Normally I am a very strong advocate for listening to all points of view. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels at least a certain source of todays societal ills are from a lack of empathy and understanding of various points of view.
And yet! There are more and more things I’m finding myselfwith zero patience or time to listen to. POV’s they immediately cause me to shutdown, assume the person is a complete idiot, and lead me to unfollow (on social media), avoid (irl),not see (if she’s a SW I was interested in), etc.
Anyone feeling this? Say, you’re following someone on IG or planning an SW date and they bring up a view on a political or science topic and it IMMEDIATELY turns you off? I don’t even feel like arguing or convincing or listening (or any of the strategies that I’ve read are most effective); I just think “fk that!” And move on pronto.
Maybe it’s just the pandemic fatigue - I only have so much mental energy/endurance and am finding it harder and harder to expend any of it in those who think WAY differently (which doesn’t help the “societal ill” bit mentioned above!)
(Note: this isn’t a thread to DEBATE the hot topics THEMSELVES; there’s already threads on Covid,political, and I’m sure climate science too; the intended topic is on the struggle to discuss these any-fkn-more…)
I am usually open minded, enjoy a good heated debate within reason. But when they are ignoring facts in favor of utter insanity, my tolerance is just gone. Blame Trump and his cult of "fake news", or the lack of respect for science in general. I am a skeptic, but I know water is wet and the sun comes up everyday. When you can't agree that simple shit like that is fact, then I tune you out now, and just reach for the ban hammer as required.
I have very strong views on many subjects, but I don't think I make that much empty noise, because I don't feel the need to blindly uphold one "side" and everything it says or does. My views don't fit neatly into one partisan category, and I don't do try to edit my beliefs so that they fit some stereotype of what one faction is supposed to believe.
Some things I am willing to hear, if only because I can do that "devil's advocate" thing myself too, in a real discussion or debate. But on some other subjects, my patience for "live and let live" has run out, namely when the stakes are literally survival.
Do I really have to justify people to people who no longer recognize it? How far do I have to go to explain facts, when all they will do with any explanation is the equivalent of going "nuh-uhh" like some snot-nosed 3rd grader?
For me, the Harper era was when my patience with mindless partisan drones ran out; to me that regime led an outright assault on reality (to say nothing of democracy) - so it wasn't Trump and his Legion Of Goofs that were the last straw. Their tone is very brazen and things got uglier in the world since then, but the whole anti-science / anti-intellectual began long before that. But this doesn't mean I give the other parties automatic benefit of the doubt, especially when they too find ways to get on my nerves.
Although I have to say, there's a lot of outright bullshit being slung by both sides (if you even believe there's just two sides in politics - I don't) - many examples from across the spectrum of people who are insufferable and crooked, and yet are given way more attention and power than they deserve. Also, let me say that taking the "modertate" position on an issue should be more than just taking the average of two equally stupid extremes; balancing the grievances of the groups of permanently outraged people is not a recipe for success.
The public is being forced to swallow more and more of what used to be considered extreme and deranged, and told that we must be in the wrong if we don't blindly agree with every new swindle the political and social "influencers" come up with.
How much of the agenda in general is now controlled by just a tiny percentage of people who think their personal ambiitions should be allowed to just steamroll over everyone else's? If one person or a small group of people are aggrieved about some small thing, does that mean everyone else should have to bow and scrape and bend their own lives out of shape for them? No.
Democracy - rule by the masses, or at least with their consent - is being murdered piece by piece. Our leaders love their buzzwords to do with the "rule of law", but really it's just the law bending to whoever can throw the biggest tantrum.
Everything in politics, business, entertainment seems to be a swindle now, and those of us who don't let our egos run amok are told we must walk on eggshells the rest of our lives, lest we upset some fragile egomaniacs and puritan hypocrites who might come after us with all their tears and guns and craziness and hashtags. To them it's very lucrative to make society this way; to everyone else, it's fucking exhausting.
That's why my patience has evaporated, and I stopped being polite to those I simply cannot respect. I know I am not alone.
