Pines with Jack, season two, episode 2.5.

The language we use, and wishing that black was a little blacker.

Hello, everyone. This isn't going to be a normal episode. This is something that I had kept

putting on the pre-show chit-chat list for a couple of weeks,

but we had to keep moving it because we needed to try and keep the length of the episode down.

So Matt and I just thought that we would do just a short bonus episode.

And it gives David a little chance to a week of less editing, which is nice.

Yes, always appreciated. The impetus for this

was an interaction that I had on Facebook, in which I shared a quotation from Lewis, and I just

thought it was worth emphasizing the wisdom that Lewis gives us here. So what had happened was a former

work colleague, a really great guy. He wrote a post in which

he described the viewers of a particular network television channel as the enemy. I can only imagine

who he's referring to. Exactly. And I pointed out that this kind of language generates more heat than light. And the really bad part of it is it quickly dehumanizes the other side. As soon as you think of the other person as the enemy, that means somebody that you can't reason with, someone with whom you have no commonality. And it can quickly lead to the mentality that victory must be attained at

any cost, even regardless of truth or legality.

That's a good point. Victory at all costs when you name someone the enemy. Yeah.

And although this was in reference to a particular side of the aisle, conservative, progressive, I think this is a lesson

that we need to keep remembering regardless of which side we're on. Even that word side tells us

something. Now, obviously, immediately other people started jumping in, claiming that the other

side started it first.

Of course.

Which kind of proved my point.

Because, well, if the other side started dehumanizing people first, then it's okay for us to do it.

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