On Disagreement By Richard Sale

 

 

People who habitually employ an abusive and bullying tone, are, at bottom,  insecure people with a weak ego. It is weakness that makes such people so aggressive and unkind in their statements. Why are such people so afraid of hearing what they dislike, that they must launch an attack not on what someone has said, but to savage the character of the person who said it?   They act very bellicose, baiting, berating, but that warlike manner is a bit of a sham. It conceals drastic insufficiencies of character and will.  Certain people walk around with such a huge their chip on the shoulder that it renders them unable to stand upright or think straight. An insecure character is always on the verge of mauling anything that does not agree with its own vulgar ideas. Novelty offends them and turns them sour. Their thoughts travel on a well used road and, in spite of contradicting evidence, they  are determined to remain in their usual rut. Anything that collides with their prejudices is seen as treasonous. Their prejudices seem to them to be God’s law, not to be challenged or questioned.

 

A weak ego is always trying to portray itself as a strong one. But a weak ego is ultimately, defeatist. Such an ego glares, paws the ground, lowers its head, but never charges with telling effect. Its role is merely to alarm and disconcert. People gain strength of character by doing selfless and brave things such as being faithful to comrades or enduring grave dangers, and the result is that they forge their own self-respect. People who have a high regard for themselves, as distinguished from conceit, do not bully nor intimate nor try to overbear and bully. Such things are beneath a person of honor.

 

I had my first experience with shady and dangerous characters while working as a legal investigator for the U.S. Senate. I was assigned to make a case about widespread fraud in California nursing homes. The attorney who hired me, a friend, clearly didn’t expect me to succeed. The relevant statutes were expiring, and my three-person staff was inexperienced. Yet within six weeks, we had the FEC undertaking a full investigation, as did the San Diego D.A., as well as the FBI, who launched a  full field probe. 

 

When I announced these results to my bosses, they were glum. I was puzzled. Then I was abruptly fired. Thanks to an article I happened to see in The Wall Street Journal, a law firm hired me to foil a two billion dollar takeover of an international pharmaceutical company, headed by the target I had been pursuing.  At that time, I was getting death threats, hang up calls, etc., because I suspected that the target had ties to organized crime. Thanks to a former California State Trooper, everyday I had to go out and get on my knees to search for bombs strapped to the drive shaft of my car or look for one in the dashboard or the glove box. The takeover collapsed because of  the evidence I uncovered. The friend who had hired me for the Senate, soon became the head of the nursing home association. He had been in their pocket from the first

 

 

I have also endured at least four plots against my life: the Israelis had planned to assassinate me in Lebanon. State Dept. intelligence warned me that I was going to be garroted while riding in the back of a Mercedes limousine on my way to interview a Christian warlord. In another case, a renegade CIA agent threatened to kill me along with my family unless I stopped looking into his crooked arms deals in Iran. Two and three star U.S. generals told me that the agent had hired assassins in Tehran to murder five Rockwell International employees, plus he had murdered a U.S. Air Force colonel who had tried to bug his Tehran apartment. A vice president of E Systems, who personally knew the agent, said to me, “This man will kill you within two years.” The going rate for a hired killing in Washington, D.C., at that time was $50.00.

 

For six months, I lived with a 4500-member black gang in the Southside of Chicago where I was constantly told that I would be killed by a shotgun blast, and on two occasions, I was almost beaten to death. When I was in the Arizona State Prison to do an article for LIFE Magazine,  there was an inmate plot to have me knifed in the Yard because a corrupt associate warden spread the rumor I was a narcotics agent. Two convict leaders threatened to take me and the prison psychologist hostage unless their ailing comrade, close to death, was taken out of the prison hospital and put in a civilian hospital n the town of Florence.  They gave me forty-eight hours; it took two weeks, but I think that getting that sick inmate out was probably the thing that made them call off the plot to kill me.

 

So I know what is like to endure a hostile environment in which anything can happen and where you can do little to prevent the worst. Sometimes, you can ward off a huge misfortune by going to meet it, which is what I tried to do. Sometimes only very dangerous situations can bring your innate powers into full activity.

 

My point is that no achievement in life, no amount of bravery or endurance of hardship entitles you to be uncivil, boorish, belligerent or overbearing. In reading some of the comments made at Pat’s site, one wonders if some of the commentators ever doubted their  own certainty or ever asked themselves if a different interpretation of a fact was possible. One is forced to ask such people, have you never considered that what you say is mistaken or in error or that your statement perhaps  requires re-examination?

 

Trump

 

First, I want to say that I feel genuine pity for the plight of many of the Trump supporters. Their needs and welfare have been ignored or overlooked or edged to the sidelines. Next, I want to say that my observations are not based on any political bias.  I have never belonged to a political party.

 

I said on the site, that Trump lacks courage, and I believe he does, and when people cry, “evidence,” I cite what my own eyes have seen. Trump doesn’t fight an opponent; he tries to undermine him.  Cruz’s Canadian birth rendered him ineligible for the presidency because he is not an American citizen; President Obama was a Muslim who lacked a birth certificate. Those accusations are not forthright. In fact, they are lies. Trump doesn’t confront his opponent head on, but attacks his unguarded flanks.  No brave person argues by hearsay or baseless rumor or deliberate falsehood. Such things are not “manly.” (I am keeping in mind the women in the military who are manly and brave.)  Pat tendered judgments about Trump and no one asked him to produce evidence. Pat has been what he has seen and has the intellect to make a judgment about it.

 

If my statement about Trump was flawed, it is because it was so broad and general. But I would urge everyone on this site to study the long New York Times article about Trump’s casinos which makes plain he has no steadiness of will.  He vows one thing, and then does another. His word is not his bond; to him it is an inconvenience easily overridden. Instead of being honest, Trump is skilled a being sly, extremely skilled at misrepresentation. His ability to substitute one arrangement for another, his ability to shift casino revenues to cover his personal debt and loans, his ability to get extravagant bonuses out of an ailing company are admirable only for their unscrupulous adroitness. 

 

What do I mean? “How Donald Trump bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos and Still Made Millions,” published by The New York Times, and it is worth anyone’s study. The article reads, “On the presidential campaign trail, Mr. Trump…often boasts of his success in Atlantic City, of how he outwitted the Wall Street firms that financed his casinos, and rode the value of his name to riches.” (See link.)

 

It is worth examining that statement. The article notes that while Trump’s casinos did poorly, “Trump put little of his own money into them, and shifted his personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. The burden of his failures dell on the investors and others who bet on his business acumen.” 

 

When Trump began his casino empire, he borrowed money at high interest rates after telling regulators that he wouldn’t, and, even then, there were signs that his ventures were doomed from the start. His casinos made four trips to bankruptcy court, each time, Trump persuaded bondholders to accept less money than they were due, rather than be wiped out. But his companies would then add even more debt to their balance sheets.

 

Trump faced financial ruin in the 1990s by delaying payments on his debt, so he took his casinos public and unloaded his risks on shareholders. In one venture, stock and bondholders lost more than $1.5 billion.  On the way, Trump put a number of local contractors and suppliers out of business.

 

In addition, Trump routinely took money out of his casinos to invest in Manhattan real estate projects. The casinos were always underfunded.

 

As the 90’s wore on and the underfunded casinos continued to fail, Trump’s lenders insisted he make a business plan, appoint a chief financial officer and sell, among other things, the Trump Shuttle Airline, his stake in the New York Plaza Hotel, (which went bankrupt,) and the lenders put him on a $450, 00 a month budget for his personal and household expenses. In spite of mounting failures, he still made money. He always made money.

 

He was expert at shifting much of his personal debt into the casinos, and then shifted them onto a new group of shareholders. He established a new publicly traded company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, and 19 million shares were sold at $14. But not long after, the company posted losses of $66 million. In 1996 and in 1997 his casinos lost $42 million, and they lost $40 million in 1998. And the loses continued. A week after the initial public offering, the new company began using some of the S300 million it had raised to clear away Trump’s personal debts.

 

Yet in spite of those losses, Trump made money, receiving a$1 million a year for what was essentially a part time job. In 1996, he was also paid a $5 million bonus, and, in 1999, when the company failed just three years after spending 460 million to buy back the former Trump Regency Hotel and after spending $26 million in renovations, Trump had to demolish the building, taking a $135 million write-off.

 

The list goes on and on.

 

In reading about Trump, I get no sense that he values what the philosopher John Dewey called, “…the morals of humility, of obedience to law, of pity, of sympathy” Trump is very Darwinian. Pity and sympathy to him are merely a self-protective devices on the part of the weak, an attempt to limit the ruthlessly strong.

 

The Uses of Criticism

 

Most people bridle at anything that slights their knowledge or offends their vanity. But some make it a habit to bridle at anything.

 

To me, a discussion like the recent on the integrity of the U.S. media is a place to try and indentify your own semi-conscious biases. A discussion is an exchange of opinions, not a dog fight. A discussion is not the place or the occasion to try and discredit whatever collides with your own personal preferences. Our personal preferences are not God’s law. They are merely personal, and therefore extremely limited and full of flaws.  Respect for facts should provide the solid ground under any discussion. In any disagreement, a fact should be confronted by another, more accurate fact, instead of throwing a lot of spiteful sand around that acts to obscure the matter.

 

Of course,  people are not going to agree on certain topics because of their different natures, temperaments or gifts of soul and mind.  Yet there are always a few participants in a discussion who simply want to prevail at any costs, and they ignore any efforts to try and obtain an objective view of the matter. Instead, they view the opinions of others as bitter rivals of their own, and from the outset, brand them irredeemably mistaken and corrupt. Such critics lack the discipline and patience to hear others out, and instead attack them with scorn and ridicule and with all the little, petty weapons of belittlement. 

 

Yet none of us possesses a mind or a temperament identical to someone else’s. In every human nature, there will be different emphases, a different depth of interest, different degrees of tolerance, and different degrees of intelligence, comprehension and analytical thought. One thing to remember when you listen to a dispute is that no one can see over their own height. You can only admire in another what you already possess in yourself. A carthorse makes a poor racehorse. A pint cannot image a gallon. A cup holds only a little bit of liquid next to a jug. The jug may think it is imparting priceless insight, but its efforts are completely futile. A cup can hold only so much. It is a waste of time to discuss the glory of colors with someone who is colorblind, or praise the masterpieces of classical music if you are tone-deaf. If your intelligence is of a low order, it will mistake the good intentions of another who is simply trying to air his own views honestly and who lacks any intention to insult anyone in the attempt to assert their superiority. If someone says something bitter or sarcastic, they are probably doing the best they can with the gifts God has given them, but sometimes that doesn’t count for very much.

 

Politeness and Civility

 

I believe that to discard politeness is to relish in petty malice. It is wise to be polite and stupid to be rude. Politeness is a tacit agreement that another’s defects or shortcomings will be ignored and will not provide grounds for you to air your own personal supremacy. Civility is a bit like wax which responds to warmth but not to cold. Civility can make people receptive, pliable, agreeable and obliging. Rudeness makes people freeze in place.

 

I believe that some of the harshest critics on the site are captives of the pleasure of hating. Without hating something, their lives would apparently lose their value, savor and meaning. As Hazlitt said, “Nature seems made up of antipathies: without something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and action. Life would turn to a stagnant pool, unruffled by jarring interests, the unruly passions of men.” Unfortunately, hatred comes from the heart, said Schopenhauer, and the heart cannot be altered.  I agree with Hazlitt when he says hating is “a poisonous mineral,” that turns any discussions. into jealous spleen,  bigotry and the desire to wound.  Hatred always  serves up pretexts to strangle, vilify, and disfigure any opponents.

 

By definition, people who hate deeply are incapable of taking a purely objective view of anything. Hatred prevents us from seeing the other side of a question. Hatred blinds us. Hatred prevents us from seeing a thing as it really is. Hatred comes from the heart, but I believe that some people become enraged because secretly they know that they are in the wrong. In any case, we cannot alter our heart; its bias is determined by motives and our unique make up. Contempt is not hatred. Someone who treats us with contempt at lest retains an interest in us, but hating somebody will mean that at some point they will hate you back, and this is an invitation o chaos and slaughter.

 

Do inveterate haters ever feel themselves refreshed, relieved, purified, ennobled, or strengthened by their hate?  Does their hate put them in contact with what would elevate or improve them? To get angry about people who hate is a useless pastime.  You don’t curse a stone because you find it in your path and have tripped over it. A stone is a stone. You don’t expect much from it.

 

Birdbath

 

Archibald Birdbath is a stout fellow, hardworking, fearless, (He is, of course, a fictional character.) To Mr. Birdbath, what the world really needs is correction.  He is a busy, dedicated man, who when he looks out at the world, sees nothing but widespread error, mistaken ideas, and systematic ignorance.  His job is to rebuke, refute, show up and embarrass the general stupidity of almost all people. He is a man of severe convictions. Nothing gets past him. He never slumbers. He is always on the alert, scanning the countryside in search of flaws. He has a hair trigger in his nature. One must tiptoe around him or else it he will get annoyed and try to wound whatever is nearby. The world must conform to what he designates as right. It is the task of the world has to redeem its failures.

 

It irks him that so many people believe that they are infallible like the old Popes. They are impervious to correction. There is no “live and let live” in Birdbath’s nature. Not only are they wrong, but they harbor no wish to be right. He sees the bulk of mankind as having no scruples, no delicacy of judgment, the bulk of them condemned to think in unison, addicted to clichés. They have coarse, little souls that lack basic decency. But Birdbath is a man of righteousness. Birdbath, the majestic and all knowing, Birdbath, the wise and decisive, declares this, and then declares that because no one else is qualified to perform his mission.
Birdbath is astounded by the impenetrable denseness of people around him. How exasperating they all are! Most of what people say is mere gibberish. If he had more time, he would cite the books he has read, the studies he has pondered, and the works of scholars who have analyzed the subjects he ejaculates on. He is a bit like Moses – he doesn’t reason or define, he just issues Commandments.

 

He grieves over the fact that most people are unkind, bigoted or mean- spirited. If he had time, he would teach them ethics.

 

My guess would be that Birdbath perhaps suffers from hypochondria, which Schopenhauer defines “a species of torment which not only makes  us unreasonably cross with the things of the present, fills us with groundless anxiety on the score of future misfortunes entirely of our own manufacture but also leads to unmerited self reproach for what we have done in the past.” Inveterate hater suffers from this tormenting disease. People who are always discontented with themselves are likely to be addicted to hunting after things that vex and annoy and infuriate them, because they have a gloomy, restless temperament.

 

Contempt and hatred are different breeds. Contempt can easily turn into hatred, but people who feel initial contempt can also begin to threat people with respect and indulgent kindness. That is my hope for Birdbath.

 

. 

 

                                                  *******

 

 

 

1. How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but ...
www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html
Jun 11, 2016 · How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, ... Mr. Trump pulled more than $1 million from his failing public ... Still, Mr. Trump made

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[bks]

Well said, and one could add Trump's unwillingness to release his tax returns as further indication of cowardice.

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Mr. Sale,
Could we expect a similar analysis of Hillary Clinton?
Ishmael Zechariah

[Edward Amame]

People who habitually employ an abusive and bullying tone, are, at bottom, insecure people with a weak ego...

This ought to be an interesting thread.

[irf520]

It all depends on the nature of the disagreement. If it's a question of whether to raise or lower a tax rate by 1% or something similar, then you can have a polite discussion about it. If on the other hand one side is insisting on policies which have a good chance of getting us killed it's quite hard to have a polite discussion about that. Especially when the people you're arguing with refuse to see that what they are advocating is insane.

[David Lentini]

That would be nice. I don't want either candidate, but I find the questions of Clinton's health, both psychological and physical, are even more dire than Trump's.

[Freudenschade]

David,

Are you open to having your Clinton health hypothesis disproven. What would it take for this to happen? What fact or facts would convince you otherwise?

[Tyler]

I'm living rent free in your head along with Trump, Dick.

P.S. - Anyone who engages in pop psychoanalysis on the basis of distant observation is either projecting or has no argument.

[Tyler]

Bks,

Tell me about the speeches Clinton gave to Wall Street that she won't release.

I love pencil necks throwing that word around. This idiot.

[Tyler]

EA,

People who pop analyze over the internet are child molesters.

Arguments through assertion are fun.

[Eric newhill]

Richard,
There are two basic forms of aggression; outward, which you address, and passive, which you ignore.

In a discussion, both are equally as fatal and both, IMO, come from the same source that you outline.

One is easier to identify and point a finger at, while the other flourishes, self righteously, while the finger is pointed.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Richard Sale:

In regards to the death threats against yourself; you had been in good company. Harry Markopolos who had spotted Bernard Madoff's $65bn Ponzi scheme years earlier, has stated that at some point he stopped alerting the US authorities because he feared for his life.

Just how wide-spread is this phenomenon in the United States, do you know?

I mean, where do Americans get off hectoring the rest of the world about the Rule of Law, when, in their own country, when push comes to shove, one's life would be in danger - just like so many other countries?

[Edward Amame]

David Lentini

I would certainly not dismiss Mr Trump's extremely advanced case of foot in mouth disease.

[morgan]

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for one.

[Donald]

I need to read this post every week or so, to keep my worst impulses in check.

[steveg]

Babak
I fear you have not accepted the fact that
the US is "Exceptional " as the elites from
both parties have told us on a continuing
basis. What is the adage? Rule of law for
thee but not for me is now writ large in this
society on every level IMO. Anarchy awaits!

[jonst]

Is there no low your tribe won't sink to?

[Arctos]

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so! - Mark Twain

Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”

[jonst]

Richard, while I sympathize with any personal discomfort you have endured, and, in general, agree with the *thrust* of your take...my issue is, and I believe yours SHOULD be, as well; there is no longer even a general sense of agreement on what IS an "abusive and bullying tone". Anything is, these days. To me. I find myself surrounded by people who have never been in the military. Never worked a loading dock or a harbor. Never been in a union or a union battle. In many cases have never been in jail, been in trouble, been in a physical fight, indeed, been in much, that involved danger or aggression. This is a gross generalization, but it has an element of truth in it, I believe. I deal with a nation (or state) full of bureaucratic admins, or Mr Rodgers like professionals. And then there are the college students and soccer Moms. It seems like anything is "bullying" to them. Serving friggin gluten food is bullying. Everybody---exaggeration, ok, but you get my point, hopefully..wraps themselves up in the language and shield (and sword?) of the 'bullied victim'. It usually ends the discussion, with many saying 'what is wrong with that guy, he must have a weak ego'. Yeah, maybe, or one must have a weak outer shell.

[Edward Amame]

Tyler,

Bingo!

[Babak Makkinejad]

They are truly "Lost Children" - any challenge, even at the level of questioning some innocuous but dearly held belief is considered an attack.

Young men tell you that you are bullying them, young women tell you that they do not want to hear what you say.

[johnA]

A polite manner that leads to a polite discussion is only possible if BOTH sides think it a good idea or think at all.

I too lived on the "poor side" of the tracks among people who despised me for nothing other than "you don't belong here".

There were threats and actions taken against me for that reason alone.

There are NOW , more people that feel they have nothing and have no chance and are not interested in a discussion.

If you run into them at the wrong place there is no time to talk.

[Farmer Don]

I think Hillary could dispel most of this talk by scheduling a press conference, and making sure people see her walking a few blocks and climbing a couple flights of stairs getting to it.
Then answering unscripted questions about her health, followed by another 1/2 hour of other questions & answers showing that she has put this issue to rest.

In short just get out there and be seen doing some things a healthy active individual does.

PS
She might want to go shirtless surfing like our Canadian Prince Trudeau.

[LeaNder]

It's interesting, Richard, more personally for me, you bring together Hazlitt and Schopenhauer on hatred.

good read, if I can put it like that.

[will2713]

Actually, the reply to all in this particular thread. What part of Sale's article on civility did y'all miss?

[tim s]

Don, PLEASE, not right after lunch!!! I might have to go lay down....