Give someone enough time during a discussion and that individual will eventually reveal him/herself. Chances are, the results will not be pretty. I had that experience on Facebook over the weekend when some from my distant past turned out to be a walking, living, breathing caricature. I have known people across the ideological spectrum, largely by necessity through my previous work in the media and, for the most part, discussions were spirited, civil, and often concluded by agreements to disagree. This weekend's person, however, was one of those. You know the type - a person who believes that if you hold an opposing point of view, you are uncultured, uneducated, and unworthy of further time. Carry on the discussion long enough and condescension begins to seep through whatever points are being made. Frankly, it is tiresome.
This discussion began with the other individual's posting of a picture that "corporations don't bleed". I started to simply call bullshit but took a more civil approach in responding that such an assertion is wrong on its face. Corporations are staffed by individuals who are impacted by the do-gooder rules govt imposes on them. For some, corporations have become a favored whipping boy but, apparently, only certain corporations. You see, this name does not apply to smaller, locally-owned business, regardless of the fact that the vast majority are incorporated. Corporations are much easier to villify if portrayed as nameless, faceless entities out to rape and pillage all corners of the world.
It makes no different, at least not to that sparring partner, that corporations are responsible for virtually every convenience that we enjoy. Every tool that has made our lives simpler, more efficient, and otherwise better is the result of some "corporation" that saw a market need and worked to fill it. That these corporations act as such in pursuit of profit is not evil, it is how business works. Then again, the dissenting opinion came from someone who works in a setting where job performance is immaterial, where market pressures and competition are non-existent, and where profit is a word tossed about with contempt. I don't begrudge public sector employees their role in society; my late father was a college professor, a man of science whose work resulted in outcomes that benefitted farmers. However, I do get a bit irritated with the self-righteousness of some who believe themselves entitled to criticizing the same private sector that makes their world richer, and not just in the material sense.
After a couple of parries and thrusts, the inevitable occurred: I was "instructed" to undertake certain reading, the type of which was almost as predictable as the outcome of the discussion. Three authors were recommended, all of whom dislike capitalism and one of whom is an "eco-feminist", whatever the hell that is. My response that perhaps the other person consider the likes of Friedman/Hayek/Smith went unignored. After all, what fun is an ideological position when you are unwilling to see it challenged? I can live with disagreements over issues; it is part of what makes life interesting. What I cannot stand are snide, smug assertions that anyone holding a differing view is somehow beneath the time of the person making the initial point, no matter how ridiculous that initial point is.
Over the span of a few posts and counter-posts, this one-time classmate devolved into one giant talking point, a caricature of everything you hear regarding people who dislike the private sector, who dislike business in general, and who don't seem to have much regard for the West. It takes an immense lack of self-awareness to slam the very system that allows you to live in relative comfort and happiness. I feel genuinely sorry for such people, for individuals whose default position is to blame their own culture for the sorry plight of others, for refusing to acknowledge that for all their inherent flaws, capitalism and free markets remain the single best path to individual liberty and prosperity. Facts are stubborn things in that regard; the societies which are the most prosperous tend to be the most free and the ones with the most misery tend to be the most oppressive. This malicious truth is more than some can bear, so the problem instead becomes the person uttering it. In the weekend's discussion, that was me.
Funny thing about Facebook. People believe that they can post damn near anything and no one will question it, challenge it, or otherwise disagree with it. Sorry, free speech does work that way. You have the right to say it; you do not, however, have the corresponding right to be agreed with or even heard. And, when you cannot defend your points without resorting to thinly-veiled personal attacks on the other individual's intelligence or character, you have lost. I expected better, particularly from someone in academia, where logic and reasoning are supposed to be fundamental tools. Then again, living in an ideological hothouse where your views are never challenged, never scrutinized, or never dissected leads breeds intellectual laziness that no number of fancy words, or cheap shots, can mask.
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