You like to argue people. Is Trump A good guy or a bad guy. Why not discuss ideas: what is America and is Trump defending it? The important thing is the meaning of America. From an interview with jacob Needleman on his book "The American soul"My boyfriend voted for Trump. I do not think highly of Trump at all (although I do not wish him ill). We are both good people who generally want the same things. We are planning on switching to independent. Stop dividing people into absurd categories in which you get to claim that you're on the "correct" side, and that ONLY the other side is mean or childish. Seriously, we need to step back and see all of this for what it is, and the role we play in perpetuating it. The leaders want us to think we're on the correct side by following THEM, so they will court us and appeal to us. All of us should pay attention to the imbalances and dishonesty across the entire landscape... and acknowledge them, not excuse them, nor blame someone else. Stop following. Stop supporting. Demand accountability from ALL leaders -- else we show that we're willing to be led by lies and platforms.
“You don’t know what you have here.” How do you understand that statement, and why do you open the book with it?Mitch Horowitz: Your book “The American Soul” opens with a scene from the Vietnam era, in which you bring a group of students to meet a man of learning. A student is complaining bitterly about what he sees as the nation’s hypocrisy. At one point, the man of learning turns to him and says, “You don’t know what you have here.” How do you understand that statement, and why do you open the book with it?
Jacob Needleman: This person was a man of wisdom but also a man of the world, a businessman, and a great teacher. I had known him for many years and considered him the one who most helped me to understand the nature of the spiritual path. He never talked much about politics but more about the path or way of the spiritual tradition. I wanted these young students to meet him because of his wisdom about philosophical and spiritual ideas. The subject of the Vietnam War came up, as it always did with my students–this was a time when the country was really in agony and young people were outraged. In my own life, I never was able to put together spirituality and political issues. I considered them two entirely separate worlds, and what I thought of as politics was a world mainly full of illusions. This man had come from Scotland and jokingly referred to himself as “the last American.” He really loved this country. The students with me were speaking vehemently against America, and suddenly he said, in a way that commanded complete attention, “You don’t know what you have here.” He stunned everybody. There was a chilling moment of complete silence. Coming from this man of wisdom and depth of spiritual understanding, his words settled in on us like a great question, a deep spiritual shock that made us think and wonder. That was thirty years ago. The statement just sat in me, like a time bomb, over the years. And then about ten or so years ago, I realized that in trying to make a bridge between spiritual ideas and the issues of our contemporary world – to see what light the great wisdom traditions of the world could throw on current problems – I was facing the burning questions of: What is America? What does it mean? What is it for? Who are we, as Americans? What do we have here? These questions, which had simmered in me all those years, drifted to the surface of my mind and propelled me toward writing this book.
This is the real question. Arguing about Trump is superficial. Have you ever thought about "what we have here" rather than complaining about Trump?
