That’s a good point, although I think personally I would change it slightly. I would say we don’t need to go high in those situations, it’s more a matter of just not arguing with or debating with people who cannot be convinced. It’s more about not wasting time or getting frustrated dealing with people who are a lost hope.
Of course that doesn’t fit into a speech quite as well as “When they go low, we go high.” Although you might get a decent applause line from, “When they go low, we tell them to fuck off.”
Another important part of context is that Michelle Obama is a black woman who would have experienced USA #1 misogyny AND racism every step of the way as she carved out an exceptional life in exceptionally difficult circumstances. A rallying mantra to “go high” when faced with that kind of adversity is probably necessary to avoid crumbling in despair from the obvious injustice of it all. So I can forgive her for the idea. It’s quite another thing when privileged shit lib assholes use it as an excuse for their own inaction in the face of injustice.
Right, I had a conversation about that with a black friend once. We were discussing something related to BLM protests, and he mentioned that he didn’t like talking about it too often because it brought him down and he had to compartmentalize it enough to be able to have a chance to also be successful in life and enjoy life, so following news about racial justice and being active had to be in balance for him with work and social life.
His favorite way to try to make a difference day-to-day was to research and find local black owned businesses, which I thought was pretty cool. Since then, when I become aware of a minority-owned or woman-owned business locally, I give them the tiebreaker over any competitors as a small way to make a difference.
If you want to be less miserable, all that matters is whether we can establish a feeling of community, belonging, and purpose in our own group. We don’t really have to create fictional dehumanized conservatives to do that. The conservatives have dehumanized themselves plenty so we just need to examine them as they are.
This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and
cellular telephone Feb. 20-24, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of
1,011 adults, including 904 registered voters.
That’s different from “going low”. In fact, calling for inclusion in the forum is the kind of “going high” choice that Michelle Obama was promoting. Be careful now, you are going to become a centrist with that kind of thinking.
Knowing this forum, all this would do is trigger massive infighting about how mean we should be to the conservative punching bag, and accusations that some people are being unrealistic in their expectations about how mean we can be in the short term, plus declarations that you aren’t really progressive unless you are in support of hunting down the conservative punching bags and murdering them.
Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya …