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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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Can you date folks with different politics?

I watch this stream yesterday and i find it quite interesting. Im actually kinda in this situation now, i took a girl on a date, she made it obvious she was a progressive. I often dont share my own views on these things in real life, due to how toxic these conversations can be, so i just try to listen and empathize with where the person is coming from. Though im planning to open my mouth a little more about things on the 2nd go round, as to not give a misleading representation of who i am.

Whats interesting is that the streamer in question distinct "politics" from "human rights", she gives a pretty weak example with Roe V Wade. However i think the distinction between "politics" and "human rights" is shaky to begin with. No one really agrees on what human rights even are, per her roe example, gun control (constitutional arguably, but still) being another one, & there are still societies/people that arent accepting of LGBT although thats been on the decline over some decades. My guess is she is taking this to mean, "you probably shouldnt date a nazi", which is perfectly fine. But there arent a lot of those guys around in this day and age. For myself, i dont really believe any idea is above criticism, so i dont see how having a different idea of what constitutes human rights is much different from just having different politics.

According to pew research, most people, (myself included) are fine with dating people across the political aisle {note that many people wouldnt date a trump voter, but many would date a republican, but i suspect many people might view trump as a fundamentally immoral individual, and thus that makes him distinct from just mere disagreement}. I also find that peoples political beliefs arent good measures of how moral they are in real life. There are many progressives ive seen who were cheaters, liars, lazy, ect & conservatives who were kind hearted, hard working, & loving ect (& vice versa). But i want to know what you guys think.

note that many people wouldn't date a trump voter, but many would date a republican

I am here. I could date someone with almost any political beliefs, but a Trump fanatic (which is how some people probably read voter) is right out. If my date actually thought Trump was playing 4d chess and had some great plan all along, rather than being an unhinged celebrity out of his depth who got some things right and some things wrong seemingly by random chance.

Which points to my view on the matter: dating across politics is ok, but you have to use similar systems and sources of knowledge to find your political beliefs. People who just kind of inherited their political views from their parents can date people who inherited the opposite political views from their parents, because they'll both view it as "well, this is life, this is who we are, I can't expect you to change your 'tribe' for me." People who get all their politics from mainstream media can date someone who gets different politics from the same newspapers; but someone who gets their politics from the NYT Sunday Opinion section will have trouble dating someone who gets their politics from banned subreddits, whether it's a Ross Douthat vs ChapoTrapHouse relationship or a Molly Ivins vs /r/theMotte relationship.

Personally, I can date or befriend anyone with any politics, if they get it from similar knowledge sources. I could date a Marxist who read Marx and Zinn, I couldn't date a "Marxist" who gets their marching orders from Twitter. I could date an Objectivist who wants to cite Hayek, I couldn't date a Libertarian whose only "texts" are greentext. I could date a Christian who reads the bible and wants to talk theology, I couldn't date a Christian who obeys his pastor.

Maybe there's some kind of meta-political belief underlying that, like obedience vs intellectual independence.

Are you married or is this just your speculation on what would work? In my personal life I have found like does not work well with like. Two committed ideologues of different stripes in a relationship just sounds miserable. For me it works way better that my wife has no political opinions or knowledge or interest so she can just “Yes honey” when I’m done sperging out and delivering monologues