Reply #31: This gets back to that whole "nature vs nurture" issue. I think you...

[YvonneCa]

...are right about many Americans lacking the ability to self-reflect. And not just everyday, middle-class ones. The words, "...a failure or absence of the faculties of sound thinking and judgement..." along with a 'lack of curiosity' that many have noted, describe our former president pretty well. I think that's one of the reasons that Al Gore's book, 'Assault on Reason' resonated with me. Gore is obviously a reflective person. So are John Kerry and Barack Obama.

But back to the nature/nurture thing...I think some people are born with high levels of reflectiveness and some are not, BUT they can be taught the skill. The same is true of 'empathy'...some are born with empathy highly developed and others show no empathetic skill, BUT the skill can be learned IF it is taught.

The problem is, EVERYONE needs these skills. But not everyone has been given the opportunity to learn these skills. My question, then, is how do we fix THAT? (And, as a parent and teacher I have MASSIVE thoughts on that which I will leave to another day. :7 )

As to the Tea Party folks, I agree with you. I also think some lack empathy. That's one reason country unity is a difficult task. We Democrats had a battle after 2004 (IMHO) over our direction. Many of us argued for our values and the ideals we needed in a new president and a new direction...INTELLIGENCE and empathy (health care, environment, etc.) won out...partly because reflective people refused to accept that the Tea Party set knew what they were doing. JMHO. That doesn't mean our party is without no-reflective people. :7 (BTW, Obama's speech from today has a REALLY good line about empathy. I'll try to post it later.)