I don’t understand the divide and it’s driving me crazy

[Wizardking]

Please note that I know I might be very naive and gullible but these are just my thoughts. I want to understand. Please help me come to a deeper understanding as I am in constant internal conflict on what to believe.

Politically, I’ve always been quite center. I see both sides of most issues and may lean just slightly toward one or the other. This makes it hard to form strong opinions about what’s right or wrong. Growing up, I was surrounded by hatred of the right, whether from family, friends or teachers. Even though I tend to more often lean a bit left, I’ve always had a lot of understanding for the right. The hatred towards them has always rubbed me the wrong way. Especially when expressed by parents and teachers to impressionable kids. In school I would always question other students beliefs because I couldn’t understand how they could be so sure. To me they often just sounded brainwashed. They could never really back up their claims and it just sounded like they were parroting.

 

I was a straight A student even though I only had a 40% attendance rate due to recurring periods of depression, so I used to believe that I was intellectually gifted, but in the past 3-4 years I’ve really been struggling with self-doubt. I see people with such strong opinions that I wonder if I’m missing something. It’s destroyed my trust not just in myself but in others too. I’ve tried to understand those who hold strong stances but I’m rarely convinced that they are justified.

 

Regarding the election, I find it hard to understand the hatred towards Trump. I don’t see how people are so certain that he is “evil.” He and his supporters claim that the Democrats manipulate public opinion with propaganda and censorship and from what Ive seen this often seems to be true. Like Hunter Bidens laptop, censoring Covid vaccine discussions on Meta, shadow banning the Joe Rogan x Trump podcast. In general whenever I go online I only see left wing takes. Even though I may agree more with Kamala on most issues, I’m completely put off by what feels like attempts to manipulate public perception and I believe this is why she lost.

 

Similarly, I struggle to understand the hatred towards Joe Rogan and Elon Musk. To me, they both seem rational, wise and well intentioned. But I’m aware I could be wrong. I know I tend to see the best in people and I’m open to the possibility of me having been fooled. 

 

In this age of polarized media, how do I find what’s true? Both sides present evidence for their perspectives and both seem to manipulate information to fit their agenda. Do you just go based on character? And wouldn’t the censorship and propaganda from the democrats then be a huge red flag in their character? I’d appreciate any insights that could help me sort through this conflict and make sense of it all. Thanks 

Edited November 7, 2024 by Wizardking

[Leo Gura]

If you want to understand things, read books. Stop consuming endless social media opinions. Opinions are not knowledge or learning.

How many books have you read on Trump, Bush, Reagan, fascism, corruption, history, political science, capitalism?

There is your answer.

Edited November 7, 2024 by Leo Gura

[Talinn]

I am sort of the same way, I grew up in a Republican family in a rural area in Colorado. A lot of these rural people care about values like the cohesion of the family, independence from the government, self-reliance. They go to church and pay taxes and of course at first didn't seem nefarious or dangerous or whatever.

A lot of people parrot political points but this is no different than in any other field. People parrot things in every field or area of life to form some sort of mental glue that helps people's minds get organized around all the chaos of life (not just political chaos, but actual chaos). It grants a sense of stability in a volatile and uncertain world

Some of the differences are just largely genetic, like if you watch Elon's reaction to Trump's assassination -- someone higher on the neuroticism scale on the Big 5 personality traits might perceive Elon's reaction of subtle or masked joy that violence took place (and that Trump survived). Others will see it only as Elon being happy that Trump lived of Elon and not find anything weird about his reaction. Not sure if that's the best example.

I think a big indicator of a person is to look at their personal detail THOROUGHLY. Too many people only get brief glimpses and vote based that. No, that doesn't make sense, you need to evaluate the whole person and look very carefuly.  If a person has a trail of lawsuits, complaints, legal actions against him dating to the 1970's, even before he was in the political scene, a person, based partially on genetics can reasonably conclude that something is "wrong" with this person. That's the case of Trump, and it's only a short of bread crumb trails that most people in his orbit share similar values as him since that's true of most professional relationships, you might not be best friends with your coworkers but you both operate under the same assumptions of how to act when you're in your job. Similar to Trump being examined, if we go to Elon Musk, he bought twitter and allowed it to be a nest for far right people and changed the algorithm to promote his own tweets, I just can't see that as being wise..The left has mostly...journalists.

Journalists look like they're spinning things to you for a variety of reasons, they may be covering things in a way that supports their own mental health; they may be paid to say such things ( I think that mainstream media is pretty flawed in this country), they may simply be trying to comprehensive to not bore listeners with the same topics over and over, it could be anything because *journalists are people too*. Too many people see journalists as like ...data bytes or machines sent out by the evil corporate machines of news anchors. No, they're just doing their job, the job they went to school for several years for...

I don't really know what the MSM or Democrats are censoring other than the amount of people we helped kill in Israel. I don't know what you're referring to there.

Edited November 7, 2024 by Talinn

[EternalForest]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with you. You're simply a centrist who's still sane in this politically radicalized world. Most people were like you back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, etc.

[sholomar]

Wizard, these people are not enlightened. Stop letting them gaslight you into thinking they are.  They are stage greens who believe their stage green beliefs,  just like blues and oranges do.  They get very emotionally charged when those beliefs are questioned.  They think they have all the answers for the other spiral dynamics stages and think it's their job to convert the world, just like religious people used to do. Stage green is just another belief system.  

Perhaps its more evolved but it's not for everyone, especially with the subtle jabs they always make towards the right in popular culture. They have this perception of the right that is largely a stereotype or caricature and not how average people actually behave. That said the right have the same stereotypes about the left. It's rare average people behave exactly like the political caricatures portrayed by their party.

I don't blame them because Trump is a troll, and some of the things that come out of his mouth should not be. Doesn't mean his policies will match.

Edited November 7, 2024 by sholomar

[Joshe]

@Wizardking 

The divide essentially comes down to this:

You have left wing and right wing and both sides are engaged in a culture war. Enter Trump, a con artist. The problem is, many people are biased towards the mouthpiece speaking on behalf of their culture war, so this makes them sweep his con artistry under the rug. It's self-deception. They can't see it because they don't want to see it.

Also, most of the left is thoroughly propagandized, just like much of the right. So even the people on the left calling Trump an evil con artist are often thoroughly self-deceived as well. But... that doesn't mean they're wrong about who and what Trump is. I suspect this is what is confusing to you about it. 

So know this: You can know the truth of what Trump is without joining either side. It is either true that he's a devilish con artist or it's not. Now, how can you tell for yourself if the claim is true? 

For starters, don't listen to the left or the right, especially people who have skin in the culture war game. 

Next, how good can you read people? Because if you go research Trump, if you can read people accurately, you should be able to pick up on at least some subtle clues that lend credence to the claim. If you can read people well enough, you can see it for yourself and you will need no one to tell you what's what. If you can see and if you look enough, the evidence starts to pile up fast, and when viewed all together, it paints a picture of a total con artist and it will be incredibly obvious. Then you'll know what all the fuss is about. 

If you can't read people, then I'm not sure what to tell you because it's just something I've always been able to do, so I don't know how you'd go about learning how to do that. I think a lot of it is years of observation and honing intuition, as well as knowing the devil in yourself. 

Remember, it's either true or not. Many intelligent and wise people tell you it's true. That should be a very good indicator that it could be true and if you want to know what is true, try to see what they are saying, but don't take their word for it. Try to see it for yourself. I hope you can. 

 

Edited November 7, 2024 by Joshe

[Tanz]

The ego wants to be unhappy, it wants to keep the illusion, it wants to create suffering.  

A majority of people have not done spiritual work, the ones that do, are still in the early stages and project out their shadows onto others.  

Thats your answer in a nut shell.  

[Wizardking]

15 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

If you want to understand things, read books. Stop consuming endless social media opinions. Opinions are not knowledge or learning.

How many books have you read on Trump, Bush, Reagan, fascism, corruption, history, political science, capitalism?

There is your answer.

I read books about other topics than politics but don’t see how that is a better way of learning than watching YouTube videos and listening to podcasts/audiobooks, which is what I mostly do for politics nowadays. I only read to wind down before bed and practice attention. Do you believe reading is better? If so, why? 
 

And the issue of knowing if the author(s) can be trusted is still there. How do you navigate that?