"In the past, political discourse was mostly civil, characterised by polite but firm disagreement between men and women willing to acknowledge that their opponents were at least well-meaning. There was very little presumption of malice.
"Today, things are quite different. In almost all countries now, political discourse has grown toxic. The Left in particular now believe that if anyone disagrees with their solutions, it indicates that they also disagree with their goals.
"And as the problems they claim to be trying to solve include racism, poverty, climate change etc, they therefore conclude that by opposing these goals, their opponents are callously trying to destroy humanity and the world.
"Presuming nothing but malice, they now believe they are facing demons, not morons....
"The Right’s supporters, by contrast, are energised by their political opponents’ escalations, and typically respond with even more outrageous escalations of their own. The fear inspired by these tactics is even less conducive to normal political engagement....
"And of course when you think your opponent is pure evil and hell-bent on destroying humanity and the planet, almost any activity, no matter how morally questionable, becomes justifiable....
" [W]hat cannot be denied is that the toxicity of modern political discourse is now so serious that it is polluting us all – friends and families who once loved each other and paid little attention to the political wranglings of the day are now being fractious with one another, as they are convinced the causes they believe in are too serious to be ignored and any opponent too irresponsible to be tolerated....
"[I]f we don’t calm down soon we will be too groggy to implement the solutions.
"Possibly even to comprehend the problem."~ composite quote from Alex Noble, from his post 'The Scrubbers Are Failing' and Chris Trotter from his post 'Much Worse Than it Looks'
Wednesday, 9 November 2022
"In the past, political discourse was mostly civil. Today, things are quite different."
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2 comments:
That's a great composite quote, integrating the observations of the better commentators on both sides of politics into a consistent theme. Trotter is a leftist but at least he's an honest leftist.
With the right increasingly losing their mind too, as bad or sometimes worse than the left, there's perhaps something to Rob Tracinski's 'fusionist' idea - trying to forge new alliances of the better people from both left and right around things they can agree on.
Further research suggests I’ve got my labels wrong. What RT was advocating is not called “fusionism”. Fusionism is the increasingly outdated idea that free market libertarians and conservative religionists should put aside their differences and cooperate politically based on what they have in common. But recent history suggests they generally now have little in common. What RT suggests is a new coalition around the concept of “liberalism”, combining those on the right who are generally pro-freedom in the economic sphere (albeit possibly sceptical of it in the social sphere), and those on the left who are generally pro-freedom in the social sphere (albeit possibly sceptical in the economic sphere).
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