Monday, February 11, 2008
Voting Naked
When I first read about voting naked, I never thought of it as Jenkins first describes it (233). I thought of it as being very open and exposing oneself to the public with your political opinions. I feel as if many Americans do not say who they are backing politically because they do not want to debate their reasoning behind their political views. Jenkins writes that one of his friends was appalled that he could be friends with Republicans, and his friend even accredited the Republican party to the Nazi Regime (235-236). I believe that when we openly discuss our political views, we are undressing ourselves for our audience. We are opening ourselves to "attack politics" where anyone can attack you just for speaking about your political choices. I agree with Jenkins that in order for us to vote naked and feel comfortable about it, we as a culture must find a common ground and "listen and learn from each other" (239).
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2 comments:
Maybe we can be respectful even if we don't find common ground. Dr. L
Unfortunately, "Listening and learning from one another" to many people implies a disloyal surrender of his or her own beliefs and values. People must be able to shed such ethnocentrism before they are willing to listen and learn. Only then would we all be able to interact with another's political values based on the understanding that everyone has an equally legitimate and considerable set of beliefs.
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