To think all this left wing vs right wing stuff is escalating?

[rubydoobydoo]

I've always been of the opinion that I don't care about a person's politics, all I care is if they're a twat or not. I've always had non-twatty friends with various political leanings which has never been an issue but recently things seem to have changed and you either have to be one or the other - and it's turning previously non-twatty people into compete twats!

I don't identify as either, but recently it suddenly seems to be causing massive divisions with lots of people when it just never came up previously!

Has it always been like this and I've been living in a world of my own until now? It's like the right wing people think all left wing people are one block who think exactly the same about everything and vice versa and I just don't get it?

I'm probably not articulating well here but I've seen so many arguments lately that I'm sure never would have happened about ten years ago and society seems to be getting so much more divisive.

Yes, the extremes seem now to be the norm and it ramped up after the referendum. You belong to one tribe or the other, no middle ground and no possibility of accepting a different point of view.

We’re an intolerant and confrontational society.

I completely agree with everything you’ve written, @sst1234.

I wonder why this ‘pick a side and shout about it relentlessly in any and all situations’ stance has become so prevalent with some people? Is it due to personality type? Are these the people who would easily have been indoctrinated into a cult, but pre-SM it was harder to ‘bump into’ a cult leader so they bumbled along like everyone else. Now there are online cults/tribalism, with a massive sense of approval for ‘correct’ behaviour, so it’s easier to fall into and easily perpetuated.

I'm not sure it's a Left vs Right thing. It's a Being Noticed On The Web thing. Shock rocks. Discussion, listening and pragmatism are boring.

Be AltRight or Momentum and you will be all over the net along with lots of shouty followers. That leads to moderate, liberal Left and Right being labelled stupid, corrupt, racist, murderers for simply believing that one political party has a better plan than another political party, to make the country better.

Yes, we are becoming a nation of hateful extremists.

The answer is in the middle of the left and right! I mean don't you teach even little kids the art of compromise? Not: I don't agree with you so I will not speak to you!

Society is truly lost IMO.

kojolo Excellent post.

Social media is facilitating a lot of armchair commentators who may be stuck at home more than normal and are being ‘fed’ by their own feeds. Normally you talk things over & let off steam with friends / colleagues /family which people have not been able to do. My feed also now has older contributors than it would have had 10 years ago. Unfortunately my PIL seem incapable of fact checking and repost lots of incorrect inflammatory nonsense.

Politics was more middle of the road 20 years ago. My Dad always said Blair was a Tory. I hope there’s a move back towards more moderate politics soon. I hope other parties get more of a voice. I wish people would be less blinkered in unfailing allegiance, it’s ok to say the party you support get things wrong sometimes. I wish that people with extreme views either way would not have a growing a platform.

When did sensible political debate turn into soundbites and slogans and anyone questioning Government policies are accused of bashing them?

People are hugely mistaken about the numbers of real people on social media and take far too much of it at face value. They are being hugely wound up by cynical mirages.

It's super easy to create a twitter bot trained on a corpus of incendiary tweets. I could whip one (or ten thousand) up in a morning. Above bots, millions and millions of accounts are controlled by Follower Farms. It's a business.

Has anyone read ‘The Madness of Crowds’? Does that cover this sort of behaviour? I’ve got the pb on pre-order as I’m fascinated by this, as equally as I’m concerned by it.

Either extreme of the political pole is about absolute control and capitulation, and there’s an irony that the opposing extremes cannot see how remarkably similar they are in that.

Divide and rule.
It's all very engineered. And it works! We're the most divided I've ever known us to be in my own lifetime. This is unprecedented.

I feel that we have to really hone how we use our minds these days and maintain ownership over our freedom of thought. I worry it's a losing battle. I feel very much like our last bastion of independence, our ability to think critically, is being hijacked by the malady that is Groupthink. You have to actively be choosy about what online content you read and how you feed your mind she says, stuffing herself full of MN.

Think while it's still legal, as my brother's t-shirt says.

Oh what a relief to read posts from measured calm sensible people for a change. I thought such people had all but disappeared. I agree with so much of what has been said.

I’m not a fb user, I hate the relentless narration and badgering that defines it. But certainly I’ve noticed Mn has (especially since Brexit) become much more aggressive in style. I rarely post on anything other than mundane safe topics because the berating, telling people to go and educate themselves aggressive swearing and generally shouting down is completely horrible. I used to doubt such contributors were the same in rl, but nowadays I wonder..

Either extreme of the political pole is about absolute control and capitulation, and there’s an irony that the opposing extremes cannot see how remarkably similar they are in that.

Questioning/quoting myself here: or is it maybe not political at all? Do people perhaps not necessarily believe in/think about their extreme stances, it’s more a case that they’ve picked a side so they’ll unquestioningly spout that party line just to be seen to be doing do?

A friend has recently taken the view that most terrorist attacks are made up by the government in order to use fear to manipulate and control us. Fine, if that’s what she genuinely believes - but she also makes clear that she won’t tolerate any disagreement and will delete anyone who questions her. It’s made me very sad. I’ve known her for 30 years, and I wish that I didn’t know this about her.

I think most people are probably centrist. Which is why Kier Starmer is really good for the Labour Party and at this point is the UK's best hope. For the record, before I get a drubbing from all the Corbyn fans, i have pretty much always voted Labour - with the exception of European elections where I've voted tactically Green or Lib Dem.

I would say most of the people I call friends are slightly left of centre. We gravitate to those generally with similar values. But one of the loveliest men I know - our neighbour over the road - votes Tory. We enjoy a good debate and remain friends.

Definitely true on social media. But I don't think actual conversations with human beings in person have changed much. Except we all have an edge of terror now because of SM! The thing is there are a few absolute maniacs on social media driving most of this. Most people, grown up people, take one look and think: I'm not touching that! And so don't say anything. All you see on SM is the people talking, not the people NOT engaging, so it gives you a really false impression of what 'everyone' is thinking, doing, and saying. And it also means we are leaving our kids to be socialised by those people, which is a problem. It's a bit like if you could ONLY see the madman ranting on the street corner and not any of the commuters and shoppers.

This is a really good and reassuring post and a reminder of the truth! When I go out onto the mean streets, the reality is, everyone's just cracking on and keeping on with everyday life. But I think we have to fight to educate our young to think for themselves, form opinions based on facts and above all, show them how to find those facts. There are so many 'facts' out there to choose from and so many teams they have to pick. It's a real effort trying to teach them to think critically and independently. They don't get taught this at school. They get taught that if they have an opposing view, peers will turn on them and their voice will be shut down. So trying to teach young people that it's good to look at an argument from both sides is much harder than ever before, thanks to social media and the Groupthink mentality which has fully taken hold of society.

But I think the far left and far right are more vocal - certainly in recent months.

The left are terrible for not letting anyone go against what they think is right. I’m slightly right of centre and I was accused of being a far right Nazi which is laughable in itself, all because I disagreed with her point of view and not in a nasty way at all. It’s a joke and I’m sick of it. You see it all over social media. It’s scary the way this country is headed

At least we have a non political source of news in the BBC

HAHAHAHAHAHA......breathe bre....HAHAHAHAHAHA

Theyve become nothing more than the current governments mouthpiece providing fluff pieces by Laura K, I'll now wait for the usual responses denying this

Sadly it is moving into actual conversations!
I now stay silent when some friends mention politics because I was already told I was "turned by the fucking tories into one of them"🤷🏻 I am not Tory voter. I just pointed out that Labour (year ago) wasn't Labour anymore but went too far left. Note, I voted labour before!
Then I voted Lib Dem, but that made me a Tory🤦

You can't be middle because people are generally fucking idiots and don't understand that middle exists.

@Cartersss

The left are terrible for not letting anyone go against what they think is right. I’m slightly right of centre and I was accused of being a far right Nazi which is laughable in itself, all because I disagreed with her point of view and not in a nasty way at all. It’s a joke and I’m sick of it. You see it all over social media. It’s scary the way this country is headed

Far left, not left.

@JustAnotherPoster00

At least we have a non political source of news in the BBC

HAHAHAHAHAHA......breathe bre....HAHAHAHAHAHA

Theyve become nothing more than the current governments mouthpiece providing fluff pieces by Laura K, I'll now wait for the usual responses denying this

The BBC are as left as you get. They should be defunded

Far left, not left

Nope, left. That’s how bad they are now

Agree on the BBC not being neutral at all. But if we defunded it, we would lose so many great future series🙈

@Cartersss

Far left, not left

Nope, left. That’s how bad they are now

So you say your at but right’ and are offended when someone accuses you of being far right, but it’s fine for you to do the same to anyone I’m who doesn’t agree with your views and sits on the right?

Makes sense. There are degrees of people all along the political spectrum, if you don’t want them to judge you then you can’t judge them either.

*you’re a bit right

Sits on the left, dammit!

If you really want to see people from far left froth, just say you think there could be some criminal checks done on EU immigrants and some should not be allowed free movement as non criminals do (not as strict as Australia, just for serious and repetitive stuff), while you yourself are an EU immigrant😂😂😂
Trying not to offend the immigrant while accusing them of being racist nazi tory seems to be really hard job😂

I like my friends because they make me laugh, not for where they put their cross in a box. Thankfully it does seem to be mostly in social media - although I did meet one woman IRL who was simply insufferable and only had one topic (row) of conversation. Even a labour candidate (so presumably same views) took to avoiding her because she was such a bore. 🙄