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At My Wits’ End in the Culture War
I’ve never had great difficulty in getting along with my liberal friends. It is a skill I likely learned growing up with conservative instincts in the state of New Jersey. Most of life can be enjoyed with others without our political differences getting in the way. At the margins however, there are always issues. Some ideas permeate the culture so thoroughly, that a friend will often state what they believe to be an innocuous statement of truth in passing, working under the assumption that all good-hearted people will agree with it. Since I do not share many of their beliefs, the obvious implication is that I am not a good person.
It has always been a character flaw of mine that I cannot allow these remarks to pass without challenging them. Close friends know me well enough to either engage me in a friendly debate on the point, or concede that they probably shouldn’t have thrown the statement out like that. Casual friends and acquaintances are generally caught off guard by my challenges. Issues of taxation can be laughed off, along with any number of others in regards to the size and scope of government. It is only in the culture wars that friendships are lost.
Culture would seem an easy issue for one with strong libertarian leanings, such as myself, to deal with. I don’t care how you live your life, or who you share it with, provided you not encroach upon the rights of others. My world view is inherently easy to get along with. I am supportive of same-sex marriage and disapprove of institutionalized discrimination. These facts buy me nothing though when I challenge media lies about Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Some friends know me well enough that when I defend the law by pointing out that RFRA laws have existed for greater than 20 years without a single instance of them being used to allow discrimination, that I probably know what I’m talking about. Others become convinced I am a gay-bashing bigot who they would no longer like to know.
While a friend and I were discussing the nerdiest of all nerd activities (conventions), I mentioned that I was likely going to GenCon this year. She asked where it was held (Indianapolis), then proceeded to drop her innocuous statement of truth. “Well, I won’t be going to Indiana anytime soon.”
Such a simple phrase to let slide. She was signaling to me that she supports same-sex marriage and gay rights. She is no legal scholar. Did it really matter if she had the wrong impression of the RFRA? Maybe not to others, but it did to me. She had unwittingly cast the people of Indiana as villains, and based entirely on a false media narrative. Those that disagree with her are not evil, and they are not bigots. Maybe if she were to know that I support the RFRA, knowing what she does about my character, she might see her opponents in a different light.
Or maybe, as may have happened, I’d lose a friend. Her disposition toward me rapidly changed. She had sent me a signal to prove I was a good person. That test was my position on the RFRA. I failed. That the test was faulty did not matter. I am now a bad person in her mind, or at least, not a virtuous one. She may never see me the same way again.
Having friendships that span across the political spectrum is a great boon to a free society. It keeps us from casting our opposition as caricatures, but rather real, honest people who have honest disagreements without animus. Increasingly, it is difficult to maintain such relationships.
The most likely outcome is that my more liberal friends will self-select themselves into friendships with only those who share their world view, or who at least will never challenge them on these points of contention. I will be forced to into a similar position. Without these bonds of friendship bridging the gaps between us, our positions will grow increasingly intolerant of each other, until one day, we find ourselves enemies.
It’s a damn waste.
Published in Culture
Or, sometimes, you can fight emotion with emotion, as in “I have a hard time feeling good about the teachers’ unions when I see what they have done to kids in the inner cities,” or “I’ve read too many books about what it was like to live under communism to feel anything but contempt,” or, my favorite, “If I could change one thing it would be to make sure every kid grows up with a dad. No wonder so many are depressed, to say nothing of what this does for gang recruitment.” One can resent having to use emotion, but acknowledging feelings–which we all have about these issues–is not always a bad thing.
Isn’t it odd that a half-wit never seems to reach their wit’s end? You’d think they’d reach it in half the time.
;-)
I used to be like that. Then I discovered that it enrages people who know me even more when I simply sit quietly and stare at my dinner when they say something preposterous. Trolls hate nothing more than to be ignored.
If they challenge me to rebut them I simply reply, “how would you prefer that I respond? I’ll say that.” That enrages them even more, and I find it’s much more fun than actually trying to have a rational debate with them.
(My other go-to line is, “it’s my day off. I don’t get many of them. If you would like to discuss politics please contact my office and make an appointment during business hours.”)
OK, can’t go through five pages of comments at this point, but I think, Frank, that what you have is a problem of definition. You are considering people to be friends who are, in fact, mere acquaintances.
I’ve had many liberal people who considered me too conservative to be “friends” with. If someone’s willing to end their friendship with you over your politics, they were never a friend in the first place. You should just move on.
On the other hand, I have a number of friends who are at the other end of the spectrum who are good, tested friends.
One of which I used to get in shouting matches with over politics. She’s the other end of the spectrum from me, which, at the time, seemed like a big deal. 20+ years later we’re still friends. She still posts stuff on Facebook that makes me wince, and I’m sure I do the same.
But she meets the test of being a friend: she’s willing to tolerate my bad traits—from her point of view, and I’m willing to tolerate hers.
And thanks for reminding me about her, she’d asked me to donate to a non-political cause she favors, and I’d forgotten to do so. Just did it.
There are some people you simply don’t want as friends. And they’re doing you a favor if they self-select themselves out of your life.
These comments which are attempting to redefine the terms friend and acquaintance are not all that useful.
If we take the literal definition of acquaintance: A person you know slightly, then this does not accurately describe the relationship I’m talking about.
If we use an expanded definition of acquaintance, you’ll find it described as a non close friend.
So why not just call them a friend, and call the handful of people whom you have a closer relationship with close friends?
I was riding in a truck with a couple of game wardens—I was in the back seat on top of all the equipment because I’m a liberal female and, in addition to being super-emotional, am relatively small and physically if not ideologically or intellectually flexible.
One of the wardens smacked my boot, where it was sticking out over the on-board computer, and said “Hey, Kate! Do you realize that Jason, here, is a hard-core gun-nut conservative? That he’s going to vote for our Tea-Party governor?”
“It’s not going to work,’ Jason interjected.
“What’s not going to work?” the other warden said.
“You aren’t going to take her away from me,” said Jason. “She loves me.”
“It’s true,” I admitted. “And I’m a Birkenstock-and-socks liberal…but Jason loves me, too.”
Which I like to think is something of an answer for you, Frank, even if I now strongly suspect that I might not be s0 liberal after all. Still working on the definitions… maybe there’s some hope?
Hey, could you work your magic on Whiskey Sam? We miss him!
There’s certainly some overlap between the definition of friend and acquaintance, so that’s a fair comment.
And I think that’s a fair response.
If comments like mine have made you realized you’re expecting the folks who aren’t really your close friends to act like it, then there’s some use to that.
Given this definition of friend (one of many):
I’d argue my definition of acquaintance is an accurate, and useful one:
As those people you call friends and I call acquaintances are pretty clearly not on your side.
English is an annoying language… :)
OK, we’re getting into Calvinist territory here… Predestination… if he sinned, he must not have ever been saved to begin with…
Sometimes, even good friends screw up. They fail to give us the benefit of the doubt. They put us in a box where they ought to know we don’t belong.
While not giving you the benefit of the doubt counts as evidence against their good friendship, it’s not proof. If it occurs frequently, or with other evidence of poor friendship, then yeah, the evidence adds up and becomes conclusive. But if it occurs infrequently, and especially if many other signs of good friendship are also present… It’s kinda stupid to alienate a good (albeit imperfect) friend with the accusation, “This screwup means you must have never been my friend in the first place!”
On a Need to Know, Mona and Brian Lamb discussed Brenda Lee, whom they both adore. I can’t remember exactly, but one of them (or somebody) met her, and discussed politics with her husband. Brenda was pleasantly uninterested. One feels a duty to participate in the great experiment, and I’ve loved following politics since I was 10 years old, but I sort of wish I was Brenda Lee these days.
You have a different take on what I said that what I meant. Let me try again:
If someone is going to do this, on an issue that she knows little about, and use my answer as a reason to put distance in the relationship (note, she is the one doing the distancing, not me), then she was not a real friend to me.
I don’t have a lot of friends. I have a lot of people I know. Friends my screw up, but the most important quality of friendship is not abandoning your friends.
So, a better way to put this is: Someone that lets so little drive her away from me, was not a friend in the first place. We were just mistaken about the nature of the relationship.
I enjoyed reading all of these comments. We are fighting the same battle. So much has already been said, but a few thoughts:
Labeling someone’s thinking as foolish or uninformed is better than labeling the person as an idiot. It’s likewise better to point out that someone is using classic left-wing thinking than to label them as a liberal.
Here’s a good line to use on liberals that I once heard: You seem to be one of those people who tolerates everyone, except for anyone who disagrees with you!
Liberals seem to love to say, “OK, you have a point, but your delivery is too intense,” or, “You get too worked up or abrasive.” That is a way for them to discount what you are saying. I stopped apologizing for the way I say things. The real reason some people don’t want to listen to me is that they don’t want to hear things that are unpleasant. Conservative ideas are often unpleasant, they don’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy.
I want to agree and disagree simultaneously. On one hand, what you say is true in general; it should take more than a little disagreement to disrupt a true friendship. On the other hand, I’ve already argued that both politics and religion are deeply consequential and meaningful; a deep enough disagreement on either of those and I’m not sure I’d call that “so little” when so otherwise meaningful. I suppose it depends on degree.
On a personal level, I haven’t severed ties with some good friends just for being progressive. However, I have moved away from otherwise good friends who are racial or religious bigots (IMO).
“Or maybe, as may have happened, I’d lose a friend…. She may never see me the same way again.”
Couldn’t miss the modal verb, “may”. Please get back to us if she ends up standing by you.
Some of my friends definitely started avoiding me a few years ago when I came out of the conservative closet. They are wusses, and I don’t care at all. I see their facebook posts and I realize that if there were a war, we’d be on opposite sides. At the same time, I still consider these people friends. Either of us would still help each other out in a pinch. It’s just an awkward situation.
Many of my closer friends actually grudgingly respect that I know stuff about issues. Nevertheless, I have to accept that most just do not agree with conservative ideas. I wish that I could unwind with a beer and talk in real life the the way we do on Ricochet, but that’s not how it is.
Many conservatives express similar feelings about other conservatives they may agree with, but whom they feel are expressing a point in a non-persuasive way.
The question a good communicator asks themselves is, “what is my goal in this conversation? Is my goal to persuade, or merely to express myself?”
If one’s goal is merely to express oneself, that is a perfectly valid goal and not evidence of a moral failing, but one shouldn’t be surprised when one fails to persuade if one’s goal is merely to express oneself.
We give the other side the benefit of the doubt too much. They do not do the same for us, in fact quite the opposite.
True, but there is also a responsibility on the other side. Most people don’t listen whether I am calm or worked up, they revert to their stereotype of what a conservative position is that they had before we even began the discussion.
Once a guy walked out of a party because I said that I think it’s good for some young people to join the US military!
While I have seen emotions get in the way, I’ve also been to conservative women’s meetings and had them go all emotional on me when I disagreed on their favored points. I myself can be a bit emotional–it’s part of why I’m bad arguing.
What I finds underlies the liberal emotion I encounter is valuing intent over outcomes and immediate over delayed gratification and consequences. Their reasoning makes sense to them because they start with different assumptions and values.
As conservatives we have different assumptions and values, and we are capable of looking just as crazy and emotional to them.
I agree it’s evidence of poor friendship. But evidence, not proof, and some evidence can be outweighed by other evidence.
Did Jesus and Peter end up as friends?
Now, Jesus had the luxury of also being God, and Godly reserves of patience and love presumably make others’ unreliability much easier to cope with. Most of us fail to have such reserves, so we have a lower tolerance than Jesus did for maintaining friendship with flawed, unreliable people. No shame in admitting that, and realizing that sometimes what we need most in life is to distance ourselves as much possible from certain unreliable specimens. But some friendships can and do survive the unreliability of the people involved.
You failed to persuade close-minded people.
In other news, Homer Simpson likes beer.
;-)
But seriously, are you arguing that fellow had a “responsibility” to stay at the party? If so how should that “responsibility” be enforced?
A guy wrote a book about it and I am wracking my brain trying to remember who he was and the book’s title.
It was embracing the caricature of the mean/heartless conservative. His point was that since we are results oriented (rather than intention oriented), conservatives care about whether a social program works not about whether it merely about whether it makes us feel good. This means we fight new legislation and want measurements and accountability that don’t concern liberals as much.
No, I am arguing that the fact that there was not a useful dialogue was his fault, not mine. It was not my communication skills, I accept no responsibility for the situation. That was an extreme situation and even my super lefty friends agreed that he was acting like a baby.
Well, yeah, but then (much like elephants), some people are just jerks.
What happened to Whiskey Sam, Midge? I missed out on that drama
you couldn’t be more correct:
excerpted from one of my previous comments…
Was it Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell