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In the U.K. I’d point to the General Strike of 1926 as a time when people were more polarized and I might add substantially prone to more political violence. Y
by JackFr 6y ago
In the U.K. I’d point to the General Strike of 1926 as a time when people were more polarized and I might add substantially prone to more political violence. Yes, it was nearly a century ago, but we’re often subject to recent bias wheN we think the current time is special.
In the U.S. when someone points out that we've never been more polarized, it’s always easy to point out that a couple million men took up arms against each other during the civil war. But more recently between 1965 and 1968 there were riots in a dozen U.S. cities including N.Y., Chicago, L.A., Detroit, Newark , Baltimore and Washington which required use of the National Guard or army to restore order. We see nothing like that today.
- mistermann 6y agoAnd for good reason: https://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1965.html https://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1965... https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/martin-luther-king-jr-the-later-years-1965-1968/uyGek3MpmmPtXC6J https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/martin-luther-king-jr... > We see nothing like that today. True, but knowing why that is the case is hard to do. Are modern day Americans more supportive of military adventures in far away lands that kill thousands of innocent people, or is it that we hardly see anything about it on the news, especially images of dead bodies? Similarly, are Americans now satisfied with the level of equality and justice currently enjoyed by the African American community, or are they occupied by other distractions? Riots in the streets seem to have been largely replaced by arguments in internet forums, particularly Reddit, where you will find not only large amounts of "unrest", but also a significant amount of mental illness - people who have completely lost touch with reality.