I have been immensely enjoying reading Jonah Goldberg's important 2007 book entitled, Liberal Fascism. Like I did with Ann Coulter's Guilty and Michael Soussan's Backstabbing for Beginners, I am looking at Goldberg's fascinating insights, and trying to see how they may apply to my own experiences and thoughts. I will be picking out bits and pieces of his book to write about here to try to assess how it applies to what is happening in America today.
Goldberg writes that "one of the great ironies of history is that the more similar two groups are, the greater the potential for them to hate each other." In this regard he cites the Israelies and Palestinians, Greeks and Turks, Indians and Pakistanis, Nazis and Soviet Communists: these pairs understand (or understood) each other very well, "but often hate each other." I guess it's the opposite of the coin that "opposites attract," which I believe is true.
Colleen and I are opposites in many ways, but I think she is happily surprised to realize that I also love all the animals here on the farm. It has been her life-long dream to raise her family on a farm with lots of animals. I was always a city boy, even though I grew up in Sioux City, Iowa.
4 comments:
I'm enjoying this new concept Bob of sharing with us what you enjoy in a certain book. As for why those particular groups hated each other to me goes to the one word power. They both wanted it and not to share. The one thing that sticks out to me about the average joe is we don't mind sharing the power or the wealth or at least we didn't.
I am glad you are enjoying it, Terri. A few others have said so, too. It helps me to really think about what the authors are saying, and to apply it to what is going on today in the world.
I agree. This is a good series.
As far as opposites attracting -- I am a born slacker, and my wife is the high-energy, high-intensity workaholic.
It's not that I don't work hard or do a lot -- I just think things can be prioritized. She thinks everything has to be done at once.
mushroom,
Wow! Our relationships sound really similar.
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