I'll start with the spoiler. So if you are planning to see the (March '09 release) film "The Watchmen," and DID NOT read the late-80's graphic novel of the same name, read no further.
The plot of "The Watchmen" is the same as that of a mid-1950's Sci-fi mag story which I found long ago in a used book store. An intelligent and powerful Earthling creates a faux alien invasion, which brings the Cold War to an end by uniting the Russians and Americans against a seeming common enemy, thus averting an imminent nuclear holocaust.
I'm not saying that I'm intelligent or powerful. Au contraire. But something has been bugging me on Dkos for the past two days, and I plan to castigate a multitude of recent warring kos commenters, in the interests of inviting you, if you must, to TR me for a while, instead of each other. If so, so be it. I'll play the faux alien, appearing to invade. Now please switch gears, and metaphors.
In two seemingly different but enormously popular sets of diaries -- the current rec list I/P diaries and the series of diaries on the Dennis Prager "Rape" Issue -- a multitude of respondents have been in what might be technically called the "A**Hat Elephant Groper" mode.
Recall the story of the seven persons in the dark room with the elephant. Each touches a part of the beast, then leaps to loudly proclaim his or her findings. One touches the tail: "Clearly, an elephant is like a rope." One touches the side: "An elephant is obviously just like a wall."
We have been taught since childhood to laugh at these seven elephant groping A**Hats, who are so quick to pontificate based on a fragmentary and cursory understanding of a complex phenomenon, experienced from a single, limited, point (that's what makes them "A**Hats). WE, on the other hand -- should we be interested in elephants -- study the evolution, biology, history, ecology, and family life of the pachyderm, and scoff at the seven elephant-groping A**Hats if we even bother to think of them.
Yet consider the Prager debacle. Kossack A reaches out and touches only the title of bonddad's diary, "Dennis Prager Endorses Marital Rape." S/he instantly reacts: "This is untrue. Rape is defined as..." Kossack B reaches out a hand, and palpates only what s/he interprets as a defense of rape by Kossack A, then troll rates the comment. Kossack C is insensed only by Kossack B's abuse of a TR...And so it goes, through multiple diaries and thousands of comments.
I dare not even try to apply the same analogy to the I/P issue -- you can do that for yourself, from whatever part of the elephant that you stand near. I can only view the poor hurting creature from afar, and pray that the most wise, compassionate, and enlightened minds on all sides of this intractible conundrum, with support from all nations, will someday allow this part of our planet to exist in a state that will satisfy most of the inhabitants.
Certainly, some commenters in these, and a plethora of other, contentious diaries attempt to synthesize the various points-of-view, to consider each of the seven reports of "An elephant is like..." Others take the time to study the evolution, biology, history, ecology, and family life of the elephant at hand.
But many of us -- myself all too often included, when some particular elephant seizes both my intellectual and emotional attention -- act like elephant groping A**Hats. Does this ever happen to you?