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Seasnek t1_itvkj2n wrote

Reply to comment by buddhamanjpb in Young voters are so important by mooscaretaker

Heres a crazy stastic for yah, in RI, we are number one in the country for frequently speaking to and spend time with friends/family, but rank very low for speaking to friends/family/neighbors about political/social issues and volunteering/participating in groups.

[maybe I should post the graphic in the subreddit as its own post, its very interesting]

we need a strong culture shift to talk to each other more!

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buddhamanjpb t1_itvxoit wrote

That's an interesting statistic. I know that from growing up here, the rule was always, never talk about politics or religion, but I've always felt in recent years that the rule no longer applies since everything in our world is now politicized.

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Seasnek t1_itvzaab wrote

Everything in our world was always political. Not talking about it led to assumptions that politics is separate. Now that we’re talking more about it, we can see the nuances of how government and policy affects our everyday lives.

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buddhamanjpb t1_itvzm6f wrote

It's made everyone segregated and even hate each other in some cases though.

I'm not sure about everything. Take masks for example. Something that got politized that had no business being portrayed that way.

I'm not sure which situation is worse. In a perfect world, we could disagree on something and come to a compromise, or find equal ground, but it's nasty out there.

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Seasnek t1_itw0gfa wrote

Ah your wording threw me off. You mean polarization, or when a topic is turned into a “support this or you’re bad” such as masks. Because pandemic response and public health is political, we have had responses to pandemics before and providing vaccines. You’re right that it was turned into an “issue” rather than being okay let’s put into policy that we will follow the best guidelines for responding to a pandemic. (Which again, is a political act)

If we as a culture practice talking to each other about difficult subjects rather than saying “just never talk about politics or religion” then it would get easier. It’s a skill to be able to have discussions with people. That’s a skill we all need to work on.

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