Guest post: It’s not just a yard sign any more
Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on About the emotional stunting.
I think part of the problem is that these pundits live in a different world than the rest of us. I don’t mean just “they’re the elite and we’re the common folk,” though that can be part of it. I just mean that the stakes are different for them, in both directions: they’re often insulated from the consequences of the other side’s policies, yet they feel conflict more sharply because of the work and social circles in which they live.
Example 1: Opinion columnists/pundits. I’m sure Ross Douthat is a swell guy and easy to get along with. He seems nice in the podcasts and dialogues I’ve heard him have with liberals over the years, and that’s quite a few since he used to be a semi-regular on Bloggingheads back when I followed it. I have no doubt that liberals like Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias genuinely like the guy, and probably for good personal reasons. And if you’re Klein in particular, who is a NYT colleague, you kind of need to get along professionally. If I ever met him, I’d be polite and chances are we’d have a perfectly civil encounter. But that doesn’t change the fact that Douthat is (among other things) a theocrat who thinks The Handmaid’s Tale is an aspirational story. I don’t want to “unify” with someone like that, and as I’m unlikely to ever meet or work with Douthat, I couldn’t give a shit if he’s offended by people like me characterizing his views harshly.
Example 2: This has changed in recent years for reasons that are all too apparent, but it used to be the case that some people were surprised by how well some Supreme Court justices got along. I think Ginsburg and Scalia went to the opera together; some of the others were regular bridge partners. They all tended to speak highly of their colleagues and how well they got along personally. And I think that was a good thing for them, and did no harm to the causes they each supported. There’s no reason that, e.g., Ginsburg should have gone to work every day dreading seeing Scalia in the courtroom and avoiding him in the hallways and shooting nasty glances across the conference room table because they are ideologically opposed. It would have made the job really miserable, and wouldn’t have accomplished anything: Scalia wasn’t going to suddenly support women’s rights because of a scowl from a colleague. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us should mince words about what the conservative justices are doing. We don’t have to work with them, we don’t see them in the halls every day.
It reminds me of the old debates about Gnu Atheism. The anti-Gnus were always anxious to reduce everything to personal relationships: Richard Dawkins writing a book titled “The God Delusion” was supposedly the equivalent of telling grandma (it was always grandma for some reason) on her deathbed that her religious beliefs are silly, Christopher Hitchens being harsh in a public debate was the same as telling your uncle at Thanksgiving dinner that he’s evil for going to church, etc. etc.
I think this is another area where we’re still adjusting to social media. It used to be that if your neighbor had a yard sign for a political candidate you despised, that didn’t prevent you from having pleasant neighborly chats about how well their garden is growing this year, or inviting them to your BBQ, or whatever. If you were both the kind of people who liked the cut-and-thrust of political debate, you might engage them, but in most instances you just gracefully avoided the topic (and people who didn’t possess that skill/inclination, and would constantly inject politics into every discussion, you learned to avoid). That didn’t necessarily mean that you thought your neighbor was a swell person and that their political views didn’t affect your view of them, it just meant you exercised some discretion.
That’s all a little harder now when so many people are constantly broadcasting their views where their neighbors and colleagues and relatives can see them. It’s not just a yard sign any more. In some ways of course that is more “honest” — we aren’t engaging in so many polite fictions. But in other ways it feels like now most people have become that neighbor who injects politics into every discussion.
Screechy, that is such a good post. It really strikes with me. My dad is a fundamentalist Christian Trump voter. When I went to his 90th birthday party, I didn’t tell him off, or make any reference to any of his more obnoxious views. One of my nephews is an MRA, but he is a delightfully friendly young man if you don’t engage. This wasn’t a setting to engage. It was a goddamn party for someone who managed to live 90 years, and who is connected to everyone at the party. Most of us don’t get along that well, but we put aside those differences.
A lot of my colleagues are Trumpistas, and I have to work with them. I am fortunate that they don’t work in my building (science buildings tend to be full of moderate to liberal on the political scale). But I do have to interact when our paths cross, and I’m not going to shout insults at them. If they are wearing a MAGA hat on campus, politicizing their position, I might say something, since I would be vilified if I wore my Hill Yes t-shirt.
I will say, if someone starts up with me, I may very well respond in kind, depending on the situation. I do struggle when students try to interject religion into my evolution lecture, because I have to walk a fine line between maintaining my scientific professionalism and not letting them get away with bullshit.
Right. I feel like so many people have lost perspective on this.
You have the “everywhere is a battleground” folks who want to air their political grievances in every situation. They complain if they have to interact with, or even just see, someone who they are aware has “bad” views, or even once associated with someone with “bad” views. Or they view it as “dishonest” and “not being true to themselves” to refrain from spouting their views in every situation. (The left tends to do the former and the right the latter, but there are exceptions in both directions.)
Then at the other extreme you have the people who insist that we must never, in any context, speak harshly of our political or ideological opponents because unity and civility trumps everything.
I am reminded of one of the main takeaways I got from Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”: how people used to fill multiple roles for each other, but don’t do that so much nowadays. With people living and working and raising a family in the same area, one might encounter the same people at work, at clubs, in the store, in school meetings, at kids’ events, at social gatherings, in the neighborhood, and all of these might yield a more comprehensive picture of what these people are like, a mix of good and bad aspects. With the single point of contact, the guy who expressed objectionable political views in one situation has no other known characteristics that might moderate one’s impression of him. Online communities exacerbate this phenomenon significantly.
I belong to a Meetup for group rides on motorcycles, and other members are Trumpist. It seems to be common among cruisers and Harley owners, less so among those who buy street bikes, but there is opportunity for cross words on politics to be exchanged. Only once so far has it come up where I decided I needed to nip it in the bud to say that I am part of the group to ride and have fun, but not to talk about politics. It seemed to work. There’s a time and place, but the way that people talk about politics is no fun for me anymore. I’m still active, but I try to keep the engagement to a minimum at non-political events.
I used to get bothered by “FUCK BIDEN” lawn signs, but then I remind myself that one of the souvenirs that I bought in Ensenada was a bracelet that says “FUCK TRUMP” in the colors of the Mexican flag. I don’t wear it often.