She looked around again but didn't see questioning looks, so she proceeded on. "The next topic of discussion is context. Words rarely have absolute meanings. In other words, most words cannot be understood by themselves. They're just words without any ability to convey ideas on their own. Context is required in order to give them meaning.
"I'm sure you have seen plenty of examples where selected words from someone's speech are pulled out and presented on their own so that they can convey a different meaning than the one the speaker intended. As common as this may be, it does not reflect a serious problem. This is just another form of lying, and can be dealt with by carefully considering the source of the information.
"What I want to spend my time on are two serious problems associated with context that are not apparent. The most prevalent is actually a type of self-deception. This is the kind where you do hear everything said, but because you don't live in the world of the speaker, you get a different meaning.
"As an example, let's say we are all discussing our preferred weapons to go into combat with, and that this discussion was being recorded. Each of you mentions different things like M16's or AK-47's or Uzi's or whatever. Then it gets around to me and I say I would prefer a light saber, and just left it at that. Of course we all would know that I am speaking of the fictitious weapon of the equally fictitious Jedi Knight. On the other hand, someone reading this discussion a thousand years from now would probably believe that I prefer to fight with a sword that does not weigh that much.
"Some one in the future does not live in our world, and unless they see some reference to Star Wars in the words we are using, they would never even know to look for another meaning for light saber.
"When it comes to understanding the words of people who live in different worlds, the one that is having the biggest impact in our nation right now, is the two different worlds of the liberals and the conservatives. Liberals are at a particular disadvantage to understanding conservatives, than conservatives are in understanding liberals, and there are two key reasons for this. First of all, there are no former conservatives among the ranks of liberals. Absolutely none. So they have no one in their lives that can adequately offer the necessary feedback required for proper communication.
"On the other hand, most conservatives are former liberals. They just grew up and realized that liberalism equals socialism before they bought into the fantasy of socialism as a functional process. So as a conservative, you either have lived in the world of the liberal, or you know someone who has. This gives conservatives a large advantage in understand the other side of this intellectual conflict,"
Alyson Frazier raised her hand at this point. "Yes, Ally?"
"Mistress Jennifer, I find that to be a rather bold statement. People only convert from liberal to conservative, not the other way. How can that be true?"
"The reasons why conversions are only one way are directly related to the real differences between them, and I am not ready to get into that right now," responded Lady Jennifer. After thinking for a few moments she said, "Now, my husband once ran across someone who claimed to be a former conservative, but now was a liberal. When Jacob pushed this guy to tell him how this could have taken place, he told him that he always voted as his father told him, which was Republican, until he finally went away to college (at age 30) and found 'himself.' Someone who just does what they are told could never be a conservative. This was not a conversion from a conservative to a liberal; this was a conversion from a putz to a yutz."
"Getting back to the topic at hand, the other disadvantage liberals have is the heavily liberal-biased media that we all experience. Even when liberals hear the words of conservatives from their preferred media source, these words are framed in a liberal context to send a liberal message.
"Take the issue of gay marriage. I do not know anyone I have met who is against gay marriage because of religious reasons. I know there are people who do, but they don't represent the majority of people against gay marriage. Yet the mainstream media are always showing these people as if they are the ones that represent the opposition just so that they can label all people who oppose gay marriage as nothing but religious bigots.
"On the rare occasion when we are given an opportunity to respond to this by stating that gay marriage will destroy marriage as an institution that benefits our society, this gets framed in the media as if we believe gay marriage threatens our marriages personally, which of course only makes us look like a bunch of idiots. I think that I can state quite confidently that there is not a single person against gay marriage who believes their own marriage is threatened by it, but that is not the impression you would get in the mainstream media.
"Because of these constant and never ending distortions, people on the left can claim they know why those on the right are against gay marriage, but the reality is they don't. Everyone I know, including me, is against gay marriage because it is a lie. The gender of the people involved in a marriage is not irrelevant. I for one am not going to drink the Kool-Aid of the liberal agenda and say our children do not need a mother and a father in their lives.
"Yet the point of this discussion is not to debate the merits of gay marriage. This is far too important of a subject to cover only lightly. We'll have an entire lesson focused solely on this subject another day, because it leads into why marriage is so important. Today we are talking about the dishonesty of the mainstream media in presenting the conservative message. It only shows the conservative words that they want to present in order to deliver a liberal message. In this case, they want to send the message that those against gay marriage are either religious bigots or paranoid fools. Liberals in fact do not want an honest debate on the issue of gay marriage, and they construct a delusional world about their opposition in order to avoid it."
"So liberals really are at a disadvantage if they want to know what is on the minds of those they oppose. Conservatives on the other hand are buried deep in the liberal media, so they have no problems what so ever in finding the messages of those they oppose. They have to go out of their way to find true conservative messages, but they at least know where to go.
"The take away point of this part of the topic is that if you actually want to understand what the other side has to say, then you can't take for granted that your are getting their message. You may only be getting their words formed and framed to deliver some other message.
"If you are not interested in really understanding the messages of those your disagree with, that's fine, just don't call yourself enlightened. Enlightenment is not about knowing what you want to know, it's about knowing what you should know.
"Any liberal who does not believe he should know about those he considers to be the biggest threat to his life and liberty — bigger than even the jihadists — is not only unenlightened, he is also a moron."
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/2q6wfg/next_generation_christian_kingdom_ch04_what_are