The seven sides of Kirsten Gillibrand and Al Franken

Now that Kirsten Gillibrand has dropped her presidential bid, her leading the charge against Al Franken as the #MeToo movement gained steam a year ago is a PERFECT illustration of this phrase of Idries Shah that I take ever more to heart.

And this one from Shah is good, too. I am working to apply it more and more to myself.

More than two sides?

There were indeed seven, at a minimum.

One was that Al Franken did indeed appear to be some sort of sexual harasser.

The second was that he was nowhere near as bad as .... well, Donald Trump and Roy Moore, both in the news at the time.

The third is that the Democratic Party, while not simon-pure on this issue (Bill Clinton, Jeffrey Epstein being connected to him as well as Trump), it politically needed to be more simon pure than Republicans, and more simon pure than it had been in the past. Gillibrand herself said that had Doug Jones might have lost to Moore had Franken not resigned.

The fourth is that Franken's primary accuser, Leeann Tweeden, may have been exploited by wingnut media.

The fifth is that, given her own background, she may have been willingly along for the ride. At a minimum, it hasn't hurt her own career

The sixth is that Gillibrand almost certainly saw this as a way to slingshot to the front of the #Dems2020 presidential pack.

And failed.

As that link notes, she didn't electrify the more pergressuve wing of Dems. That's because she was perceived as a ConservaDem when first elected to the House,. and half of her political shifting since then was perceived as opportunistic.

The seventh side is that, despite Jane Mayer's piece, Gillibrand is far from alone. And if seven Democratic senators regret their actions, that means many more don't.

==

The real end note goes beyond the 2020 presidential election in particular, or politics in general.

It's that, as much as it gets hated on, more people could stand at least a small dip in the dunk tank of philosophical learning.

And, there are many readable and informative philosophers.

Plato, even though I disagree with much of him.

Marcus Aurelius, or Epictetus.

Boethius.

Hume.

A Dan Dennett, though I disagree with much of him.

The relatively recently deceased Daniel Wegner.

Camus.

Etc., etc.

On Shah, I've more recently also started focusing on this second observation of his. It too, is relevant to the current situation.

The older I get, beyond "twosiderism," the more I know the world is not blacks and whites and the more I consciously work against that in myself as well as with others.

And, we all make assumptions. And I mean this in a much more serious vein than "making an ASS out of U and ME."

It's ultimately, in part, about subselves. There may be a part of the consciousness-level integrated "me" that has assumptions about which that consciousness-level integrated "me" is unawares.

Take Franken. Maybe he has a sexual edge-pusher subself he's not yet come to terms with. If Tweeden hasn't considered how much some part of her might be a willing fellow-traveler, that's an unquestioned assumption. As for Gillibrand, perhaps she best illustrates the assumptions behind assumptions. Let's presume she did assume this would fast-track a Prez bid. Why did she think that?