By Ashlyn Beck | Staff Writer
Picture this: You’re out with your friend one afternoon after class. You drive down the street of a Waco neighborhood and see a sign in a front yard supporting yet another wildly controversial political figure. Your options are: A) keep driving and say nothing, preserving at least one more day of your friendship without tainting it with the hatred and anger created by political discourse, or B) comment on the sign, start a heated debate over said political figure, offend your friend or be offended by your friend and end up never feeling comfortable discussing politics with them ever again.
I think most of us would choose option A. When it comes to politics, the stakes are just too high. Anytime something political comes up, I make sure to act completely neutral to avoid starting a fight, and I think this is the case for a lot of people.
Politics isn’t the problem. We are. If we change the way we debate, we can help solve the problem of political polarization and villainization.
According to a poll conducted in May 2023 by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, 16% of adult Americans always feel comfortable discussing politics with others, while 64% of adult Americans censor their political discussions with some people.
Why is this? Has the world always been this way?
Studies show that it is a relatively recent occurrence. The Pew Research Center found that 85% of Americans believe political discussion has become less respectful since 2016.
I believe one of the reasons for these statistics is that politics has become personal. We have started to argue with people rather than with ideas and policies. In addition to this, we have begun to vilify those who take different stances than we do. I know this, because I do it too. I can’t count the times I have had a political discussion with family or friends and walked away thinking a little bit less of them because of their stance on an issue. The bottom line is that when we equate people to the ideas they hold, it ruins relationships — so much so that we all believe it is better to stay away from talking about politics in the first place.
This is not the way to improve. John Stuart Mill, a political philosopher from the 19th century, claimed that liberty of discussion is necessary in order to learn. We must exchange and share ideas, though they may not be completely right, so that we can learn from each other what they should be and how to defend them. I’ll admit, this philosophy is only useful if we don’t kill each other first. However, if we take steps to separate people and ideas and to discuss things with civility and care, we could learn more about each other and more about ourselves.
One reason why this is so hard is because our ideas are parts of us. We form our opinions precisely because of our passions and convictions, so naturally, we find it very difficult to understand how others can have different passions and convictions. However, we should test ourselves to challenge ideas separate from our moral convictions. Not only will it help us to learn and defend our ideas, but it might also help us to see the world through someone else’s eyes.