Why Are So Many Christians So Cruel?; The New York Times, December 22, 2024

 David French , The New York Times; Why Are So Many Christians So Cruel?

"Here’s a question I hear everywhere I go, including from fellow Christians: Why are so many Christians so cruel?...

It’s a simple question with a complicated answer, but that answer often begins with a particularly seductive temptation, one common to people of all faiths: that the faithful, those who possess eternal truth, are entitled to rule. Under this construct, might makes right, and right deserves might.

Most of us have sound enough moral instincts to reject the notion that might makes right. Power alone is not a sufficient marker of righteousness. We may watch people bow to power out of fear or awe, but yielding to power isn’t the same thing as acknowledging that it is legitimate or that it is just.

The idea that right deserves might is different and may even be more destructive. It appeals to our ambition through our virtue, which is what makes it especially treacherous. It masks its darkness. It begins with the idea that if you believe your ideas are just and right, then it’s a problem for everyone if you’re not in charge.

In that context, your own will to power is sanctified. It’s evidence not so much of your own ambition, but of your love for the community. You want what’s best for your neighbors, and what’s best for your neighbors is, well, you...

Christ’s words were clear, and they cut against every human instinct of ambition and pride:

“The last will be first.”

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Those were the words. The deeds were just as clear. He didn’t just experience a humble birth; Jesus was raised in a humble home, far from the corridors of power. As a child, he was a refugee."

How Trump sent me to church; The Ink, November 18, 2024

BRIAN MONTOPOLI, The Ink; How Trump sent me to church

"This time, Donald Trump’s triumph cannot be written off as a fluke, or the result of our flawed electoral system. Voters knew exactly who Trump was, and they still awarded him what is poised to be a (narrow) victory in the popular vote. But even if Trump doesn’t have an overpowering mandate, our fellow Americans chose the candidate of division, demonization, and weaponizing the government against his political opponents. Adam Serwer has argued that the cruelty was the point. And we, as a nation, chose the cruelty.

Faced with that hard truth, many may be tempted to write off our neighbors, throw up their hands, and turn inward. We can see evidence of this playing out: Unlike in 2016, people are not pouring into the streets to protest the incoming administration. Instead, they are largely staying in their bubbles, scrolling on their screens, and trying not to think too hard about the potential horrors to come.

But retreating into ourselves will only make things worse.

Which is why, the other night, I decided to go the other way the other day. To go, in fact, to church.

Doing so was my small way of pushing back on trends that are ominous and have the potential to make the next Trump presidency even more dangerous."

Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags; The Guardian, July 23, 2023

Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian; Want to quickly spot idiots? Here are five foolproof red flags

"f you want to be successful in this world, you have to develop your own idiot detection system,” the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, recently told the Northwestern University Class of 2023. Pritzker, a billionaire and self-described “cheugy dad”, clearly knows a thing or two about successful commencement speeches: his talk has gone viral.While the 20-minute speech, which was organized around quotes from characters in The Office series, wasn’t entirely about idiot-spotting, that section of it seemed to resonate the most.

You can see why. We live in a golden age of grifters, bullshitters and scammers. We live in an age where some of the world’s most powerful people threw millions of dollars at Elizabeth Holmes, without doing proper due diligence, because she came from the right background and sounded like she knew what she was talking about. A fantasist like George Santosmanaged to successfully fib his way into government. And Marjorie Taylor Greene has a seat in US Congress despite routinely going on unhinged rants about, inter alia, the “gazpacho police”. Clearly not enough people have functioning idiot detection systems.

So how do you spot an idiot? Well, says Pritzker, it’s not always easy. “I wish there was a foolproof way to spot idiots, but counterintuitively, some idiots are very smart. They can dazzle you with words and misdirection. They can get promoted above you at work,” Pritzker said. “They can even get elected president.”

That said, there are some major signs to watch out for. [Bolds added] The best way to spot an idiot is to “look for the person who is cruel”, Pritzker says. “When someone’s path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct … Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true – the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”"

'Andor' soared — it was about the force, not The Force, of the Star Wars universe; NPR, November 23, 2022

Glen Weldon, NPR; 'Andor' soared — it was about the force, not The Force, of the Star Wars universe

"Force with a lowercase "f"

Karn and his colleagues are dedicated to the cause of fascist oppression (which they're careful to refer to only as "order") with a zeal that isn't remotely macro. It isn't mythic, religious or even passionate. Instead, they're driven by institutional imperatives that scour their souls free of empathy, compassion and understanding, and reward them for ruthlessness, cruelty and — above all — efficiency. 

Who's the showrunner here, Hannah Arendt? Because as we watched season one of Andor play out in a series of mini-arcs across its 12 episodes, we saw the inner workings of the Empire. It's The Banality of Evil: The Series."

In the War Over Ukraine, Expect the Unexpected; The New York Times, March 15, 2022

Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times; In the War Over Ukraine, Expect the Unexpected

"I am always amazed by the courage that seemingly average people manifest in war — in this case, not only by Ukrainians, but also by Russians who refuse to buy Putin’s lies, knowing that he is turning them into a pariah nation. So I marvel at the breathtaking courage demonstrated on Monday evening by Marina Ovsyannikova, an employee at Russia’s Channel 1, a state-run television channel, who burst into a live broadcast of Russia’s most-watched news show, yelling, “Stop the war!” and holding up a sign behind the anchorwoman saying, “They’re lying to you here.” She was interrogated and, for the moment, released — probably because Putin feared making her into a martyr.

Marina Ovsyannikova — remember her name. She dared to tell the czar that he had no clothes. What courage.

And finally, wars also reveal extraordinary acts of kindness."

It’s Westworld. What’s Wrong With Cruelty to Robots?; The New York Times, April 23, 2018

Paul Bloom and Sam Harris, The New York Times; It’s Westworld. What’s Wrong With Cruelty to Robots?

"This is where actually watching “Westworld” matters. The pleasure of entertainment aside, the makers of the series have produced a powerful work of philosophy. It’s one thing to sit in a seminar and argue about what it would mean, morally, if robots were conscious. It’s quite another to witness the torments of such creatures, as portrayed by actors such as Evan Rachel Wood and Thandie Newton. You may still raise the question intellectually, but in your heart and your gut, you already know the answer."

The Cruelty and Cynicism of Trump’s Transgender Ban; New Yorker, July 26, 2017

David Remnick, New Yorker; The Cruelty and Cynicism of Trump’s Transgender Ban: The President’s tweets are a naked attempt to divert attention from his scandals.

"Let’s begin with the retrograde cruelty. There are thousands of transgender people already serving among the 1.3 million active-duty members of the military. These are people who have volunteered their service and have potentially put their lives on the line, and yet their President, who managed to come up with a flimsy doctor’s note back in the day, denies them their dignity, their equality. He will not “accept or allow” them in the military. Imagine the scale of this insult...

It is implausible that Trump paid much attention to his highest-ranking generals, or to experts, generally; Secretary of Defense James Mattis has supported transgender individuals joining the military. And the hardly radical Rand Corporation has published an in-depth study refuting the idea that transgender soldiers are somehow expensive, or that they undermine the morale and cohesion of the military over all. Trump’s decision to bar transgender people from the military is pure politics, cheap and cruel politics, a naked attempt to divert attention from his woes, to hold on to support from his base—a base that he believes will cheer his latest attempt to do battle with the secular-humanist coastal élites who are so obsessed with identity politics. (One Administration official told Axios’s Jonathan Swan that the move was intended to force Democrats from Rust Belt states to take “complete ownership of this issue.”) In other words, it is a decision straight out of the Steve Bannon playbook. Cue the organs of the alt-right press.

Trump likes to declare what a “disaster” the military is, how deeply it has fallen into disrepair, and how he will be its salvation. When you begin to consider the meanness of what Trump has done, it is worth remembering him saying that he was “smarter” than the generals on military matters, and that he mocked John McCain’s service in Vietnam because “I like people who weren’t captured.” When you begin to think about the scale of this offense, it is worth remembering Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father who lost a son in Iraq, addressing Trump directly from the lectern of the Democratic National Convention: “You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”"

An Abused, Dishwashing Robot Dreams of an Escape; Slate, 12/17/16

Madeline Raynor, Slate; An Abused, Dishwashing Robot Dreams of an Escape:

"Hum," above, is a science-fiction short from director Tom Teller and Frame 48. It follows a robot that works as a dishwasher in a restaurant, confined to a small, poorly lit room and abused by a cruel human boss."