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this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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I heard it put something like this once:
We used to all live around each other, and on the weekends we’d go to the bowling alley and have to listen to each other. It didn’t matter if I agreed with who was talkin, and it didn’t matter if they agreed with me. We talked. We argued. And then we bowled and had fun.
Today, we talk, we argue, and, after the “fuck off”, we get angrier at each other.
Anecdotes are fun, but the reality is this:
State are taking action to eliminate abortion, severely restrict voting rights, alter the state constitution (like in my home state ohio), and gut programs that support poor individuals while giving tax breaks and incentives to the rich.
Outside of the way your neighbors view politics, when your state says "your worthless get out, were looking for someone else" does that really make you want to stay? Is political tension in this country a factor for the comfort that makes people choose a home? Yes. That doesn't mean that where you live in today's day and age significantly defines your rights as a human being.
You’re right — my SO and I were just discussing how different states are alienating different parts of the populace. It’s driving people away from each other. It tears apart seams in the social fabric. It violates some of our social contracts, even.
I don’t think that voids the anecdote, though. The more that we can come together and “bowl it out”, if you will, I think the better off we could be. Compassion can come from exposure. Then, maybe, we could get some of the power back from those using policy to divide.
Or, maybe not.
I don’t think such a time ever existed, at least not for the groups currently taking the most heat.
People have been getting publicly harassed for their race, gender, sexuality for as long as this country has existed. They could not “just bowl”. The opportunity never existed for them.
It’s nostalgia for a unity that never existed.
This. The more inclusive this country has slowly gotten. The more the people who were always included have been constantly gaslit to believe that their problems and difficulties. Stem from the newly included groups.
This isn't true. There was always hate but with social media bad people find more bad people. Hell, when the first issue of captain America came out, it had a picture of Cap punching Hitler. They received death threats, not just on the phone but in the street.
The main difference in my childhood was that I never heard from people of hate because i grew up in a very liberal area. There wasn't a good way for them to organize.
Social Media has turned propaganda into a weapon of mass destruction. People want to seek out friend groups. When social media wasn't a thing, people would have to find a way to make nice with the people around them or be an outcast.
Now people don't have to be nice to anyone around them because a group of "people" online are encouraging them to be an asshole. Who knows how many are actual people and how many are bots and trolls.
People were bullies long before social media. Your position is revisionist.
No. We talked, got argued at, and whichever side was louder or more numerous bullied the others into stop talking. Then the dominant side laughed at the others and the others left, or shut up or stewed privately. People were ostracized for being different. There were countless sitcoms and tv shows in the 80s-90s that showcased this exactly and tried to fight it, ideologically.
Now, like-minded people can actually find communities they feel safe in. That's true for LGBT as well as Nazis, so it's a double-edged sword there. I'm not going to say the past was better. Look at gay and trans communities: they were closeted or didn't exist in the past because bigots shouted them down, bullied them and murdered them.
I think this analysis completely misses the why.
The why being that America is a racist country that would rather have less prosperity than social cohesion.
That white Americans will run away from cities rather than live near a person that doesn't look like them.
That white Americans would rather close pools than share them with black people.
That white Americans rather the government let them starve than get over their "racial resentment."
American history is written in genocide, bondage, and fear of the other. This is always where it would lead because we culturally refuse to deal with or acknowledge it.
That describes white suburbanites whose main differences were how much they should fund parks and drive away undesirables. Things in which they agreed on wanting to do, but not how.
This rose colored look at history only makes sense if you were straight, white, american.
I think the issue isn't that people can't tolerate each other, and most people I think don't have as extreme views on the issues as we hear about.
The issue is that the vocal minority seized their chance and have the opportunity to actually make the things they want come to be.