Why has it almost Become Impossible to Converse with and Enjoy Those Who Differ?

I want to help you out here, but I'm so drunk on the blue kool-aid that all I can come up with as an explanation is the growing gap between rich and poor.

I don't really get it either. I was raised by two devoutly religious and politically and socially conservative fundamentalist Southern Baptist parents, both of whom were born and raised in the south during segregation.

I am what I'd term more liberal/progressive politically and socially and although a spiritual person and believer in the Christian ethos I was raised with and in fact enveloped by - don't espouse or believe in alot of the same things the more fundamental and militant believers I was raised among believe.
Still, I am able to treat and move among my family and the people I grew up with with love and respect because I KNOW that although their beliefs might be different from mine - they are good, loving people worthy of my admiration and respect and love.
Their beliefs don't threaten mine.

And I don't believe that
1)southern=racist
2)religious=stupid
3)conservative=intolerant

because I have known and loved alot of religious, conservative, southern people who are not racist, stupid or intolerant.

Funnily enough, some people I've met and interacted with - here, on this forum and in real life who declare themselves the most 'liberal' are the most intolerant and first to absolutely shun those who don't fit into their idea of what a person should do, be, or say.
I find that to be the antithesis of what I'd consider a 'liberal' to be, do, embrace or espouse.

By the same token - I also don't believe the other generalizations that are often espoused such as:
4)American=ignorant and bad
5)European=reasonable and good
are true either.

And that's because, again, I've lived both places and can tell you that's a very broad and erroneous stereotype.

I think people who have to label and shun people for their beliefs, whether they are religious, political, or social and emotional are insecure with their own values and beliefs and sense of self.
They find it difficult to have their own thoughts and beliefs questioned and/or challenged, so instead of interacting, being open to engagement and possibly learning or accepting that others have legitimate thoughts and beliefs, they'd rather act as if those people don't exist. That way they're less of a threat.

we lash out at others who challenge our beliefs because we are insecure?

i am interested to know why the generational difference, we did not used to be this way. I think it was the late sixties when we first had any noticeable numbers of people who were willing to burn everything down over disagreements about beliefs, and even then they were a tiny minority. Now the vast majority of those in power in Washington are willing (or act like they are willing) to burn the nation to the ground over disagreements about beliefs.

we lack the ability to prioritize I think, but what is at the root of this problem? Ignorance? Insecurity? We think that we can get away with being self indulgent pricks so why not do it?

the Depression might have scared us into willingness to work together which we have lost. Hitler/Mao/Stalin might have scared us to the middle which we have lost.

Well, yeah - there's that. I think there DID used to be more of a general consensus of what was 'wrong' and/or 'right' and less of a vast divide. Now people seem to act as if they have the right to tell others that their beliefs, if they're different are WRONG.
And I see that from BOTH sides of the divide.
It's as if they view someone who views something differently from how they do as an indicator that they might be wrong - instead of just accepting that that person came from a different set of circumstances and life experiences that led his or her to choose a different path and have different perceptions.

That's what I mean - it can't just be that someone has politically conservative views - it has to be they're a racist, selfish, intolerant scumbag...
Why?
I think it's because giving any positive credit to the person who holds views one doesn't adhere to him or herself feels too much like giving positive credit to the views and maybe the person is not strong enough in his confidence of his or her views to understand that isn't so and not be threatened by it.

"love the sinner but hate the sin" and "we are all God's children" the pulpit always told us.....maybe in a post Christian era there is no force strong enough to overcome our petty tendencies?

Discussions on the Internet seem always to degenerate into name calling and fury. I suspect that has to do with the fact that the conversations are occurring, for the most part, long distance and with anonymity. And unfortunately "being rude in Internet discussions" apparently is a learned trait.

I started with Internet discussions at Abuzz. I have a record of my first 6 months of commentary...and I was as polite and deferential as I am in my personal contacts out here in the real world. (Mind you, out here I can be very assertive on contentious issues, but I do talk and act without all the bravado and "you are stupid" "you are an asshole" nonsense that seems to dominate conversations of disagreement in the forums.)

But after 6 months, I saw a marked change. I had learned to be gratuitously insulting...and saw all sorts of fury entering my posts.

I've got that under control now. I simply do not do it any more at all. I put out plenty of zingers...as we all do...but even those I do it with some finesse and without declaring that anyone disagreeing must be doing so because of intellectual or mental health problems.

I think each of us has to exercise self-control.

Lemme ask you this, Hawk: Do you see as much of the rancor and insults in the physical world as you do here in cyberspace...or is it predominantly a cyberspace problem that you are discussing?

I see the lack of willingness to put our differences aside and work together everywhere more than I did decades ago, this is not strickly an internet problem or even an american problem, though the internet may have something to do with it.

I really dont think that folks are at all interested in "discussing". Instead, they are interested in "Reciting". We all are that way (me included). Although, when we have a conversation where NOONE has any real anwers (Like the recent shootings in Conn), we seem to dig in our heels, repeat our own prejudices and beliefs, and to hell with anyone else.
Ive sorta given up on that thread, your either called names or an "idiot" because you dont agree with someone .

Too bad.

A lot of people are not interested in discussion because they are sure that they already know, their minds are closed. But this does not in any way explain the unwillingness to work together, the unwillingness to enjoy the company of those who do no agree with us.

I would like to get back to this as I don't understand it...I enjoy those who disagree with me almost as those who agree with me, and I learn more from those who don't agree with me which is hella cool so it is a wash. So many people consider it their duty to not be around, not converse with, not work with those who do not majorly agree with them. We see this here at A2K when almost everybody feels the need to start off with an appology when they want to take up something that I said in a positive way. Presumably this is because of some of my views that they don't agree with, for instance teen sexual freedom, sex law, or the state of males in America today. This is stupid, you don't build civilizations this way, this is a pissy way to live.

Well, I don't agree with any of your views on those issues, but I respect you for standing by them. More so I respect you for making actual rational arguments in support of your views.

It would be cool if A2K had more tolorant and open minded people....this place has gone majorly down hill over the last few years.

Go consider: selection bias, observational bias, and confirmation bias.

1) selection bias (esp. here on A2K): Only people who choose/find this website visit. Only those who choose to post their opinions do so.
2) observational bias: you only observe that which you're able to observe. You did not, for example, observe my family at Christmas, or our New Years Eve party, where plenty of people got along just fine.
3) confirmation bias: you probably don't notice all of the interactions where people get along.

I dont get involved in many of those threads because I have nothing substantive to offer. I peeked in the one thread about "rape" and was a bit unnerved and somewhat amused in a black comedic fashion.

O A2k, I can only say that the guys I frequently disagree with , only 2 (roger and georgeob) take time with their arguments and try to maintain civility. Guys like H2O MAN are a waste of my time in most cases. Im trying to see if we cant raise the level a bit and reach some accords.
If the discussion gets too many give and takes of insult (beyond a page), it isnt worth the time because all were doing is trying to be clever.

This is truly important consideration. Any number of people come here to set up their soap box, from which they flog their preferred dead horse. You don't see them in the nerd humor thread, you don't see them in the funny signs thread, you don't see them in the caption the cartoon thread. You don't see them in any number of threads in which people wish others a happy birthday, or to commiserate with them over their miseries, or to congratulate them for their minor triumphs. You don't see them in the many threads that lots of our long term members start just for some silly fun.

The people who are obsessed with politics, religion, or any more particular hobby horse they come here to ride accuse others of incivility and anger. Those are convenient for them, and the more so as they are often pruveyors of passive-aggressive insults themselves. Those people don't participate in the community the way so many of the long-term members do. I've started silly threads, or music threads into which people who have previously decided that i am their enemy wander, participate, and sometimes express their surprise for not being savaged for posting a music video.

This is like hanging around only on the side of the town where the gangs congregate and then saying the city is best by violence and hostility.

Given the large numbers of people who have departed or rarely post anymore claiming that the tone here puts them off your argument that this is all misperception is a dog that will not hunt. Furthermore no one can anymore argue very well that America is solving our most pressing problems, or even talking intelligently about them. We are either unable or unwilling to work together or socialize together, this is a fact that even an old fool like you can not piss away with throwing lots of words at it like you are want to do. The question on the table is why are we like this now?

Nice straw man--i made no such argument, and please spare me the phony country boy palaver. Your ipse dixit claims about the state of the nation are, as is most of what you post, both unsubstantiated and another pathetic attempt to play the unheeded prophet. I'm not going to participate in yet another of your silly egocentric, overblown flights of fancy.

No question is "on the table" until it is shown that it is a valid question. You haven't done that. That's par for the course.

In my lifetime, the most contentious time i've seen was forty years ago. From 1965--the escalation of the Vietnam War--to 1975--the end of that war--people were never so alienated, divided, contentious and down-right hostile. People shouted at one another in public places. On college campuses, the SDS would hold a demonstration, so the YAF would hold a counter-demonstration, and often enough it ended in blows. Michener's book on Kent States shows him to be a naive, middle class white boy fool, but he had a lot of graduate students working for him. They went out and interviewed hundreds of students and their families after so many universities were shut down that spring of 1970. Of the hundreds of students they interviewed, hundreds of those students told them that their parents had said that if they (the children) were ever in such a demonstration, they hoped the National Guard would shoot them. That was a time of a truly divided and angry society. Today's society is a very type of an homogenous, harmonious society in comparison.

You're just blowin' smoke, and attempting to burnish your silly delusion of being a wise and thoughtful man, and a conciliator. I'm not buyin' it.

do you really expect anyone to believe you? the counter culture was so labeled because they were in opposition to a well populated majority. what we have today is a much more divided nation.

and you are still evading the question: why are we now either unwilling or unable to be together?