>> People seem to be increasingly concrete in their judgements about social, economic, and political issues that have nothing to do with them as individuals
I'm not discounting your point, I definitely know many people that get easily wound-up about issues that have nothing to do with them, but simply something to consider: If you're talking to strangers or acquaintances, are you really sure that the issues they are fighting about don't relate to them personally?
There are one or two political issues that I consider literally a matter of life-or-death. As in, I know people personally who would likely have died if a situation that happened to them a few years ago in one state in the US happened a few weeks ago in a different state in the US.
I agree with your general premise that people need to stop judging the world based on tropes - that's the problem that causes the political issues I'm thinking of - but it's hard not to occasionally get angry when people keep talking about life-or-death issues as if they're some sort of abstract galaxy brain.
Even if the political issue is literally life or death, chances are the actual person you're talking to has very little to do with the actual political outcomes. It still doesn't make sense to ostracize some for simply have different beliefs. For example, plenty of Muslims and Jews get along just fine in Jerusalem, even when they may have sympathies towards Hamas or Zionists respectively. It's these relationships that prevent future misunderstandings that lead to more suffering.
Yeah, it's suspect when people complain about getting judged for their views, then fail to state what the views are. It often turns out that the views in question are something that people have good reason to disapprove of - racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.
Sometimes tropes exist for a reason. After all, when someone says they think society judges certain views too harshly, it begs the question: which views?
Well, for example, the view that gay marriage should be legal. Until very recently this view was judged very harshly by society. Many people who had this view were afraid to express it. Of those people who today complain about not feeling safe to express their views, some of them may be horrible racist people as you suggest, but others are advanced thinkers who will eventually convince most of us to change our views. That is how and why the morals of society change and evolve with every generation.
No, it’s not the exact same logic, because I’m not discussing people’s immutable characteristics; I’m discussing communication styles, which are mutable, and the ideologies that tend to be associated with them, which are also mutable.
>No, it’s not the exact same logic, because I’m not discussing people’s immutable characteristics
It's literally the exact same logic, because racists discuss people's mutable characteristics as well.
>I’m discussing communication styles, which are mutable, and the ideologies that tend to be associated with them, which are also mutable.
You literally just described "SPEAK ENGLISH" and "if only Black people spoke properly and wore their pants up above their waist" (both mutable characteristics).
>Yeah, it's suspect when people complain about getting judged for their views, then fail to state what the views are.
Not at all. Definitely not in the era of "cancel culture".
>It often turns out that the views in question are something that people have good reason to disapprove of - racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.
It rarely turns out that the views in question are something that people have good reason to disapprove of - racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.
A few examples from past and current companies I've worked at:
1. Titling an apolitical presentation "Make Front-ends Great Again" caused several leftist activist employees to explode on Slack about fascist White supremacy culture.
2. "Believing" (this is an objective fact) that trans-women are biological male humans is hate speech and a firable offence.
3. Expressing the opinion that the company openly donating to shady BLM foundations[0], or any political group for that matter is not a good idea was shouted down as supporting the fascist, racist, White supremacist status quo.
The list goes on. These basic examples are more than enough to get a target on your back, and possibly fired.
> it's hard not to occasionally get angry when people keep talking about life-or-death issues as if they're some sort of abstract galaxy brain
I think that's the only way we can talk about life and death issues when we disagree. Of all the death I've been close to in my life, let's pick my father who died at least partly as a result of years of incompetent medical care in my hometown that wasn't uncovered until he landed in an ER in a different city. Does that give me the right get to angry and shut down conversations about medical care if people say something I disagree with?
I think there are a lot of people who would answer "yes," because they assume that a personal emotional connection to an issue, grounded in experience, always pushes people towards the truth. They love the rule that if somebody present has been personally affected by an issue, then they should get angry, and everybody else present should shut up and accept whatever they have to say. But they believe that because of the bubble they live in. On the rare occasions I get outside my bubble, I find that people's personal experiences most often deepen their commitment to whatever they already believed, even if it's something I think is wrong. For example, I met a conservative Christian who blamed permissive liberal culture for their gay brother suffering from drug addition and periodic homelessness (instead of thinking that maybe growing up gay in a conservative Christian household had something to do with it.) And of course you meet the people who consider themselves authorities on global warming because they grew up on a farm and remember how their family suffered during drought years. You don't know shit about the weather unless you've lived through that!
In truth both sides of the political divide in America tend to think that the other side must be emotionally disconnected and inauthentic, and emotional growth would naturally lead them to the truth. Growing up in a small town, I was frequently told that the reason I didn't believe in God was that I wasn't emotionally open to him. I was repressed and disconnected, too cerebral, and that's why I didn't feel His love. Most conservatives think that one reason liberals are able to believe such crazy things is that they derive their emotional sustenance from ideology instead of authentic connection with their neighbors and their community. Most liberals think the same thing about conservatives. Everyone thinks that their side's views are more grounded in authentic experience.
There is also a minority of people who value intellect over emotion, and those people believe the opposite: that their side is more rational and fact-driven, the other side is blindly emotional, and their side would triumph if emotion were excluded from discourse. That's not what I'm saying. I'm only saying that a personal connection to an issue shouldn't be treated as a trump card that can shut down a conversation.
Oh, I absolutely agree to the need to talk about life-and-death issues when we disagree. I don't want to shut down these conversations, but I want the conversation to be in good faith, and for people to really listen to each other's points. In particular, if someone does get angry or otherwise emotional in tone, that shouldn't forfeit their opportunity to present their opinion and supporting facts (as long as they aren't aggressive or belligerent about it).
It's entirely possible that I miss-interpreted what the GP meant by "fighting words". My interpretation was "passionate argument" not "verbal abuse."
I'm not discounting your point, I definitely know many people that get easily wound-up about issues that have nothing to do with them, but simply something to consider: If you're talking to strangers or acquaintances, are you really sure that the issues they are fighting about don't relate to them personally?
There are one or two political issues that I consider literally a matter of life-or-death. As in, I know people personally who would likely have died if a situation that happened to them a few years ago in one state in the US happened a few weeks ago in a different state in the US.
I agree with your general premise that people need to stop judging the world based on tropes - that's the problem that causes the political issues I'm thinking of - but it's hard not to occasionally get angry when people keep talking about life-or-death issues as if they're some sort of abstract galaxy brain.