I think most people have controversial takes. There is societal pressure not to express them. There is peer pressure. But we are in a paradoxical position in many Western countries.
People have the feeling freedom of speech is under pressure and they cannot speak freely because of that. But people who once blamed cancel culture are using now the same tactics and practices as the one's who cancel. It is more about the advantage to use these tactics in an opportunistic way. There is also a discrepancy. The overton windows allows more and more expression of extreme positions. We are all part of the discourse: All of us can shit our opinion (as I do frequently) out into the internet which is then available to potentially thousands or million people to read. Despite that fact we feel as if our voice is not heard. Maybe because the internet is full of bots and fake discourse. There are barely any honest people who want to argue in a civil way. We are all becoming experts on various of topics (like me in this thread) while we are blind that algorithms and multi-billionaire determine the rules of our online debate culture. While politics is becoming more extreme and you can do Hitler apologia (like Nick Fuentes) we are still told that there should be no consequences whatsoever for spreading Nazi ideology not even societal stigmatization. If you invite such people to TV shows or to your Youtube show you are undermining the basis of what our society is build on.
This was a lot of criticism about the state of the US. But in Germany if you are criticizing Israel you are labeled an antisemite so easily. Newspapers have campaigns to silence voices that speak too critically about the German responsiblity for these war crimes. Our politicians support Israel's extremists and are actually hurting the Israeli people instead of saving them from themselves. This would have been similar as to help the US invading Iraq after 9/11. (gladly, we didn't do that). German actually undermines Israels legitimacy by giving it the opportunity to let their taste for revenge overwhelm them.
People want to stay apolitical because they notice Western democracies are crumbling and nothing changes. I think we have systematic issues like the problems with demographics. People want reforms so that our productivity gets boosted and our wealth is maintained, but actually if it becomes more concrete people actually hate all of these reforms because they will hurt the average citizen. (where I live in Europe). And because everything seems impossible to solve we are giving the power to people that actually accelerate the demise of our countries because they make promises "to solve the issue with common sense".
Common sense has become a cipher to legitimize policies that hurt minorities. Politicians play divide and conquer with poor people, minorities and the middle class.
I think I should come back to the question of the title. There are a lot of incentives to hide your opinion in public while you can post the most controversial takes online. The discourse online becomes more and more toxic and then it influences the public discourse. Friendships break because of different political opinions. Many people cannot imagine to have a partner with different political positions. The echo chambers from the online discourse become reality in our daily life. But where we cannot prevent this clash like on family meetings we are confronted of how polarized and dysfunctional our discourse has become.
The reality is complicated. But easy answers to complex issues, our intuition, and zero-sum logic just feel better. The promise we simply have to turn reactionary and the golden times will come back is naive. Its wishful thinking. We won't come out of this dilemma by returning to regressive societal standards. People in our individualistic society have a desire for belonging and meaning. And being proud of your country or you ethnic sub-group can make you special in this world, where we are all competing in a hyper-accelerated capitalistic system. The increasing inequality, by massive tax cuts for the rich, done by Democrats and Republicans lead to this culture war which is only a farce. It distracts us from who is really pulling the strings. Multibillionaires who buy their influence in media and politics. While we are all in rage for the other side, the rich take advantage of that. The rich won't be hurt by fascist regimes. These people could always save their ass. Some of them even want to accelerate the demise of the human species like Curtis Yarvin or Peter Thiel with their transhumanistic ideology. And these people don't even have to hide it any longer. If you write something like that people will come up call it disinformation and fake news. Just watch their videos. Read their texts. These people want feudal times to come back and this will certainly not be good for the average Joe and Jane. But with the current propaganda war in the media, average people will call them their saviors and only realize the reality when it is already too late..
People have the feeling freedom of speech is under pressure and they cannot speak freely because of that. But people who once blamed cancel culture are using now the same tactics and practices as the one's who cancel. It is more about the advantage to use these tactics in an opportunistic way. There is also a discrepancy. The overton windows allows more and more expression of extreme positions. We are all part of the discourse: All of us can shit our opinion (as I do frequently) out into the internet which is then available to potentially thousands or million people to read. Despite that fact we feel as if our voice is not heard. Maybe because the internet is full of bots and fake discourse. There are barely any honest people who want to argue in a civil way. We are all becoming experts on various of topics (like me in this thread) while we are blind that algorithms and multi-billionaire determine the rules of our online debate culture. While politics is becoming more extreme and you can do Hitler apologia (like Nick Fuentes) we are still told that there should be no consequences whatsoever for spreading Nazi ideology not even societal stigmatization. If you invite such people to TV shows or to your Youtube show you are undermining the basis of what our society is build on.
This was a lot of criticism about the state of the US. But in Germany if you are criticizing Israel you are labeled an antisemite so easily. Newspapers have campaigns to silence voices that speak too critically about the German responsiblity for these war crimes. Our politicians support Israel's extremists and are actually hurting the Israeli people instead of saving them from themselves. This would have been similar as to help the US invading Iraq after 9/11. (gladly, we didn't do that). German actually undermines Israels legitimacy by giving it the opportunity to let their taste for revenge overwhelm them.
People want to stay apolitical because they notice Western democracies are crumbling and nothing changes. I think we have systematic issues like the problems with demographics. People want reforms so that our productivity gets boosted and our wealth is maintained, but actually if it becomes more concrete people actually hate all of these reforms because they will hurt the average citizen. (where I live in Europe). And because everything seems impossible to solve we are giving the power to people that actually accelerate the demise of our countries because they make promises "to solve the issue with common sense".
Common sense has become a cipher to legitimize policies that hurt minorities. Politicians play divide and conquer with poor people, minorities and the middle class.
I think I should come back to the question of the title. There are a lot of incentives to hide your opinion in public while you can post the most controversial takes online. The discourse online becomes more and more toxic and then it influences the public discourse. Friendships break because of different political opinions. Many people cannot imagine to have a partner with different political positions. The echo chambers from the online discourse become reality in our daily life. But where we cannot prevent this clash like on family meetings we are confronted of how polarized and dysfunctional our discourse has become.
The reality is complicated. But easy answers to complex issues, our intuition, and zero-sum logic just feel better. The promise we simply have to turn reactionary and the golden times will come back is naive. Its wishful thinking. We won't come out of this dilemma by returning to regressive societal standards. People in our individualistic society have a desire for belonging and meaning. And being proud of your country or you ethnic sub-group can make you special in this world, where we are all competing in a hyper-accelerated capitalistic system. The increasing inequality, by massive tax cuts for the rich, done by Democrats and Republicans lead to this culture war which is only a farce. It distracts us from who is really pulling the strings. Multibillionaires who buy their influence in media and politics. While we are all in rage for the other side, the rich take advantage of that. The rich won't be hurt by fascist regimes. These people could always save their ass. Some of them even want to accelerate the demise of the human species like Curtis Yarvin or Peter Thiel with their transhumanistic ideology. And these people don't even have to hide it any longer. If you write something like that people will come up call it disinformation and fake news. Just watch their videos. Read their texts. These people want feudal times to come back and this will certainly not be good for the average Joe and Jane. But with the current propaganda war in the media, average people will call them their saviors and only realize the reality when it is already too late..
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