I have bigger fears. There is no question that the US is in the midst of a culture war, that is only getting worse by the day. I also think that the Left does not have an appreciation for how violently the Right is boiling just below the surface. If we can’t find some way to break this ugly spiral, both sides will claim the moral high ground and “exercise their Second Amendment rights.” At that point, I will need to sleep on your couch
@Bones26
@Nort
I share your apprehensions regarding the anxieties that are presently percolating under the surface in your country. It seems almost palpable these days given the rhetoric between the more extreme elements on
both sides of the political divide and which is all too often gleefully magnified by the MSM for their own commercial interests. In fact, I was saying to my wife just last night that I would not be at all surprised to see some truly horrific explosion of violence occurring this summer as a result of these very tensions. I sincerely hope I’m wrong. (But if I’m not, Nort, you are of course welcome to my couch, but not a word about our winters, O.K.?
)
What I find particularly notable in the States, although I should hasten to add is also becoming increasingly more prevalent here as well in my country, is this penchant to immediately define every aspect of contention in our daily lives as either a Left or Right paradigm of existential importance. As if everyone & everything in dispute must always inevitably fall under this simple binary construct. As but one example, is it not possible for large segments of the population to be in favour of Roe vs Wade but also be an opponent of more stringent gun control, and ambivalent or neutral on the question of Russia - Ukraine? Where are these folks supposed to fall?
Not to be too naïve about it, but I think one possible means of breaking this spiral would be to the train ourselves to instinctively ignore any of the ‘political’ identities that are immediately applied to any cultural issue by the talking heads in the public sphere as they inevitably create an us versus them bias which too often precludes any further intelligent debate and resolution of the issue. As we simply can’t let the other side claim a ‘win’.
Instead we need to teach ourselves to view these issues through a different lens. One where achieving a compromise based on mutual accommodation is the end goal and is how success is measured and celebrated in our societies.
But even more critically I would suggest that by continually emphasizing cultural issues as points of contention & division amongst the citizenry, important attention is taken away from the real fundamental economic issues that more concretely impact a vast majority of our population’s daily lives and futures and
I would argue underpin this mounting anxiety coursing through our societies. Be they left or right, black or white or yellow or red, liberal or conservative, religious or secular, pro-gun or anti-gun, pro-life or pro -abortion, gay, straight or trans and so on and so on and so on, at the end of the day, the basic economic realities that the 99% of us our confronted with matter much more to the health, security, stability and futures of our families and neighbors and by extension contribute to the strength & resilience of our societies than claiming some moral win in the never ending culture wars.
But hey, that’s just what I have been thinking, your mileage may of course vary.
Cheers!