes?
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
“Words build bridges to unexplored regions”
"It takes less courage to criticise the decisions of others than to stand by your own."
“The really strong have no need to prove it to the phonies’
‘I believe in one thing only, the power of human will’
‘Better to live a day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep’
‘The great thing about letting people be true to themselves is they often do very good things indeed.
What do you think about them if I tell you that they’re from Goebbels, Hitler, Attila the Hun, Charles Manson, Stalin, Mussolini and Katie Hopkins respectively?
And yes, the image above is another. It’s from a 10-year old Pinterest page that strung inspirational Hitler quotes over Taylor Swift images and received 10s of 1000s of Swifty likes and shares (and you can still play this who-said-it-game here (www.theatlantic.com/culture/a...) ). ‘Misinformation’, or an excellent mind-game to challenge our instincts? Sadly it proved far too dangerous for the young inventor to continue. She was hounded into closing her accounts (more (www.stuff.co.nz/technology/di...) ).
Wild times. Even I now have to be careful about who I ‘follow’ these days with my equalities role… which seems madness. Surely understanding better those with whom you might disagree is a critical part of forming a fuller world view? When did we get so comfortable playing the player, not the ball despite the oft-used Solzhenitsyn quote that reminds us that ‘the line separating good and evil passes… right through every human heart”.
It’s this type of thinking that leads to package beliefs: the knowledge that if someone thinks ‘this’, they’re also highly likely to believe ‘that’, ‘that’ and ‘that’. It’s profoundly unhealthy and lazy tribalism, albeit reassuring.
It’s good for us to remember in the current climate that party politics doesn’t have to mean signing up to everything in one side’s manifesto, but simply making our own evaluations as to which package is, on balance, better and likely to do more good than harm. We’re allowed to (and should) prioritise different things within the packages or interpret our hopes or fears about the long term ramifications according to our experiences, world-view or knowledge (with the rapidly declining field of ‘History’, often providing the most unfashionable steer).
One way of reframing this that I have enjoyed is ’s concept of ‘star manning’ (centerforinquiry.org/blog/how...) , which I’ve mentioned previously (open.substack.com/pub/antidot...) , but is worth a reminder during angry political campaigning months.
It’s easy to straw-man or caricature an opponent’s idea, with vilifying the view-holder the laziest and most dishonest manifestation. It’s much more challenging to steel-man (engage with the strongest interpretation), let alone ‘star-man’ - yet it’s an exercise that would help us all.
To star-man is to not only engage with the most charitable version of your opponent’s argument, but also with the most charitable version of your opponent, by acknowledging their good intentions and your shared desires despite your disagreements
Whilst star-manning Hitler might feel like a stretch, he goes on:
The thought of extend...