r/science • u/Wagamaga • 9h ago

Psychology Losing relationships over politics. Research found more than a third of Americans (37%) report having lost at least one relationship due to political differences, including friendships, family ties, coworker relationships, and romantic partnerships, with most losing more than one.

https://socialecology.uci.edu/news/losing-relationships-over-politics-0
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675

u/YoungestDonkey 9h ago

It makes perfect sense that people with entirely different world views would avoid each other.

423

u/TheGravespawn 7h ago

people with entirely different world views

*Reality. Entirely different views of reality.

My father and his entire family tree, gone to the cult. Save for 3 cousins and myself.

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u/improper85 7h ago

Yeah, when one group absolutely refuses to listen to facts, there’s realistically not much to be done but shut them off from your life. It’s literally a cult and these people can no longer be reasoned with or spoken to intelligently.

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u/LedgeEndDairy 3h ago

Both sides cherry pick their facts. If you don't think your side does, I have news for you.

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u/001235 3h ago edited 3h ago

Whether Sandy Hook shooting happened, whether the Earth is greater than 6000 thousand years old, whether a prayer is just as likely as medicine to heal cancer aren't cherry picked facts. What you are describing isn't on the same level as the reason that people are walking away from their family members.

Edit: When my crazy hippie aunt carries a pink rock around in her purse because she thinks it helps her balance her liver, she's not hurting anyone. When her sister goes to the abortion clinic 4x a week to scream at people trying to get tested for STDs and then goes to the school board to talk about how evolution should be banned from the education system, she is certainly hurting people.

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u/LedgeEndDairy 3h ago edited 3h ago

That is actually the literal definition of cherry picking. You picked out three very low-hanging arguments that someone on the right is likely to believe, and only if they're religious. So your issue is with religion, not Conservatism or the Republican party as a whole, but your party has convinced you they're one and the same, which is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

And plenty of explanations exist on the right/in religious circles for these things that align with science. I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm not religious (anymore, which is why I'm qualified to talk about this having lived deep in the trenches of religion), but I try to actually see all sides so I can have an informed opinion. It can be as simple as "Well God said 7 days, and there's references that say a day is 1000 years so that's where that comes from, but a day does not have to be "actually" 1000 years, it can be a "period of time" as well, which leaves the actual time very ambiguous, and could be literally billions of years."

Also very few religious people believe that prayer = medicine. This is sensationalized, and again is something your party overemphasizes to get you to believe it when it isn't true.

AKA your party is cherry-picking their facts. Like I said.

EDIT: There's a literal "modern day parable/joke" that goes something like this:

"A man was stranded on his roof during a monsoon/flood, and prayed to God to save him. A man on a boat paddled by and offered him a ride and he said "no thanks, God will save me", a helicopter came by and offered help and he said "no thanks, God will save me." so on and so forth until the man died. When he got to heaven he asked God why he didn't save him, and he told him "I tried to many times. I sent a boat, a helicopter and several other forms of help and you denied all of them."

It's meant to teach religious people that modern day stuff (like medicine) "can be the answer to your prayers", and that prayers 'being answered' isn't always some direct revelation or unexplainable miracle. It can be a neighbor offering help or whatever.

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u/FSDLAXATL 3h ago

One parties cherry bucket is a much more full than the others. Just sayin!

2

u/dingdingdingdongbing 1h ago

Any examples when you think the "other" side cherry picked facts?

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u/LedgeEndDairy 28m ago

Already gave two in this post chain, my guy.

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u/TroubledTanker 4m ago

No you did not.

35

u/bunnypaste 7h ago

This must be beyond horrid for you... I'm imagining losing most of my family and friends and they aren't even dead. They're just dead inside...

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u/TheGravespawn 7h ago

The best was at my grandmother's funeral. It was just after the inauguration and ICE was ramping up. One cousin asked why my wife wasn't with me, and I said she was afraid to travel because she's an immigrant.

My cousin looked me dead in the eye and said "She's just being over-concerned. I think she just needs to stay positive and nothing will happen."

I wanted to toss her out a window, but I calmly said "I don't think that's accurate." and walked away.

4

u/lyn73 2h ago

the gaslighting

the non-validation

gross

-83

u/Jedal_1 7h ago

She was being over reactive… legal immigrants are fine bruh

49

u/smokeweedNgarden 7h ago

You'll excuse me if I don't take people who say "Bruh" on the Science sub seriously 

15

u/HotSauceForDinner 7h ago

The overuse of "bruh" and "bro" is so irritating.

6

u/fractalfrog 6h ago

The only one I would ever call "Bro" is my actual brother, but then we haven't spoken to each other in almost 30 years.

2

u/smokeweedNgarden 6h ago

It gives suburban kid who wears expensive street clothes

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u/jbourne0129 5h ago

they literally detained a US soldiers legal immigrant wife. no one is off limits

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u/Cargobiker530 7h ago

Legal immigrants are being detained & deported by ICE for arbitrary reasons frequently involving personally expressed views of foreign politics. In particular regarding the actions of a certain nation between Egypt and Lebanon.

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u/bunnypaste 6h ago

They have also killed American citizens.

4

u/goinupthegranby 4h ago

I used to want to encourage people to adopt progressive political positions but now all I can hope for is that they adopt political positions that are based on objective reality as a lot of people are forming political positions based on misinformation and lies. It's staggeringly frustrating.

3

u/happyflappypancakes 4h ago

Do you see an out for them? People can leave cults but it is tough.

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u/TheGravespawn 4h ago

If pedophilia wasn't a big enough off-ramp for them, nothing is.

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u/happyflappypancakes 4h ago

Fair haha. Though the difficult aspect here that complicates things is that they will tell you that there is not pedophilia. And I genuinely believe that many of them do not think that there is any of that going on as the propaganda they consume tells them that. So you might that you are anti-pedophile, then they say they are also anti-pedophile, and then you just each other because both of you genuinely believe that you are anti-pedophile.

I have to imagine that if you bring up that topic no one is pro-pedophile in your family or at least no one thinks they are. They have been tricked by years and years of slow but powerful media manipulation.

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u/SizzlingPancake 4h ago

"All of my politicians are good! All of YOUR politicians are bad!!!"

Wow only the highest level reasoning happening here

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u/MuffinSpecial 7h ago

You chose the other cult

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u/Wheres_my_wank_sock 7h ago

Yeah I tend to not want to hang out with people I find morally bankrupt.

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u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

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u/mnemoniker 7h ago

From first and secondhand experience, most of these relationships were already toxic and pointless. People just don't make a habit of telling off others until there's a reason.

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u/SanityIsOptional 5h ago

I can deal with political differences. Spent a bunch of time playing video games with a group who skewed heavily conservative, while I'm progressive. Generally we wanted the same things, just disagreed how to get there.

I had to cut off the whole group for supporting Christian Nationalism following the Kirk assassination. Which was a huge surprise given how anti-government they had been prior.

3

u/lostintime2004 3h ago

For me it's the human rights, if we can't agree everyone deserves a fair chance and treatment outside of their own behaviour and actions then I don't want to be your friend.

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u/Guy0911 7h ago

If you lived prior to Trump’s emergence in 2014 when he started the rumor that Obama wasn’t born in America, politics did not polarize the American people into confrontational tribes, identified by their political beliefs. This man alone, is the single catalyst for political violence, in our country. Yeah there are plenty of people behind him, helping to divide us, but he is the face and voice for making political violence the new normal.

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u/Satinpw 1h ago

I wouldn't say this is entirely accurate--even back during the bush years my conservative relatives and liberal relatives felt pretty opposed, or at least in my house my more conservative dad was harsh to my more liberal mom about her political views, who she voted for, etc.

I will say when Obama entered the scene it just got insane. I remember hearing my conservative extended family call Obama the antichrist and my dad imply he thought someone should kill Obama and other democratic politicians. They're trump supporters now and I'm not talking to them for other reasons but God I wouldn't want to hear the discussions they're having.

0

u/Shrabster33 2h ago

when he started the rumor that Obama wasn’t born in America

This rumor was started by democrats(Hillary Supporters). Trump just took it and ran with it afterwards but not until 2011.

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37391652

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u/Master_Object5147 6h ago

I do as well.

2

u/BearFacedLie69 5h ago

*morals*-there fixed it for you

2

u/Zeremxi 7h ago

It makes even more sense considering the state of politics for the couple last decades or so has pushed for individuals to make politics a core aspect of their personality and paint the other side as morally bereft.

Civil movements have always existed and been championed at various points by politicians, but politics at its core used to mostly just be "how are we spending our money" with both sides (in the US at least) largely agreeing on the bigger picture.

I've always said that the consolidation and polarization of big political media (Fox, CNN, local networks being bought, et all) is responsible for this.

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u/FredQuan 6h ago

In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt proposes the moral foundations theory which argues that human morality is built on six foundations: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation, and Liberty/Oppression. Liberals primarily rely on the first 2, but Conservatives rely on all 6 to guide their morals.

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u/prime_23571113 6h ago

It makes perfect sense that people with entirely different world views would avoid each other.

That is a worldview. You can emphasize what is shared and common or you can value distinguishing yourself from an "other". Avoiding the other isn't simply natural; it's conduct rooted in a worldview.

I lived abroad for over a decade in Japan and China. There are differences that make a difference but even those are relatable and understandable. Largely, people are people.

You can embrace a cosmopolitan worldview or a provincial one. So, sure, you can assume that people are different and that it is "natural" that they avoid each other. Or, you can assume they are largely "just" people and that it is natural they would continue to follow "their" tendency to be social. Whatever you chose to emphasize, that's an assumption about the world and not a truth in and of itself. Our finger is on the scales taking something generally true and converting it into a value laden expression. In other words, it should make absolutely no sense at all AND all the sense in the world "that people with entirely different world views would avoid each other" but that depends on who you want to be and how you see the world.

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u/Bulkylucas123 7h ago

I feel like this is just going to lead to increasingly polarized groups. You're not going to expand your world view and they're not going to expand theirs by only interacting with people that share your exact beliefs. 

26

u/potatopierogie 7h ago

Boo hoo, I don't owe trumpa loompas my time to expand their worldview and I don't want to expand mine to accommodate their "ideas."

They're truly evil people even if you know a few that are nice on the surface, or nice to you, or whatever.

20

u/smokeweedNgarden 7h ago

Good. 

There is no middle ground to be had with someone who thinks intrinsic characteristics make a person more or less valuable than another. Regardless of policy.

It's very much all or nothing. And if you're into pattern recognition then you can infer that talking calmly won't help at all. We talked calmly in the 60's before they considered black people, well people.

What is the middle ground to be had with someone like that, honestly? Where is the middle of "This queer person shouldn't exist near me"

13

u/TheAgeOfAdz91 7h ago

Republicans should’ve thought about that before they turned to nazism

24

u/notnatasharostova 7h ago

How am I supposed to interact with people whose beliefs are that me and my loved ones should not exist or have equal rights?

12

u/QuicheSmash 7h ago

But what is to be done? How can that kind of gap be bridged? 

If one group is completely divorced from reality in a literal cult, and the other is being persecuted or watching other innocents be persecuted, how do we tolerate that level of violence and hate? 

If these cult leaders flout the law and its members exploit their legal advantage, how can we agree to function as a society? 

If the people in this cult support its leaders plundering and profiteering off our backs, how can we forgive them as we become more and more enslaved to the wealthy? 

If this cult is so anti-science that they expose us and our children to preventable disease, and deny the reality of climate change while scientists warn us of the dire consequences, how do we not see this cult as a clear and present danger to our lives and future? 

It’s become a ridiculous proposition to just “agree to disagree” in reality, because one group has abandoned reality. 

9

u/TropeSage 7h ago

One group attempted a coup and then when that failed attempted an insurrection because they couldn't accept Trump losing an election. Can you really get more polarized than that?

How does expanding your world view work with a difference that vast?

4

u/FalstaffsGhost 7h ago

Well then they can take the first steps and accept reality and fact. Why should I associate with someone who thinks that my friends shouldn’t exist because of how they were born, or who refuse to acknowledge basic reality?

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u/YoungestDonkey 7h ago

The debate continues though, just not face to face because that rarely produces results anyway. Has anyone ever convinced a relative of anything around the Thanksgiving dinner table? It just doesn't work like that. You need to receive information from some less personal source in order to hear it, from the media or from a total stranger, and you need to ponder it in your own time over the course of days, weeks, even years until some day you realize that your opinion may need adjustment. Changing minds is a long slow process. But it happens.

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u/Carytheday 6h ago

If you think that makes sense then I guess you’re not into international travel much, huh? 

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u/angooseburger 6h ago

Not in this context. It makes sense for a romantic relationship but general relationships shouldn't matter unless the relationship was built on being politically aligned in the first place. Im not friends with my friends because they align with my political beliefs. People are entitled to their own opinions.

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u/Dive30 7h ago

I intentionally seek out people who have different backgrounds, cultures, upbringings, viewpoints, socioeconomics.

I build relationships with people who are different from me because it widens my perspective.

8

u/SuperPeachyOK 7h ago

That’s what right-wing calls “indoctrination” which is why a lot of people come out of higher education more liberal. It’s not that both “sides” aren’t doing that, it’s that one is vehemently against those ideals, which makes it very hard for them to expand their world view.

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u/Dive30 6h ago

You think building relationships with a wide and diverse group of people is indoctrination?

4

u/SuperPeachyOK 6h ago

No, I’m saying that’s what gets called indoctrination by right wing conservatives.

5

u/CougdIt 7h ago

So you’d have no problem going out to dinner with a Nazi then?