Increasing intolerance of differing viewpoints relating to pandemic response.

[WeirdArchitecture]

A bit of an off the wall comment but I think it'd be great if we could all have differing opinions and actually tolerate each other.

I've more or less quit reading in this part of the forum because of the lack of tolerance. I get it, we've all had a shit year and the world is still reeling from it, but the anger and spiteful, passive-aggressive shitshows online are painful to watch.

I'm comfortably on the fence with many thoughts about covid and how it has been handled. I expect my feelings will become more pronounced with time and some more experience going forward.

Opinions seem so heavily polarised nowadays. On the one hand people are scared of asking simple questions about vaccines for fear of getting napalmed (is this a new category in itself? We have pro vaxx, anti vaxx and now 'bully' vaxx) and those who are concerned about ending restrictions too soon are similarly pounced on.

Why the extreme anger and polarisation if someone disagrees with you?
Have we become so tense and myopic with this pandemic that we have forgotten how to accept not everyone is exactly the same as us?

Where do we draw the line here?
Wouldn't it be more helpful and productive all round if we learned some tolerance of differing viewpoints?

I bring this up as after my jab yesterday I was doing a bit of googling and discovered some great covid related talk on a US site called 'metafilter'. I was shocked at how tolerant and open they were regarding differing viewpoints and thoughts relating to the pandemic. For example, when anyone asked for advice about vaccine hesitancy, the general response was to gently lead them into good sources of info and most people (who were pro vaxx) expressed a sympathetic understanding of why people were concerned.

I am totally with the OP on this and i have been observing this polarisation in our society since brexit, and its increased this last year. It fascinates me, and i dont get involved but watch from a distance- its why i come on here and facebook - to see what the ‘others’ are thinking !!!! i dont suppose the ones of us that are agreeing with OP are autistic/Asperger? Just wondering if the ASD Brain kinda cuts through the crap and emotion that the polarised people spout about. Just something i ponder about.

I also agree with the OP’s comments about being connected with people over the internet who aren’t a part of your normal tribe and experiencing wildly different viewpoints!

The loudest ones are the ones you notice. You have the covid deniers, the vaccine haters, the vaccine lovers, the anti-lockdowns, those who’d seem to like lockdown forever & those who flatly refuse to look on the bright side of anything. There’s also this ‘you are not thinking of others or being a responsible citizen’ vein going on as well. Often branded as ‘selfish’.

In reality & certainly in my real world, life is calm & everyone takes a middle-ish ground. I know one very anti-covid vaccine person but she is mature enough to not impose her views too heavily on the group we frequent. We know her opinion, she knows ours. It’s a mute point. I consider myself very in the middle. I do care greatly about others but I’m getting on with life best we can now. Life feels normal & happy within most of the rules. We can see friends, family, hug, go for dinner, go on holiday, go for drinks, get married.. it’s OK. I hope life will eventually revert to complete normal but for now, given the hell that was winter, I’m happy with what we have. I do my best to protect others but I will be selfish to ensure my little family are happy. I don’t look at rising cases & think, god, I must be a responsible citizen and not go to softplay or out to dinner etc. No, life goes on at the moment. I thankfully don’t have health anxiety and have never felt anxious about covid. There’s a lot of that on mumsnet & I think that’s where some of the device voices come from. People are genuinely terrified of covid despite being low risk. I follow most rules if they make sense. I’m vaccinated. I happily wear a mask. I’m against another lockdown but I’d suck it up if the NHS was overrun again. So far, I’m not seeing that at all.

Luckily to me, the real world does not remotely reflect mumsnet. And I’m glad I know those who mostly are just doing exactly what I am above!

Great post, I’m totally with you on this. I’ve noticed it on Twitter as well.

Well done OP, page 2 and you haven’t been roasted by the flames of hell for daring to suggest we all have our own viewpoints, yet.

The polarising effect of Covid is very similar to Brexit, deep down no one knows what the future holds and it unnerves us all whether we’d like to admit it or not. In the same way Brexit affected all of our lives so does Covid, there’s no escaping the restrictions, effects and threat of infection, conflicting news reports about statistics and breakthroughs as well as set backs.

It’s perfectly reasonable to expect us all to react differently to it, some people have lost everything, some people have gained lots and others face a bleak unknown void.

Mumsnet is a great melting pot of opinions, though like everything on the internet you have those who will immediately react to your viewpoint and can be very nasty and ignorant if they disagree. There’s often a sneery undertone when it comes to some topics particularly if what you’re saying isn’t the optimistic Good News they want to hear or doesn’t fit their agenda.

I remember the early days of Covid in February when those concerned with what was coming were called shrieking dementors for merely suggesting we’d need a lockdown. The Coronavirus threads can be very triggering and from a mental health aspect they’re not the best places to delve in to unless you can handle the subject matter.

Despite our differences we all have the same common enemy in Covid and sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves of that.

I remember the dementor thing, reminded me of remoaners, but then ive always loathed buzzwords or whatever they're called.

True that I don't really see this reflected in life offline, although our social circles are a lot smaller, generally.

There are simply too many people who disagree with us online, it ought to be stopped

Despite our differences we all have the same common enemy in Covid and sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves of that

Beautifully put!

@winched

@WeirdArchitecture

I remember the dementor thing, reminded me of remoaners, but then ive always loathed buzzwords or whatever they're called.

True that I don't really see this reflected in life offline, although our social circles are a lot smaller, generally.

There are simply too many people who disagree with us online, it ought to be stopped

The Dementor thing came about late April 2020 about the specific type of poster that would shoot down any kind of optomism or pleasurable activity, and rigourously enforced all kinds of additional rules such as non-essential items of shopping, time spend exercising or going beyond the absolute minimum of going around the block or suggesting putting birthday candles in a potato rather than a cake. People didn't need to be told categorically things like they wouldn't be going on holiday for years (uk/ abroad) on the basis of very little fact. It's as much the tone as the content, with a superiority complex/ mocking someone's "stupidity" rather than being aware that their guess is as good as anyone's. They always have existed, lapping up other people's ailments or bemoaning that you should appreciate abusive parents because you'll miss them when they're gone. Covid has just been a field day for those traits.

It is frustrating when holding opinion A leads to a sweeping assumption that you must also hold opinions B, C and D including who you alledgedly voted for in the last election.

I like MN because I like reading a range of opinions even if I don't agree with all of them. There are articulate, succint posters that I respect even if I don't always agree because they have a knack of delivering a point well.

I miss the middle ground in discussion, it's usually the most interesting place, and too many discussions go too tribal.

I'm called a "doom monger" and a "lockdown lover" whenever I point out the current exponential growth in cases.

Those in charge of the country have stoked anger and divisiveness for the past decade.

This plays a part

I think the initial intolerance was towards posters suggesting there might be a problem with Covid-19. This continues to this day! It has been a startling discovery to realise that so many posters on a parenting forum are borderline sociopathic or at best complacently ignorant.

@unwuthering I started out on the early worried about Coronavirus threads. I "switched alligence (if you can phrase it like this) in the summer of last year when i saw how people who cant wear masks were/are being treated. Maybe a bit less othering and ableism would have helped. Peoples attitudes have consequences. Rape survivors and people with disabilities were told they just wernt trying hard enough. I have no wish to ally with people who think this way. I didnt start from an anti lockdown viewpoint. I was pushed there.

I don't think it's just COVID, you can look at a range of subjects and see the rampant tribalism - transgender folk and Brexit being excellent examples of where polite dialogue between dissenting views seems impossible.

For quite a long time I enjoyed trying to speak to people with opposing views on Twitter and trying to get them to move from chucking insults to engaging in genuine conversation - but I just give up. I honestly like to talk to people with a different perspective as I'm not arrogant enough to think I know everything, and hearing different views can be very illuminating. However, I'm suffering from social media burn-out and I'm off nearly every single platform now, apart from here. People are just shouty, nasty, insulting and horrible - and in many cases, utterly self-consumed.

I think it's the last part that bothers me the most - so many people don't seem to care about other people, as long as they're OK, who cares - right? Why bother caring about anyone else, especially if they're different to you? Screw them. That seems to be the prevailing consensus of opinion and it's soul-destroying.

@MercyBooth I am absolutely not excusing those attitudes but I think a good proportion of people ended up with such intolerance after watching so many others abuse the system.

I have two SEN children, and am part of a community of people who do struggle with masks for valid medical reasons. Some manage to wear them, some don't. So I understand the difficulties and 10000% accept it's just not possible for some people. And that's entirely fine. Of course it is.

However, I think lots of people have witnessed conversations splashed across social media where anti-lockdown folk brag about refusing to wear a mask, and are proud of pretending to the authorities/shop staff that there's a valid reason while admitting the truth online. And I think if the mask protected the wearer there would be less of an issue, but the people deliberately evading wearing a mask for shits and giggles are putting others at risk, and therein lies the problem.

There are so many people displaying blatant disregard for infecting others, it's created this atmosphere of suspicion, accusation and mistrust. And of course, this has had a knock on effect for people that can't tolerate a mask. It's toxic all round but I put the blame at the door of those who have deliberately lied and pretended to be exempt while openly bragging elsewhere that they've gotten away with a false ruse.

There is a very long list of genuine exemptions and many people I know could tick one theoretically - for example, I suffer from asthma, anxiety and really bad claustrophobia. I could easily claim an exemption but the truth is that wearing a mask doesn't trigger any of those for me.I'm fortunate, I know that's not the case for everyone. There are a number of people who just don't want to wear a mask that claim a technical exemption when the reality is they could absolutely wear a mask without a problem. People who are in similar situations to me, for example.

And then there are those who legitimately cannot wear a mask - for whatever reason. Many, many valid reasons. But they're being made to look like frauds because there's a hell of a lot of people who think it's just funny to lie about having an exemption/not being able to wear a mask.

It's really easy to say no one should judge another person. And of course, it's true. None of us know who is genuinely unable to wear a mask and who isn't. But when you're seeing constant posts of people laughing about how they're getting round the rules by lying, it's very hard not to feel pissed off about being put at personal risk from some one else's selfishness.

First things first: If I'm ever rude myself, do call me out please.

I have relatives with the kind of dementia that makes them rude to complete strangers so I think I probably have quite a high tolerance for when people are rude to me personally on here - but I don't like to see it done to others..

I do understand how to some people covid is a sort of culture war in which they feel compelled to defend their "team" or their mindset. I just don't think name calling is at all helpful and would prefer people made a case rather than making digs at individuals.

We're all frustrated, we all want this to be over,

So while I may not fully understand how false optimism, denial, wishful thinking, motivated reasoning or defending one's tribe helps people, and I would prefer if people weren't rude to each other, I do appreciate that we all have skin in this game, and we're all just doing our best to get through this.

I think anonymous internet boards remove people’s filters.

It’s tiresome and disrespectful both sides

I have my reasons for being pro-mask and pro-vaxx.

I agree @Roonerspismed - on the internet no one knows who you are and you don’t have to listen, you can just talk. So many threads where people don’t even read the previous post, let alone the whole thread, and don’t discuss anything, just say what they want to. I hope people aren’t the same in real life.

I bring this up as after my jab yesterday I was doing a bit of googling and discovered some great covid related talk on a US site called 'metafilter'. I was shocked at how tolerant and open they were regarding differing viewpoints and thoughts relating to the pandemic. For example, when anyone asked for advice about vaccine hesitancy, the general response was to gently lead them into good sources of info and most people (who were pro vaxx) expressed a sympathetic understanding of why people were concerned.

They have very good moderators at MF. Most people posting there are pretty thoughtful, and unpleasant posts are swiftly removed. The AskMetaFilter section is really good for helpful responses.

However, at the start of the pandemic several of their general threads were utterly and shockingly vile towards older people, effectively wishing them dead of the virus to free up the real estate, and this was considered an acceptable attitude apparently. But mostly it is an intelligent site, with good content.

bump

@PrincessNutNuts

bump

Why?

[quote MercyBooth]@Wherediditgo There is a perfect example of that on the Laura Dodsworth thread.[/quote]
The state of fear threads?

They were full of anti-vaccine scaremongering, COVID minimising and general misinformation.

It was a shame because it meant that reasonable viewpoints were lost.

I am becoming increasingly frustrated at seeing the same false claims being posted again and again buy the same poster (or one who repeatedly NCs)

Health misinformation is a real problem.

l have always been open minded so very little tends to trigger me, its interesting to see other points of view. lf you contribute to a discussion you have to expect not everyone will agree, l tend to post then go straight on to something else, l am not interested in whether my reply is met with approval or not, its just my own perspective of it at that time, that's it, and l am open to changing it.
People on here tend to get too attached to their own personal beliefs and l instantly lose respect for the ones that try to shame anothers opinion.

I’m absolutely with you on this OP.

The lack of tolerance for a different opinion has been around for a while. Brexit, elections etc - I got an absolute kicking from people I know after the last election when I suggested that it is possible to like and love someone who holds different political views. Apparently there is no middle ground, you’re With Us or you’re a Gammon Evil Brexiteer Monster who likes killing the poor. I was absolutely blindsided by that. Ditto a similar reaction to once suggesting that biological sex is unchangeable and women’s rights/safety needs to be balanced with the rights of others. I was shot down in a hail of slurs and there are now people who won’t have anything to do with me because I have that view.

Covid is the same thing on steroids because we were all fucking terrified. When people perceive threat and a lack of control (our brain’s worst scenario) they act in extreme ways, usually fear and seeking to control something, anything. All nuance and reasoned conversation is out the window, there is only right and wrong because that’s where people are finding security. I’m a firm believer in vaccines, but I also want to see people genuinely having a choice. I want to see the vulnerable protected but I also believe that a balance has to be struck between restrictions and normality. I want covid to be managed but I want to see the mental health implications of masks and lockdowns properly considered, rather than being treated like pieces to be picked up later. But I have long since learned that suggesting these things is to invite another onslaught of accusations of supporting selfishness or that I think vulnerable people should be left to die.

I have almost given up.