Can political discussion ever return to non binary debate

[Bob-iylho]

Reading the NPE threads over the last 4-5 years it's become so black or white.
I'm right you are wrong. It's almost impossible to find a post saying "this is my thoughts but I get your point"
Has the internet, social media made it impossible to have political discussions, now it's just people with immovable thoughts, who through stubbornness and the inability to see that their ideas /thoughts may be improved by taking on board other principles.
To concede someone else may be right is perceived as failure in the shouty debate.
In the old days, it was much more matey, down the pub, in some ones home, debate back and forth, taking points on board, moving your position slightly, sometimes completely.
Nowadays, it's like a badge of honour to some, "I am the politics GOD, I am right, you are wrong, you are a tiny little stupid man compared to me, I shall dismiss all points you make and treat you like a piece of dogst on my shoe"

[The Mad Monk]

Bob-iylho said:

Reading the NPE threads over the last 4-5 years it's become so black or white.
I'm right you are wrong. It's almost impossible to find a post saying "this is my thoughts but I get your point"
Has the internet, social media made it impossible to have political discussions, now it's just people with immovable thoughts, who through stubbornness and the inability to see that their ideas /thoughts may be improved by taking on board other principles.
To concede someone else may be right is perceived as failure in the shouty debate.
In the old days, it was much more matey, down the pub, in some ones home, debate back and forth, taking points on board, moving your position slightly, sometimes completely.
Nowadays, it's like a badge of honour to some, "I am the politics GOD, I am right, you are wrong, you are a tiny little stupid man compared to me, I shall dismiss all points you make and treat you like a piece of dogst on my shoe"

By and large, I agree with you.

Well, a bit.

The thing that I find hard to take is that people resort to abuse, insults and swearing, just because they happen to disagree with you.

I think that one thing which would help would be to ban all swearing, don't just obscure the bulk of the word, remove the word and then it would be pointless typing the word.

[NerveAgent]

In some threads, if you put some sort of middle of the road opinion, you get groups of people trying to stereotype you at the opposite extreme from them.

“If you are not 100% on message with us, then you are 100% against us” type mentality.

[roger.mellie]

Bob-iylho said:

Reading the NPE threads over the last 4-5 years it's become so black or white.
I'm right you are wrong. It's almost impossible to find a post saying "this is my thoughts but I get your point"
Has the internet, social media made it impossible to have political discussions, now it's just people with immovable thoughts, who through stubbornness and the inability to see that their ideas /thoughts may be improved by taking on board other principles.
To concede someone else may be right is perceived as failure in the shouty debate.
In the old days, it was much more matey, down the pub, in some ones home, debate back and forth, taking points on board, moving your position slightly, sometimes completely.
Nowadays, it's like a badge of honour to some, "I am the politics GOD, I am right, you are wrong, you are a tiny little stupid man compared to me, I shall dismiss all points you make and treat you like a piece of dogst on my shoe"

Ok boomer .

To answer the question - no but possibly your specs are a bit rose tinted. Times change. I was listening to a podcast the other day discussing how political campaigning has changed (I know sad but whatever) and how the importance of the party political broadcast has faded into insignificance in comparison to social media outlets depending on your target audience. The thing is it gives a loud voice to a vocal minority. Most don’t think that way. But the airways are full of people in complete opposition and the parties often like it that way at the party level. So to add a bit of light rather than heat I still think many at the local level vote based on how their local candidates serve the community, I know for a fact my mother recently changed her vote based on who responded to her need for a small bit of help on something. But the party system thrives on them vs us and social media is just an extension of their power to do that.

[LimaDelta]

I think it is possible to have a reasoned and intelligent discussion face-to-face. My close friends of 30+ years are of varying political persuasions, despite having broadly similar backgrounds and experiences growing up. We still manage to discuss emotive matters without resorting to ad-hominem attacks, violence, cancelling or anything else. Even the 20-somethings I work with can argue a point and respect a differing opinion (I think, they may just be politely disengaging). In real life I can debate hunting with vegans, Brexit with a lib-dem, immigration with an asylum lawyer, LGBT issues with gay friends, all without falling out with any of them.

I think a lot of the subtlety of communication is lost online, which leads to misinterpretation and overreaction to what are generally not that inflammatory remarks or opinions. Social media is not the real world (Twitter - I'm looking at you...)

[anonymous-user]

Yes and no.

[Murph7355]

Bob-iylho said:

Reading the NPE threads over the last 4-5 years it's become so black or white.
I'm right you are wrong. It's almost impossible to find a post saying "this is my thoughts but I get your point"
Has the internet, social media made it impossible to have political discussions, now it's just people with immovable thoughts, who through stubbornness and the inability to see that their ideas /thoughts may be improved by taking on board other principles.
To concede someone else may be right is perceived as failure in the shouty debate.
In the old days, it was much more matey, down the pub, in some ones home, debate back and forth, taking points on board, moving your position slightly, sometimes completely.
Nowadays, it's like a badge of honour to some, "I am the politics GOD, I am right, you are wrong, you are a tiny little stupid man compared to me, I shall dismiss all points you make and treat you like a piece of dogst on my shoe"

I suspect it's part of a much larger cycle.

I believe (hope) it will change. But it will take a long time. It'll get worse , but as things keep stretching to either extreme, eventually the discourse will snap, and then it will start to heal on more moderate ground, with people paying less attention to reactionary social media sources and a press intent on stirring everything up.

There'll always be people at either end trying to be heard and pull everything into black and white, but over time they'll be marginalised again and the cycle will repeat.

I mentioned the thought elsewhere that I think part of the problem is that we've all become way too comfortable and politics has responded by becoming too grey, faffing about with stuff that didn't really need it. And people are becoming tired of that.

We'll see

[QJumper]

Bob-iylho said:

In the old days, it was much more matey, down the pub, in some ones home, debate back and forth, taking points on board, moving your position slightly, sometimes completely.

The difference is that in the old days, if you came out with something ridiculous, your mates in the pub would ridicule you into seeing sense. Now, no matter how ridiculous your belief, you can find hundreds of thousands of people online who share that belief, and will validate you.