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What are strategies for finding community in our polarized times? Almost all of my friends, family, and acquaintances are pretty damn progressive, and I always find it so irritating how they inject it into everything. Always, always when I have people over for dinner or something, something comes up at some point where people get into a progressive taking point that I disagree with, and I just sit there really uncomfortably and can't say anything because there's no tactful way to do it, or I don't want to get into a giant argument. Even at recent holidays, the progressives in my family have started inserting progressive variations on traditional observances, and I hate that sort of thing a lot.
On the other hand, I have a group of people whom I've met through meetups which were dedicated to more conservative or at least less progressive conversation. We all keep up via a messaging app, but I find they swing too far in the other direction. They're basically a sneer club, and this is similarly irritating. They're constantly lauding vitreolic conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro and Stephen Crowder. I don't agree with leftists and their takes, but I think this class of commentators only exists to leech off of conservatives, and generally does not put the best foot forward of anti-wokism. More than anything, this community of mine won't shut up about how much they hate progressives. I don't want that. I just want to live my life and not have to hear about politics so the time, not be infringed on from either side.
So what do I do, how do I find people and communities that aren't progressive, or at least don't talk about progressivism, but also don't talk about it from the other side? As has been cited here many times, if an institution isn't explicitly anti progressive, then it is susceptible to progressives coming in and making it all about progressivism. It makes for a tight spot for someone like me who wants to be around prior with similar values, but doesn't want to hear about politics all the time.
How is it so hard to find the Normies ? A good 70% of people I run into have no idea about politics and are too busy with their 1-2 "things" to find any extra time for it.
Hyper-online people who socialize through hyper online activities will find hyper online communities. Yes, you are more likely to run into polarized people in sociology-liberal arts circles, D&D/board game parlors or non-fiction book clubs. But, make friends through offline activities pick-up-sports or music or hikers and they tend to be normier and less online than the former group.
One thing I'd suggest is to develop a thick skin against people who watch CNN once a day or read google-news every morning or listen to NYT daily as their source of information. They have surface level knowledge of issues and surface level takes. No need to dwell on them too much. It is not like they will talk about it for more than 5 minutes, because that's as much as they know about it. Take in from one ear and let it out from another. Like hanging out with your grandparents. "LALALALA, grand-mom I didn't hear you tell me that I should stay out of the sun because if I become black, then no-one will want to be with me." You choose to love them despite those little quirks.
Try becoming friends with first generation immigrants. They usually have a lot for sympathy for those who feel outsiders in a culture, and are more tolerant towards opinions that diverge from the liberal consensus. First gen immigrants are also delighted to have a token American in their group, as they learn a lot about how to integrate through the eyes of the American.
I'd also suggest living with roommates who want to build a community. People are more tolerant towards non-consensus views of a roommate who has built good by living alongside them for months, than a random acquaintance they meet at the bar. Also, it takes zero effort to access your community. They are literally next door.
I like hiking for a similar reason. Your acquaintance is suddenly also your emergency contact. They pass you water if you run out and sun screen if you forget it. Builds good will. Then take the fact that you have 5-10 hours of alone time to talk about topics with nuance and your opinions get to stand by themselves, unencumbered by highly-polarizing elevator pitches.
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