Thanks to Wally Minto, a Practical Way to View 'Progressives'

Why are there some folks in our lives who just rub us the wrong way, and vice versa? Is there a disconnect that could be addressed if only we could identify it?

Too few of us had the gift of meeting and learning from Wally Minto, lecturer and author of a little book entitled Communication and Understanding Relationships. The simple, easy to understand message can be an eye-opener for anyone wanting a practical perspective on why we seem to click with some, clack with others.

The lesson taken can be applied to our desire to speak to more 'open minds' about the desirability of free markets, individual sovereignty, and private property.

I don't know for certain if Wally Minto was a libertarian in the concscious political sense, but he certainly was one by example in the way he lived and looked at, life.

Wally observed that for various means of communication such as auditory and touch, humans differ. They live on a spectrum. In Wally's words, some folks are talkers, some are non-talkers. Some are touchers, some are non-touchers. Awareness of this, and that most of us fall somewhere along these spectra, helps us understand others' response to us. Simply put, a 'non-talker' may not be ignoring you, and a non-toucher may not be avoiding direct contact because there is something about you they don't like, or love. Converesely, a full-blown toucher may not be communicating a deep feeling for you, and a full-blown talker may not be as dedicated to the subject as he/she is to the talking process.
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This leads me to a possibly analogous situation between ourselves and folks inclined to a collectivist point of view. If there's some accuracy in this comparison, it could very well be useful to our libertarian ends.

Simply put, there is a spectrum of innocence and Evil among collectivists. Acknowledging this to ourselves should help us be more effective at 'conversions.'

On the innocent end are the well-intentioned, the naive, those very dependent on developing thier opinions by adopting the opinions of others. Lenin's less than affectionate term for these grown-up children was "useful idiots. They have learned this second hand information-gathering from childhood, when working with authority figures was the means of survival. For people who grow up beyond this behaviour, total dependence outlives its usefulness, and those who are fortunate enough to grow benefit from becoming full-fledged, self-responsible adults. People in this category are salvageable (perhaps you were one of those at one point as was I) needing only a wake-up call to get on the right track.

On the far other end of the spectrum are the poeple in fact and fiction (Toohey, Stoddard, Gardiner, Goldfinger) who know damned well the Evil they are doing, and have made a conscious decision to be who they are. Any dictator who exterminates a race or annihilates 70 million of his countrymen, is aware that he kills, and can tell you why he does it. The shadowy behind the scenes folks, working through the overt thugs, know as well the end consequences of the beliefs they perpetrate.

As with touchers, non-touchers, talkers, non-talkers, innocent collectivists and Evil collectivists minimally populate the the far ends of the spectrum. Most of us, as is the human way, fall somewhere inbetween (picture the "Overton Window.") more like 'fellow travelers' than 'useful idiots' or murdering despots. There tends to a be a little good and a little ill will in most of us.

Knowing the full context of this can help us have the patience, tolerance and empathy to work with folks who are salvageable, while giving us the resolve to regard with proper fear, respect and commensurate action the truly Evil by choice.