There's a certain maturity and patience that is required to have meaningful political discussion. That has been woefully absent lately, most especially in the candidate diaries. As I posted in a diary sometime ago, "people around here have gone just fucking nuts".
It reminds me of some sort of mass frezied activity that feeds upon itself, and it always results in destroying something they didn't intend to.
Moreover, it bespeaks a level of societal immaturity, in that the Kos community hasn't been around long enough to have evolved to a level of societal maturity, and those of us who have survived several evolutionary cycles, are disapointed to see that we are still at tribal behavior, and have not moved up to democracy.
I think this is at the heart of what Dr. Harrison is describing.
His leaving is a huge loss to this community.
He spoke with eloquence, authority, and compassion on women's health issues. He changed my way of speaking about it in public and private forums. He changed the vocabulary I used in speaking.
From his teaching through the diaries, I grew to be able to reach out for others' compassion in talking about women's health care, and particularly abortion care and the need for abortion care providers in all fifty states.
I became the non-threatening link, for people who were uneasy in talking about abortion care, to be able to ask questions without fear of being attacked. Since passions tend to run hot in both directions on this subject, this made me be able to reach out to both sides and in so doing, help to speak everyone about what is at stake in women's health and women's choices.
I am certain that a number of commenters will be sure to make the obligatory remarks about his last line being somehow insulting to the whole community. Fine. Be insulted if you wish, though I don't think inference is exactly correllary to the implication.
Either way, it's utterly irrelevant to the point of my diary.
My point is that Dr. Harrison's absence is a huge loss to this community, just as his presence offered a huge contribution.I've never met him, and he made me a better advocate for women's health care and freedom of choice. I am willing to bet that he had that effect on others here as well.
I hope he comes back.
(Please note that I will be out for the evening and likely won't comment back until tomorrow. -cm)