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Think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s

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Re: Think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s

#61

Post by bluGill »

ojnabieoot wrote: post #17

This is an extremely dumb article. a) Today intense partisan divisiveness and animosity is felt by the overwhelming majority of the US electorate, not just among extremist groups with no formal political representation. Even taking the author's premise that the 70s had more bloodshed for granted, left-right animosity was comparatively low in conventional politics. A crucial factor of this was that the "realignment of…

Extremism is on both wings. My Facebook feed is evidence, frinds who have nothing in common except they both know me are separetly posting their exaggerated anti trump left wing Memes. Same for the right wing except they are exaggerated of the pro trump memes

Re: Think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s

#62

Post by tinalumfoil »

jscheel wrote: post #59

The whole article came across as "so what if the right has violent extremists who are ideologically supported by some of the highest levels of Republican leadership today... what about the ultra-left radical terrorists of the 1970s?!" This came as a surprise, until I realized that this article is featured in The Spectator.

> the right has violent extremists who are ideologically supported by some of the highest levels of Republican leadership today

No they don't?

Re: Think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s

#64

Post by iso947 »

hellofunk wrote: post #63
hellofunk wrote: post #7

I have seen several articles over the last decade comment that the modern American political landscape is the most polarized it has been since the U.S. Civil War in the 19th century.

I am genuinely curious why this is getting downvoted.

Because it doesn’t add anything to the conversation - what articles, where, can the poster add their own anecdotes, or data?

Re: Think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s

#65

Post by romwell »

dang wrote: post #47
romwell wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't quite cut it, does it? "Go read some history books" is not a reference. The parent comment made a bunch of statements. Asking the reader to read an entire book to verify the validity of any of them is wrong. References come with page numbers for a reason.

There was nothing wrong with the parent comment. It would have been better to describe some of what's actually in the book, but it was still helpful information, obviously well-intended. I'm sure you didn't mean to bully js2 into deleting it, but please don't post like that to HN. There are kinder ways to ask for more information. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Oh, my apologies, I did not at all intend it to be taken like that.

I meant to say that while the book js2 linked is surely welcome information to have in this discussion, this doesn't absolve the OP of the burden to back the claims with something more substantial given how strong these claims are (and, as the thread shows, controversial).

Re: Think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s

#66

Post by dang »

romwell wrote: post #65
dang wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing wrong with the parent comment. It would have been better to describe some of what's actually in the book, but it was still helpful information, obviously well-intended. I'm sure you didn't mean to bully js2 into deleting it, but please don't post like that to HN. There are kinder ways to ask for more information. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Oh, my apologies, I did not at all intend it to be taken like that. I meant to say that while the book js2 linked is surely welcome information to have in this discussion, this doesn't absolve the OP of the burden to back the claims with something more substantial given how strong these claims are (and, as the thread shows, controversial).

Thanks! I'm glad I added that I was sure you didn't mean it that way.

Re: Think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s

#67

Post by neverartful »

slg wrote: post #42
astine wrote: post #3

There may have been more violence among various radical and extremist factions in American politics in the 70s but that doesn't mean that America was more divided politically over all. There wasn't nearly as much partisanship in the upper-echelons of power in 70s and I suspect that there was more consensus among people in more moderate circles. There also wasn't this huge epistemological divide running right through…

>There also wasn't this huge epistemological divide running right through the middle of the country; people were generally working from a common understanding of reality. Not so, today. Everyone was watching the same network news and reading the same newspaper. Once niche news sources started to become widely available, everyone went to the news source that gave them the news how they wanted to hear it. Over time the…

So true! In addition to your points, so many were even watching the same news program for one person - Walter Cronkite at CBS. Additionally, the newspapers were of high quality. Of course, there were editorials with opinion pieces, but the news articles generally were reported neutrally (or at least with overt bias).

Re: Think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s

#69

Post by pixelrevision »

tinalumfoil wrote: post #62
jscheel wrote: post #59

The whole article came across as "so what if the right has violent extremists who are ideologically supported by some of the highest levels of Republican leadership today... what about the ultra-left radical terrorists of the 1970s?!" This came as a surprise, until I realized that this article is featured in The Spectator.

> the right has violent extremists who are ideologically supported by some of the highest levels of Republican leadership today No they don't?

The media (including social) has been nudging people towards these kinds of conclusions a lot. I remember seeing people associating black bloc protesters with Hillary Clinton which is a completely preposterous association. That is until you realize lumping them together might make someone scared AND mad giving them a lot more reason to not listen to many nuanced points.

Re: Think America’s divided now? Try the 1970s

#70

Post by kvnnews »

matz1 wrote: post #19
matwood wrote: post #5

I maybe wrong in thinking about this way, but in the 1970s people were debating over topics that were debatable. Vietnam for example, an argument can be made it was the right move to get involved. And, an argument can be made it was a mistake. Same with socialism vs. capitalism and a myriad of other large, complex topics. Now the divide is around the basics of the scientific method. People think that vaccines have ki…

Every topics is debatable, on the basis that no everyone think the same way, even scientific method. You would think mathematical statement such as 1+1=2 is obviously true, the absolute truth ? No, its still very much debatable, people can argue how to define '1','2','+', what axiom to use, etc.

This is exactly the point. What's happening today is that discussion of any topic of consequence is considered taboo. The main stream is largely shutting down debate by labeling people without ever actually addressing the claims made by those same people. If their claims are so ridiculous you should be able to make a cohesive argument against them without resorting to personal attacks or other logical fallacy arguments.
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