Mrs. Crowhill and I have been going to trivia at a local brewpub for several months now. It started when some of my kids were in town, and over time the group has changed. My kids have all moved away, but Pigweed and a classics professor friend recently joined us, so the team has continued. We do decently well, each bringing a little expertise in different areas.
The bartender has become a good friend and treats us like family. We trade stories about our kids and whatnot.
I don’t have the foggiest notion of her politics. Not even the slightest.
From my perspective, her political views wouldn’t change anything. I like her, and that’s all there is to it. If she holds to some crazy political views — or even not crazy, just different than mine — then that would be an amusing detail about her, but it wouldn’t change our friendship. (I’m friends with lots of people with different political views.)
That’s the way I think it should be. I’m friends with my neighbors, the bartender, the clerk at the store, the mechanic …. Actually, I try to be friendly with everybody, and I don’t think politics should get in the way.
The culture appears to be going in the opposite direction. Everything is us vs. them.
I was discussing this with one of my sons recently, and I think this oppositional mentality is part of what I hate so much about wokeness. It’s part of why they rush to judgement. They’re not interested in interacting with you, and facts don’t really matter. They’re interested in an agenda, and in putting everyone in a box: you’re with the agenda or you’re Hitler. And they only need a few tells to decide which side you’re on. Use a particular word a certain way, and that pegs you.
I’m not trying to get into an elaboration of wokeness, I’m trying to point out how destructive this us vs. them mentality is.
A society can’t function like that. There has to be a social glue that holds us all together, irrespective of politics. We have to be able to be friends — or at least friendly.
QUOTE: …I think this oppositional mentality is part of what I hate so much about wokeness. It’s part of why they rush to judgement. They’re not interested in interacting with you, and facts don’t really matter. They’re interested in an agenda, and in putting everyone in a box: you’re with the agenda or you’re Hitler. And they only need a few tells to decide which side you’re on. Use a particular word a certain way, and that pegs you. I’m not trying to get into an elaboration of wokeness, I’m trying to point out how destructive this us vs. them mentality is.
I couldn’t agree more about the destructive nature of the “us” vs. “them” mentality. The challenge is, the characteristics you listed can be applied to the “woke” and “non-woke” (e.g., asleep or dead???). Neither side is willing to admit they have similar behavior but with different trigger points. Until both sides can objectively see and address this, I suspect the “us” vs. “them” (tribalism) will continue and likely grow worse.
Yes, people from all sides fall into the “us vs. them” problem, but “all sides do it” doesn’t mean “all sides to it equally.” Right now, today in the United States, it seems to me the problem is more pronounced on the side of the woke. But I admit that’s just my impression as a generally conservative guy in a very liberal culture. Liberals living in conservative cultures might see it differently.
That’s my point…each side sees the “other” side as more pronounced. As such, they feel the “other” is the “real” issue. Given that, each side is reluctant to make concessions. So, the tribalism continues and escalates.
“I like politically neutral relationships. It’s the fault of the woke that people are engaged in belligerent exchanges about politics.” That seems to be a paraphrase of Crowhill’s initial post about the bartender’s politics. I find it comical that the irony here seems to have escaped the author.
You don’t have to be a liberal to get trashed in a red zone. They will also trash moderates and independents. And under the current circumstances, all you have to do is express opposition to Trump and that automatically makes you “hard left.”
Indeed ironic. The interesting thing is for all the extremes rightly named about the “woke”, a similar list can be rightly constructed about the extremes of the “non-woke”. Each are busy pointing a finger at the “other”, but failing to realize they have at least three fingers pointing back at them. Whenever there’s an issue, it’s generally blamed on the “other” guy. Given that lack of awareness, I suspect this dynamic will continue until something cataclysmic forces the warring tribes to “try” to co-exist.
What you also get from both of those extremes is the notion that there is no middle ground. I am not sure if I met a truly “woke” individual, but I have seen posts on Facebook, for example, where fairly approximate representatives of “wokeness” have claimed that moderate Democrats were merely aiding and abetting the other side. And of course you get the extreme followers of Trump who say that if you reject him you are “hard left.” I myself have only encountered the latter offline, but I suppose that that is because I come from a deeply red state and, though I have spent most of my adult life in Europe, I have managed pretty well (not completely of course) to avoid political discussions while living there. If we could just allow for the possibility of a moderate position (or rather positions, because there could be a whole range of them) and not utterly condemn and ridicule someone who takes such a position, things would be much better. I may not ever visit Kentucky again, because there I will be quite brutally and wrongly classified as “hard left” so fast it will make you’re head swim.
Well said. In some cases, even the mere mention of that dirty word, “compromise”, sends some over the edge…running screaming to the corners of their echo chambers exclaiming how unreasonable “they” have become. Meanwhile, neither side considers they might have to give a little to gain a lot. “Any” concession is deemed betrayal and/or defeat.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if liberal zealots could consider energy and environmental measures that didn’t require a mindless, slavish commitment to the “Green New Deal”? Who knows, through innovative discussions, there just might be safe and targeted ways of using fossil fuels or discovering other alternatives. Likewise, wouldn’t it be great if conservative zealots didn’t consider common sense gun reform as a slippery slope to evil outcomes. Given the ongoing deaths by mass shootings, it might be worthwhile to have conversations that could lead to reasonable, life-preserving concessions. You’d think people who purport to be pro-life would gladly consider potential life-saving measures.
Oh well, in this tribal environment, such crazy notions are just a pipe dream, I suppose!