LOL. That's a great characterization of the Podcast host. I didn't hate it because I enjoyed listening to her parents talk about how they formed their political consciousness as conservative Latinos. However, I think the premise is ridiculous. The idea that people hate people who voted for the other party is cringey and so much rarer tha…
LOL. That's a great characterization of the Podcast host. I didn't hate it because I enjoyed listening to her parents talk about how they formed their political consciousness as conservative Latinos. However, I think the premise is ridiculous. The idea that people hate people who voted for the other party is cringey and so much rarer than politically obsessed people make it out to be. 40% of people don't even vote! Among voters, most people don't read the news or care enough about politics to stop speaking to their immediate family because of their support for Trump/Biden, or their feelings about Israel vs. Palestine. So we're talking about a minuscule proportion of the population who are rabid "political animals" and hate people who disagree with them. These people aren't interesting to me and I'd rather not hear from them. I'm a political science professor, FWIW, and anyone who studies this stuff knows that practically no one cares as much about politics as us or media elites. This actually comforts me!
I hear what you're saying but this is not a miniscule problem for me. I've had friends have a falling out over politics and I have gotten into at least semi heated conversations in person or online with friends or coworkers. My parents argue over immigration issues and if I post about climate change on facebook, certain "friends" start arguments. This is where Braver Angels steps in. Perhaps I run into this more because I volunteer with organizations like Moms Demand Action (gun violence) and Citizens Climate Lobby, as well as canvass for my local county Democrats, so polarizing topics can come up. When I think of the one friend who was one half of the aforementioned fallout, I learned she does not vote all the time or pay good attention (proof: she didn't know who our two Senator candidates were two weeks before the last Nov election). Perhaps she's an anomaly, though.
I feel the same, Kelly. I've witnessed several massive fragmentations among people I love for the tiniest of political disagreements. I have lost people who demanded agreement I did not feel and could not/did not want to fake; the person who demands my compliance, in anything, is not a true friend but something else. Yet it smart, to experience AND to witness, all the same.
This is why I appreciate The Coddling of the American Mind, with its one Great Untruth that existence is a fight between bad guys and good guys, and newly released sequel The Canceling of the American mind, which adds the fourth great untruth that bad people only believe bad things. I've experienced/watched that "this person disagreed --> person is labeled bad guy no longer worth hearing --> person discarded for 'being bad'" process at work at least a dozen times now, among different groups of people, and so deeply appreciated this BARPod-endorsed taste of the braver way.
Friends should not demand your compliance. I am really curious what the topic was but understand if you don't want to say. I loved The Coddling of the American Mind, so I will have to check out his new one. Sometimes I wish life could be more like a sitcom, where people disagree and riff on each other for thinking differently about a topic, but still have a good relationship. I thought I'd spend more of my youth having political discussions with friends, but that did not happen much without people getting annoyed.
It's shown up in a few places, but trans medicine is #1 by far. To say "I have questions about the state of the medicine" is interpreted as "you are anti-trans!" This is wild to me, given how (explicitly!) my last couple years have been deeply marked by medical failures to understand certain realities and thus practice medicine in alignment with reality. Scientific and medical ignorances are not, I report with sadness, without consequence. :(
I talked about this with one of my kids earlier. I said, "If you told me you were trans, I'd support you. One way I'd support you would be by really digging into the medicine before walking with you down any path. I would want to know--I mean, really know--the risks I'd be signing you up for, if I were to put you on this or that medicine. I'd want our risk acceptance to be considered and based on accurate data, not to be totally denied an opportunity to understand THAT there are risks related to a treatment 'cause all that's sung are praises. And that's what's happening sometimes right now: Parents are accepting risks, or potential risks, they don't even know exist. And it breaks my heart what they may then uncover in their own lives, down the road, as they learn that the cases for the treatments they accepted was not as strong as they were told."
If reality isn't being represented accurately when treatment is accepted, then there's a gap between what parents are accepting and what they THINK they're accepting. Depending on what's missing in the data today, the gaps into which people may yet fall are ... potentially quite painful. As a parent, seeing other parents and their kids fall into such gaps (anywhere! not just here!) suuuuucks. Less of that, please?!
It's not that I'm transphobic that makes me want to have much better science here. It's that I understand iatrogenics (the harms caused by medical interventions) and want to make sure we're truly doing, societally, what we can to limit iatrogenics and/or be clear about potential for iatrogenics wherever possible. I want less suffering for everyone, y'know? That my desire for less suffering is treated as sign of my implicit evil? Let's just say I, too, want the sitcom-like life you describe! Sigh.
I don't have kids (yet? still possible) like you, but I like your strategy. Young people who say they're trans should also talk to detransitioners or older trans people who will give them the real scoop of what it's been like.
It's so annoying how quickly one gets called transphobic or when someone says "this isn't up for debate"- of course it is. The trans activists don't believe you or I when we say we're just concerned for these kids and young people. I actually used to be 100% on the left side of this issue- I was pro trans everything, including kids being able to do whatever they wanted medically. Even argued with someone once about it. But because I was so interested, I read and watched everything I could get my hands on related to the trans topic and my mind changed.
Same. We’ve cut off friends over this. And I still think they don’t “get” that they were cut off not because of some political disagreement (I mean, who cares?)…..but because they were assholes about it….e.g. went straight to personal attacks and name calling.
Yeah, it's when people become assholes that it's a problem. I am (or was in the recent past) young and would love to have good political conversations with people and have my views challenged but when they resort to saying things like "I'd spit on <politician> if I saw them" or act like people are idiots for being on one side of an issue, it can't happen.
2020 had record turnout for a presidential election and still only 67% of US adults voted.
Those of us who spend time on websites like this one tend to forget that we are in a real bubble. Those anecdotes like "my mother and I had a big argument over Trump" or "some girl refused to date me because of my MAGA hat" - are just that - anecdotes.
I hate to say it but I think with everything going on it’s crass and cringe to pod about 2016 hurt feelings / trump derangement syndrome unless the take was miraculously fresh
2016 is almost a decade in the past….we’re quickly approaching the day when being upset about Trump v1 is going to mark you as living in the past as much as Boomers going on about the Reagan years.
LOL. That's a great characterization of the Podcast host. I didn't hate it because I enjoyed listening to her parents talk about how they formed their political consciousness as conservative Latinos. However, I think the premise is ridiculous. The idea that people hate people who voted for the other party is cringey and so much rarer than politically obsessed people make it out to be. 40% of people don't even vote! Among voters, most people don't read the news or care enough about politics to stop speaking to their immediate family because of their support for Trump/Biden, or their feelings about Israel vs. Palestine. So we're talking about a minuscule proportion of the population who are rabid "political animals" and hate people who disagree with them. These people aren't interesting to me and I'd rather not hear from them. I'm a political science professor, FWIW, and anyone who studies this stuff knows that practically no one cares as much about politics as us or media elites. This actually comforts me!
I hear what you're saying but this is not a miniscule problem for me. I've had friends have a falling out over politics and I have gotten into at least semi heated conversations in person or online with friends or coworkers. My parents argue over immigration issues and if I post about climate change on facebook, certain "friends" start arguments. This is where Braver Angels steps in. Perhaps I run into this more because I volunteer with organizations like Moms Demand Action (gun violence) and Citizens Climate Lobby, as well as canvass for my local county Democrats, so polarizing topics can come up. When I think of the one friend who was one half of the aforementioned fallout, I learned she does not vote all the time or pay good attention (proof: she didn't know who our two Senator candidates were two weeks before the last Nov election). Perhaps she's an anomaly, though.
I feel the same, Kelly. I've witnessed several massive fragmentations among people I love for the tiniest of political disagreements. I have lost people who demanded agreement I did not feel and could not/did not want to fake; the person who demands my compliance, in anything, is not a true friend but something else. Yet it smart, to experience AND to witness, all the same.
This is why I appreciate The Coddling of the American Mind, with its one Great Untruth that existence is a fight between bad guys and good guys, and newly released sequel The Canceling of the American mind, which adds the fourth great untruth that bad people only believe bad things. I've experienced/watched that "this person disagreed --> person is labeled bad guy no longer worth hearing --> person discarded for 'being bad'" process at work at least a dozen times now, among different groups of people, and so deeply appreciated this BARPod-endorsed taste of the braver way.
Friends should not demand your compliance. I am really curious what the topic was but understand if you don't want to say. I loved The Coddling of the American Mind, so I will have to check out his new one. Sometimes I wish life could be more like a sitcom, where people disagree and riff on each other for thinking differently about a topic, but still have a good relationship. I thought I'd spend more of my youth having political discussions with friends, but that did not happen much without people getting annoyed.
It's shown up in a few places, but trans medicine is #1 by far. To say "I have questions about the state of the medicine" is interpreted as "you are anti-trans!" This is wild to me, given how (explicitly!) my last couple years have been deeply marked by medical failures to understand certain realities and thus practice medicine in alignment with reality. Scientific and medical ignorances are not, I report with sadness, without consequence. :(
I talked about this with one of my kids earlier. I said, "If you told me you were trans, I'd support you. One way I'd support you would be by really digging into the medicine before walking with you down any path. I would want to know--I mean, really know--the risks I'd be signing you up for, if I were to put you on this or that medicine. I'd want our risk acceptance to be considered and based on accurate data, not to be totally denied an opportunity to understand THAT there are risks related to a treatment 'cause all that's sung are praises. And that's what's happening sometimes right now: Parents are accepting risks, or potential risks, they don't even know exist. And it breaks my heart what they may then uncover in their own lives, down the road, as they learn that the cases for the treatments they accepted was not as strong as they were told."
If reality isn't being represented accurately when treatment is accepted, then there's a gap between what parents are accepting and what they THINK they're accepting. Depending on what's missing in the data today, the gaps into which people may yet fall are ... potentially quite painful. As a parent, seeing other parents and their kids fall into such gaps (anywhere! not just here!) suuuuucks. Less of that, please?!
It's not that I'm transphobic that makes me want to have much better science here. It's that I understand iatrogenics (the harms caused by medical interventions) and want to make sure we're truly doing, societally, what we can to limit iatrogenics and/or be clear about potential for iatrogenics wherever possible. I want less suffering for everyone, y'know? That my desire for less suffering is treated as sign of my implicit evil? Let's just say I, too, want the sitcom-like life you describe! Sigh.
I don't have kids (yet? still possible) like you, but I like your strategy. Young people who say they're trans should also talk to detransitioners or older trans people who will give them the real scoop of what it's been like.
It's so annoying how quickly one gets called transphobic or when someone says "this isn't up for debate"- of course it is. The trans activists don't believe you or I when we say we're just concerned for these kids and young people. I actually used to be 100% on the left side of this issue- I was pro trans everything, including kids being able to do whatever they wanted medically. Even argued with someone once about it. But because I was so interested, I read and watched everything I could get my hands on related to the trans topic and my mind changed.
Same. We’ve cut off friends over this. And I still think they don’t “get” that they were cut off not because of some political disagreement (I mean, who cares?)…..but because they were assholes about it….e.g. went straight to personal attacks and name calling.
Yeah, it's when people become assholes that it's a problem. I am (or was in the recent past) young and would love to have good political conversations with people and have my views challenged but when they resort to saying things like "I'd spit on <politician> if I saw them" or act like people are idiots for being on one side of an issue, it can't happen.
Your comments are spot on.
2020 had record turnout for a presidential election and still only 67% of US adults voted.
Those of us who spend time on websites like this one tend to forget that we are in a real bubble. Those anecdotes like "my mother and I had a big argument over Trump" or "some girl refused to date me because of my MAGA hat" - are just that - anecdotes.
I hate to say it but I think with everything going on it’s crass and cringe to pod about 2016 hurt feelings / trump derangement syndrome unless the take was miraculously fresh
2016 is almost a decade in the past….we’re quickly approaching the day when being upset about Trump v1 is going to mark you as living in the past as much as Boomers going on about the Reagan years.
Move on, old timer.