But this is an environment where people aren’t talking about real and very important issues.
We obviously get along as a society when we are just doing day to day things. You don’t have to be on vacation to witness that.
But when it comes to discussing whether my trans friends have basic human rights, or whether we should treat foreigners like criminals with no due process by default, whether we should build
coal power plants or nuclear power plants or solar power plants, or whether we should start a war, or whether healthcare should be a human right, it’s easy to find people I’ll have strong disagreements with these days.
And those are disagreements that have real consequences. Just ask the people I know who are discontinuing healthcare coverage due to ACA subsidies ending.
Ignorance and avoiding discussing these issues is bliss…until one day it might affect you.
The polarization is unfortunate but I think one way to lessen that is to actually confront issues and solve them. And that’s a fight since there’s a whole system setup that intends us to never solve those problems. But perhaps we might observe that a lot of the solved problems no longer occupy the debate space.
If you want to get people on your side, the best way to do that is not to argue with them, but to be friendly with them. This doesn't mean rolling over and letting them say untrue things or not advocating for causes that are important to you, but it means respecting that other people have different views and putting aside disagreements to socialize with them. There is a reason why armies disallow 'fraternizing with the enemy'.
We obviously get along as a society when we are just doing day to day things. You don’t have to be on vacation to witness that.
But when it comes to discussing whether my trans friends have basic human rights, or whether we should treat foreigners like criminals with no due process by default, whether we should build coal power plants or nuclear power plants or solar power plants, or whether we should start a war, or whether healthcare should be a human right, it’s easy to find people I’ll have strong disagreements with these days.
And those are disagreements that have real consequences. Just ask the people I know who are discontinuing healthcare coverage due to ACA subsidies ending.
Ignorance and avoiding discussing these issues is bliss…until one day it might affect you.
The polarization is unfortunate but I think one way to lessen that is to actually confront issues and solve them. And that’s a fight since there’s a whole system setup that intends us to never solve those problems. But perhaps we might observe that a lot of the solved problems no longer occupy the debate space.