Published on 12, July, 2020
because of the arguments, why not hibernate?
I have done this before.
You can change your name to 'hibernating'.
It's good psychologically because it stops me from posting and indicates to others that you are having a break.
Also, you can choose to still PM (which I do) which isolates you less.
Roy has chosen to do this yesterday.
I've been told by one person that someone they knew was thinking of joining but didn't because of the disagreements, others post far less, others join and then stay a short while.
I was sad to read Billy87 s post today.
To the new people here: it's not always like this and only certain subjects are incendiary so if you can manage to avoid reading them, that would help.
I am guilty of having joined into arguments because I also feel passionately about certain subjects and I expect I will occasionally still make my point.
However, I think restraint here is the key and personal insults should never be acceptable.
I dearly hope that this thread doesn't go the same way as my 'arguments' thread and become one almightly row ...
You know when I was a student in my local universe there was a Jewish society and an Islamic society. And every now and again the Islamic society would try to use the student union’s referendum system to pass a resolution condemning the ‘occupation’ of Israel. And the Jewish society would in response try to use the referendum system to pass a resolution condemning Islamic terrorism in Israel. At one point there were protests and counter protests facing each other outside of the student union building. This was over 10 years ago now.
ANd of course the student union response was to bury their head in the sand and try to make it all go away. they tweaked the referendum system so that they could veto these referendums before they got started. They clampdown on any kind of controversial public speaking by these particular societies. Now look outside your window and what do we have. Extremists marching down the streets praising terrorist groups in the name of freeing Palestine. And to be evenhanded a disturbing lack of criticism of Israeli military policy. Suppressing debate normalises extremist views within cliques until some dramatic event brings it to the for and suddenly you realise but there are quite a lot of extremists because they’ve never had their views challenged in public debate. Because our approach to controversy has been to try and sideline it rather than addressing it.
Great post Peter, although I'm no quite sure what it is doing on this particular thread. It deserves to have it's own thread were we can discuss, debate, share, disagree, etc.
I'm no expert on what is going on in the Middle East right now. I have my perceived ideas, of which there may be a lot of ignorance (not prejudice) and am more than happy to be educated on.
I think my point was when I was a student I agreed they should just shut up. I may not have approved of the way the student union handled it but I broadly thought the people protesting should be told to shut up.
I now realise I was wrong. this conflict is needed. regular grinding of these gear teeth against each other stops things from getting too extreme. People hate conflict and arguments but it’s like medicine you may not enjoy it but it’s good for you and you need it.
it stops you from living in a bubble where you’ve become delusional about the way the world really is, where you come to believe that everyone who disagrees with you is a monster and an enemy. It helps stop you from becoming oversensitive and unable to separate people who disagree with you from people who hate you, unable to separate attacks on your opinions from attacks on you personally.
we need these conflicts these arguments because they are the vaccine against extremism and snowflake oversensitivity.
but that's what happens isn't it when a sociaty decides to disengage with people who's view they don't like. It doesn't stop the hate. People split off into bubbles where everyone agrees with them and then start arguing against imaginary straw men whoes straw men hypothetical positions get more extreem. So the bubbles position gets more extreen in responce.
Let me make it very clear I'mnot expecting the end result of all this argument to be agreement. A harmonious meeting of minds. I'm expecting something much more humbel. Understanding, maybe a little respect. Supresing the debate won't quell the anger, it will just give it space to grow out of sight unchecked.
I can understand your argument but my experience is that most people just dig their heels in and hate “the other” even more.
In Scotland we had an independence referendums 9 years ago. The nationalists constantly attacked everyone else, called us traitors and quislings, told us we were “anti Scottish”, told us to leave Scotland and threatened all sorts of retribution after independence. Facebook, twitter etc became segmented into those for and against. Families fell out.
Nearly a decade later our social media and politics is still segmented this way. Everyone has blocked everyone from the “other side” and hears only the same old stuff from those that already agree with them.
So my experience is that sometimes people really need to just stop and listen and think, and perhaps say nothing at all.