A recent study by researchers at the University of Padua and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) has revealed that political differences between partners can significantly increase the risk of separation. Using long-term data from UK couples, the researchers found that those with different party preferences were substantially more likely to separate than those with the same political beliefs. The risk is particularly high when there are differences of opinion on Brexit.
This is a privilege you have that others do not.
If, for whatever reason, you were under the threat of violence every day, do you think you could be calm and rational? If that threatened violence against you hanging over your head was perpetuated by members of a political party, would you be calm and rational about that party? If this was because of something you couldn’t change about yourself, like being queer or black or a woman, would you be calm and rational? Do you think everyone could? Do you think a child could?
I know I couldn’t. I see these people breakdown over and over again. For something they did not choose. Sometimes for not being calm or rational.
It is silly to expect people to act calm and rational in the face of overwhelming prejudice, in the face of threats to your self, family, and friends, in the face of adversity–or worse, ennui–to your situation.
Let me steal an argument from a video I saw. Pretend you are having a party, and someone comes up to you and says that your friend Amanda should be kicked out of the party, that she doesn’t deserve to be here, that she is drinking too much of your beer, and that if she goes, everyone can have more beer. You like Amanda because she is your friend and you know she is kind and funny. Let’s say you calmly and rationally debate this guy, but he adamantly repeats these things, over and over again. Do you think Amanda feels good at this party? Should you keep debating this loser? Or would you kick him out of the party, by force if necessary, because Amanda did nothing wrong? Now imagine this person says this about ALL Amandas. Do you think this changes the situation? What if someone else told you that this guy just really hates Amandas but he’s cool otherwise, even though he really harps on how Amandas are ruining this party. Do you think Amanda likes that second guy? Should Amanda be calm and rational to either of those two people?
Don’t play the privilege card on my.
I’m LGBT and not only the “already accepted” letters, some of the not as widely accepted too. I can still be calm even knowing that the party I’m talking about will put me in danger. This other person doesn’t want to put me in danger and she doesn’t think voting for that party would put me in danger. We disagree in that and I respect her thoughts. I don’t feel like cutting social connection over making assumptions that are not necessarily true.
As I said. I’m a very calm person, and in later years politics have been pivoting away from my thoughts, and I don’t get as heated about them as I used to.
And, as I also said, I can be mistaken too. I do think this party will put me in danger. Imagine I cut ties with this person and that they get power (they will in two years top anyway giving current situation). And they truly do nothing that put me in danger. With which face could I look myself in the mirror after that? I prefer to be careful. I think they are dangerous, I will not vote for them. But I won’t start bashing people that vote them for reasons that so not directly imply hurting me.
For instance this person doesn’t even vote them for anything LGBT related. She vote for them mostly out of spite for the current socialist party (which I can see more clear that in some aspect she was right, they were stealing from us).
So giving this situation I really don’t think I could hate this person. And I think many would be in similar positions.
I absolutely will. Because you are ignoring yours. Being a part of a disadvantaged group doesn’t mean you don’t have privilege elsewhere. In fact, sometimes, that is the reason why you might ignore your privilege.
You are able to be calm with your friend because you do not see there is a danger. People like your friend haven’t hurt you. But would everyone else do the same? Your friend supports people that will hurt people like you, but do they think they can stop those people from hurting you?
I would rather lose a friend who didn’t want me hurt but supported people who would hurt me because that is not a logical view, no matter how calmly it is spoken.
Once again, do not play the privilege card. Not on me, not on anyone. It’s not a convincing argument, and it has not a real base. And it’s somehow discriminatory towards particular groups that you do not consider “unprivileged enough”.
As I say, I do think there is dangers with the party I consider fascist reach power. But my thoughts are irrelevant, I do mot judge people for my thoughts, I judge people for their thoughts. She doesn’t think that, that’s all that matter. And once again, it is very important that I do not think I have the absolute indiscutible truth in my power. I think that party is fascist and will hurt me. But I could be wrong. I like to act with measure. What happens if she ends up being right and in 2 years that party goes into power and do not do anything to hurt me? And I have to live my life knowing I cut a good relationship because something I was wrong about. Maybe some people can live with that, maybe some people can convince themselves that they are never wrong. I cannot. I won’t vote to that party because what I think they may do, that’s proportionate. I won’t talk to a person that hate me because what I am, because there’s no room for mistake there . But I don’t think is adequa to cut a relationship because I think myself better knowing that the other person.
In this instance for instance 6 years ago I said her that I would vote socialist, she said to me that they will steal from me, I said they won’t. Last week police report, big corruption case in the socialist party. I was wrong her was Right. And she didn’t cut our relationship back then, and she is not cutting it right now. Why should I? We all are humans we all could be wrong, she could be right and vox may not discriminate against LGBT or she may be wrong and they will do it. The important thing to me is that she, her self, will not discriminate against LGBT (not too much at least, as I said she has some prejudices, she is conservative after all, it’s not like she is super progressive and it’s been voting to the alt-right by mistake, but they don’t bother me that much, once again I’m very open minded, and their beliefs while conservative are more on the line of moderate conservative, a center right kind of thing).
You do you. I’m just explaining why many people, myself included, do not cut people out because their general political beliefs or the party they vote for. If you feel better doing it, be my guess, that’s your decision.
That is a really weird and illogical argument.
That is a really weird and illogical hypothetical. Best answered with, “But what if they kill you instead?”. We ALL have a line in the sand where if someone supports a thing, they cannot be our friend anymore. Like, if my friend started saying Nazi things, but was a “good guy” otherwise, they wouldn’t be a good guy at all. I would give them a chance to not be a Nazi, and then we would either not be friends or they wouldn’t be a Nazi. Everyone has that, regardless of what you say or think, and it is disgustingly easy to prove. I can prove it, if you’d like, but I feel like you have already lost this argument by ignoring the Amanda party.
The first part of my message was a reference to “Animal farm” the idea of “everyone is equal but some are more equal than others”. We must be careful when trying to buil equality that we do not do it in a manner than “some are more equal that others”. Disregarding people’s opinions because "you are privileged " or "not unprivileged enough " is a way of doing that.
I would cut friendship with a nazi if they say nazi things. This is not the case.
If she would say “I hate homosexual I think we should chemically castrate them”. I would cut ties. That’s not the case. And cutting ties because you think that doing some other action is necessarily implying LGBTphobia seems faulty logic to me. Things have to be proven by themselves, and people deserve to be fairly judged by their words and their actions. She is kinds to LGBT people and doesn’t seem to have hate towards us (only some lack of knowledge) so I won’t label her as hateful towards LGBT.
I think there’s some fundamental notions here. About different people having different realities and understanding of the world that surrounds us. And the importance of putting oneself on other people’s eyes and trying to look from there. Our reality is not, the facto, the only true reality, not even the only correct reality. We may be right about some things, wrong about others. And we all see our perspective of things.
Not to say that everyone gets justified, there are bad people out there, of course. But we could not easily label good people as bad people without reason.
Specially not when it’s just an action of political push. I won’t be a tool in any politician hands. Because, let’s get serious for a moment, we both know that this derives from the “Cut ties with anyone MAGA related” political movement that the Democratic party of the US is pushing for their own interest. I’m not only unwilling to bend to such political dogma, I do think is a bad long term strategic decision. As it will create hard to fix scars in their country, pushing towards a more violent and divided future. Because at the end it’s more easy to shoot someone you hate (someone that you don’t even see as a human being) that shooting a friend.
I do not think, or try, to convince anyone to my particular political wing with my friendship (same as it should not be expected that the threat of cutting ties will change anyone’s political dogma). But I do think that if you are friends with some people, these people will have a harder time justifying bad actions towards you. Coming back to my example, my friends do not think the fascist party will prosecute homosexuals, but if they start doing soz I’m pretty sure she will oppose them, because she is friends with multiple homosexuals. If all homosexuals retire their friendship, she may not want to specifically hurt homosexuals, but she may lack any emotional connections to step towards defending them if she sees that they are being hurt.