Did everything used to be as extremist, hyperbolic and toxic?

[ATieLikeRichardGere]

Maybe I’ve got false nostalgia for a time that never existed, but it feels to me like narratives in public discourse are incredibly extreme and toxic these days. When I open up the news or social media it seems like everyone is constantly fuming and insulting one another, with a substantial dose of mutual cancellation and usually accompanied by advocating some extreme ideologies. Am I imagining this? What’s happening?

There's a culture of your either with us or against us

I agree.

But I don't think this is driven necessarily by the availability of SM and I don't think it's something new. It has been prevalent during certain periods in the past around the world and been fuelled by certain groups with more extremist views?

Anything calling people "toxic" or talking about "cancel culture", just turns me right away from giving a crap.

I have a work colleague who takes this stuff so seriously that she doesn't seem to realise that not almost every single person she knows is toxic. She just doesn't see eye to eye with them sometimes... which is normal

I get fed up with the victim mentality. Some people clearly use it as an excuse for avoiding responsibility for their actions. They realise that they cannot be held to account if they portray themselves as fitting into a victimised category, or just as a generalised victim. Its highly manipulative and people should practice at seeing through it and not taking it at face value.

What I notice with my own adult children is that they form all their opinions from what they read online. This doesn’t allow for nuanced debate. Because they are not talking to actual people there is no time/facial expression and they are often reading the opinions of strangers . They also lack historical information and the ability to rationalise. These things are just not taught at school or uni anymore in the same way. It’s a regurgitation if facts and online research. If I try to challenge their views they just get angry or dismissive. I am just seen as our of touch or right wing. Experience doesn’t seem to count for much and there is no respect for the views of others who don’t fit their narrative. If you aren’t woke in all you say and do, you’re treated with disgust. You’re a racist or a Tory voter or whatever. Which I’m not.

On the other side is the fucking trigger warnings brigade. I am reasonably on board with a warning if you are going to discuss something particularly unpleasant or graphic but it's getting ridiculous now.

I was fine with them on Usenet sexual abuse/ rape or self harm boards and similar which is where I first came across them, but the range of things that seem to need a warning now is unbelievable. I try to be generous, but having genuine triggers that aren't going to disappear from everyday life anytime soon and having to just get on with it, I do find my patience wearing thin.

I keep thinking back to Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism if anyone has read that. It was written in and about America in the 1970s but it feels relevant. He was saying that the culture that had arrived then, linked to capitalism and other social forces, was breeding people to be narcissists. As narcissists, people believe they are special and behave in an entitled way. They don’t respond well to criticism. They are prepared to manipulate others. However, inside they are also extremely fragile and insecure. I feel like social media may be amplifying our narcissistic tendencies. The narcissist who is challenged doesn’t just take it on board and reconsider - they seek to destroy the challenger.

I mean, this can only be one aspect of a very complex problem, but it’s one that comes to my mind often.

@ATieLikeRichardGere

I keep thinking back to Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism if anyone has read that. It was written in and about America in the 1970s but it feels relevant. He was saying that the culture that had arrived then, linked to capitalism and other social forces, was breeding people to be narcissists. As narcissists, people believe they are special and behave in an entitled way. They don’t respond well to criticism. They are prepared to manipulate others. However, inside they are also extremely fragile and insecure. I feel like social media may be amplifying our narcissistic tendencies. The narcissist who is challenged doesn’t just take it on board and reconsider - they seek to destroy the challenger.

I mean, this can only be one aspect of a very complex problem, but it’s one that comes to my mind often.

That’s very interesting

Triggers - the tv is full of triggers - people boast about not watching terrestrial tv ( with its bland quizzes gardening and game shows) and watch eg GOT (so many gruesome ends), anxiety inducing thrillers , police dramas (rapes cruel murders ), real life crime - ????

@GoLightlyontheEarth

What I notice with my own adult children is that they form all their opinions from what they read online. This doesn’t allow for nuanced debate. Because they are not talking to actual people there is no time/facial expression and they are often reading the opinions of strangers . They also lack historical information and the ability to rationalise. These things are just not taught at school or uni anymore in the same way. It’s a regurgitation if facts and online research. If I try to challenge their views they just get angry or dismissive. I am just seen as our of touch or right wing. Experience doesn’t seem to count for much and there is no respect for the views of others who don’t fit their narrative. If you aren’t woke in all you say and do, you’re treated with disgust. You’re a racist or a Tory voter or whatever. Which I’m not.

Oh I hear you. Do I hear you.

Social media has given people a licence to say what they think, often anonymously. People may have had such thoughts previously but they didn't have a place to air them. However vile or unacceptable these thoughts are, there will always be someone out there cheering them on. That's the problem with social media. It validates and encourages the kinds of behaviours that would previously have been surpressed by common decency.

@DdraigGoch

We also have an extreme government at the moment *@Upamountain43* if you think that this government is "extreme" then you have led a very sheltered life. Boris isn't Franco.

I said 'extreme' not the 'most extreme ever in the world' . Having said that this is the most extreme government we have had in the UK - for generations.

I am not British by birth and so lived under communism until i was in my 20's and have also lived in Somalia and China. And travelled in SE Asia for a few years.

So i have more knowledge of other regimes than many people and the level of surveillance and monitoring in modern Britain is the greatest anywhere ever, in human history.

In addition to all the good suggestions on this thread, I'd add two things. 1. Never before in our shared history have we had access to so much information. In our palms we hold whole libraries. Expertise has become popularised and accessible to all. Of course assimilating this info and synthesising, interpreting and critiquing the material is all but missing. This sets up a backdrop whereby self-taught 'experts' spout on yet they lack insight. 2. Onto this there are the gurus of youtube. On and on the videos roll of your favourite, charismatic speaker whose values and conclusions so closely match your own. This can act to radicalise and entrench plenty of viewers.

I don't know what the answer is but I found myself asking OP's question this very morning after falling out with DSis and old friend both of whom had become entrenched in a PoV on which I had a different take. One discussion we agreed to disagree (which is rather passive-aggressive in a way), the other I kept my mouth shut, a form of dishonesty I suppose but better than upset.

@Upamountain43 do you have any evidence that monitoring and surveillance is most prevalent in the UK versus other locations? I’m not doubting that we have a lot of CCTV per square mile and an active GCHQ, for example, but your statement doesn’t seem credible. Unless perhaps you can be more specific about what you mean? I’ve never heard anyone claim this before.

the level of surveillance and monitoring in modern Britain is the greatest anywhere ever, in human history

You have no idea what you are talking about

The bad behaviour was there but the outrage wasn't. Culture was extremely toxic but no one complained, or if they did they weren't taken seriously. Also no one talked about mental health or other problems, they were all hidden away. It can definitely get taken too far and definitely sick of the woke brigade but on the whole it's just challenging the status quo.

This, except 'being sick of the woke brigade' - really? You mean those who are 'alert to injustice in society, especially racism'? But otherwise agree. People feel uncomfortable because their privileges are being vocally challenged and those who didn't have a voice before now do through social media. Of course SM enables lots of bad and extreme behaviour too but on the whole the challenging of the status quo that is happening in lots of areas at the moment is a very good thing.

the challenging of the status quo that is happening in lots of areas at the moment is a very good thing

This 'challenging' too often looks like bullying, mobbing violent behaviour

I actually don’t know if I agree that the status quo is being challenged - at least perhaps not meaningfully. For example, economic inequality is rising, massively. I think it’s possible we are instead being placated by seeming to challenge the status quo through identity style politics, while deeper problems remain entrenched and even worsen.

mustlovegin - maybe it does and maybe some of it is, but do you not think that lots of people suffered "bullying, mobbing and violent behaviour" because of their race, gender or sexuality in the bad old days, and no-one cared? You may have been OK but lots of people really weren't. Can you tell me who is being bullied?

economic inequality is rising, massively Agree, thanks to our Govt and people who voted for them. Not the 'woke brigade', certainly!

I agree op. People seem to get personally offended with someone just because they happen to hold a different opinion to them.

I think it’s possible we are instead being placated by seeming to challenge the status quo through identity style politics, while deeper problems remain entrenched and even worsen

True

@ATieLikeRichardGere

I actually don’t know if I agree that the status quo is being challenged - at least perhaps not meaningfully. For example, economic inequality is rising, massively. I think it’s possible we are instead being placated by seeming to challenge the status quo through identity style politics, while deeper problems remain entrenched and even worsen.

We are sniping at one another, though aren’t we? I felt this with the attack on the religious. That people say, if they are challenged, they are attacking the ‘system’ but actually they are attacking the low hanging fruit, not the real protagonists.

they are attacking the low hanging fruit

Agreed. Low hanging fruit and those portrayed to be acceptable targets by the mobs.

Of course it was. People used to be openly homophobic and racist even as recently as the 1980s and 1990s. Rose-tinted glasses. Also don't compare real life with social media.

Yes, I think it was! In my youth. Of course, we didn't have a year or two of pandemic and lockdown (though there WAS the terrifying onset of HIV!) to aggravate the situation. But Margaret Thatcher was adored by some and hated by others; there was a great deal of unemployment with resulting bitterness; finally all culminated in violent protests over the poll tax. Racism, misogyny, sexual harrassment and homophobia (e.g. Section 28) were more accepted than now. People with disabilities has virtually NO legal rights and protection, and women and ethnic minorities had only recently acquired theirs. Yes-such rights are often ignored and disregarded nowadays, but that's not quite the same as their being non-existent. Enoch Powell had recently whipped up a great deal of racial hatred. And part of the UK (NI) was in a state of civil war much of the time.

The one thing that's worse now - apart of course from said pandemic - is that it's fairly easy, in these days of the internet and social media, to get exposed to the conflicts virtually 24/7. In the 80s, we got it from the newspapers, TV, public meetings, pamphlets - but not just by clicking almost effortlessly on a dodgy site, at any time of the day or night. Therefore it can appear more pervasive now.