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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read the rest of the post. Indian politics are not somehow lower stakes than ours, the Indian subcontinent is not less diverse, and the author's friend included a specific example of people getting literally killed over their politics.
There’s literally no way the nation of India is more diverse than the United States- we have the biggest spread of racial, and religious diversity on the planet, by far.
I think this guy misses something pretty significant. Many Americans have professional business relationships with people whom they vehemently oppose politically. Politics is simply bad for business.
This is silly: “In my hometown in India, everyone talks about politics all the time. And most of us don’t agree with one another. But that’s okay. I can even tease other people about our political disagreements and it doesn’t get in the way of friendships. Why isn’t that the case here in the US?” Because when you're in a homogenous in-group you can discuss politics and get annoyed, or heated, and shake hands and go h…
The conclusion of this viewpoint is that you either turn everyone into the in-group or one group comes out on top of the others. Either way, diversity won't survive long under that.
Diversity has historically been used to keep populations divided allowing a smaller group to rule over them. Plenty of historical examples (Italy, Ottoman Empire, etc) as well as literature. I think this is described in Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.
And both current US candidates are pushing for immigration/diversity (albeit from different groups, but the end result is the same). The real reason we can’t discuss politics is because our elites want us divided, and they have the means to accomplish that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still puzzled over the article frankly. In India there's political violence and people are getting killed - but they still are happy to discuss politics with their friends and neighbors? There's a disconnect there that I'm not getting. Why are they talking to everyone about their political views if it might get them killed?
That's the question that the Indian person is asking. Here in the US we'll refuse to interact with someone if we find out that they're part of the wrong tribe, but our political violence is pretty low on the scale of what's possible. There, they have a lot of political violence and from what I understand quite divisive political issues that put people's lives and livelihoods at stake, but apparently they don't have t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read the rest of the post. Indian politics are not somehow lower stakes than ours, the Indian subcontinent is not less diverse, and the author's friend included a specific example of people getting literally killed over their politics.
There’s literally no way the nation of India is more diverse than the United States- we have the biggest spread of racial, and religious diversity on the planet, by far.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
That's the problem though right? I think that there are people who are so completely and utterly wrong that I don't know what to do with them. They also think that I am so completely and utterly wrong that they don't know what to do with me. So we don't talk about it.
In a nutshell, the two sides simply can't even agree on basic reality. If you can't agree on the basic facts of something, it is not possible to have a fruitful discussion about it.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see any kind of workable solution to this issue.
"The two party system forces people who advocate for issue X to also have to advocate for Y and Z, when they may really only care about X. Another factor; the decay of respect of and audiences for traiditional mass media, and the rise of personal "bubble" media such as social media has also forced mass communications to be more personal if one wants to reach people, and various political forces are adapting to the new landscape."
I'm not sure if population density has any effect on political discussions more than discussions in general.
If it really was population density, it would be easy to discuss politics in urban NYC and very difficult/ rare in rural Wyoming. I don’t think that’s really the case. I suspect politics are more discussed in forums where there is more “psychological safety” where the consequence of saying a thing that others disagree with doesn’t cause a rift in the relationship (as evidenced by the “it’s hard enough for a parent to…
For a lot of people in the US, politics has become very personal. I believe that some policy decisions have become a direct threat to my health and I can try to discuss those policies calmly but I'm not good at covering my aggravation. I'd say that everyone has gotten increasingly disdainful of the 'other side'. I know I have - I'm not proud of it but I'm also not a good actor. I was in a message group recently and s…