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I'm not sure controversial issues and neuroticism breaking up parties is new whatsoever. I have read too many things that sound exactly like what you've written
by HEmanZ 4y ago
I'm not sure controversial issues and neuroticism breaking up parties is new whatsoever. I have read too many things that sound exactly like what you've written from the 70s, 50s, 30s, 20s, 10s, 1880s, ..... Even in the 1500s aristocrats in France complained about throwing fewer "parties" because of the spicy topic of Catholic vs Protestant.
Generally, if parties are decreasing, I would argue it is more because there is so much new and very good entertainment that is just way lower effort. I don't know we need politics or ideology to explain it, these things aren't new.
- HEmanZ 4y agoAnd just to add to this, I actually think the political polarization of today is just not substantial compared to many other eras. Every generation since the early modern period thinks it’s politics are the most controversial. But the 1880-1950ish era sticks out to me as special. That was the era of real progressivism, communism, socialism, fascism, teetotalers, religious revival, super-powered unions, monopolistic capitalism, wars of political ideology, passivism, hardcore nationalism, etc. It had just so much more ideology dividing people than our world today. The generations that really lived it are dead and many people have forgotten now, but it just takes a bit of reading from that era to see how vehemently politically divided people were.
- narrator 4y agoPeople had a rule back then that you didn't talk about sex, politics, or religion. Now sex and politics in terms of gender identity, sexual orientation and all the other flavors of identity politics are front and center in a lot of people's minds on a day to day basis.
- fknorangesite 4y agoI know, right? Parties were way better when we forced everyone to stay in the closet. You know - the good old days!
- HEmanZ 4y agoI believe this is some kind of false cultural memory. Just because the topics are new doesn’t mean the underlying divide and ideological debate are different or less vehement. Today its “what is gender”, yesteryear it was “should women vote”. Today its the LGBTQ agenda, yesteryear it was prostitution, porn, infidelity, marriage debates. Today it is political religions, yesteryear it was “Does God allow re-marriage?” “Do Catholics go to hell?”. Today we align along ideologies on twitter, yesteryear we aligned by joining the Elks or the Masons or the unions. There is nothing new under the sun.
- HEmanZ 4y agoAlso do you really think the table stakes for modern debates are anything close to what was going on at the turn of the century? Gender identity really compares to “should women vote”? Discussions around race today have the same stakes as “Are white people the biologically superior race?” Political discussions today compare to real considerations of Communism (NOT “them liberals is communists”, but real deal communism was on the table) The only really new, big stakes discussion I see on the table today is climate change. Everything else has been more or less hashed out by generations now dead.
- motohagiography 4y agoEven though I agree I'd ask, what it was we didn't learn from these examples that we are doing it yet again? We know how those all ended, and I think being able to throw good parties may be the way we keep it from going the same way.
- havblue 4y ago"I'm sorry I ruined your Black Panther Party." Forrest Gump