Long before Drew became a high flying accountant, we were fellow partiers here in Tampa. We lived carefree and loving life. Looking back now, it all feels so innocent. I miss it.
He went off and married a nice lawyer, had two kids, and fell into parenting duties. Somewhere along the way something changed. We were having a beer on St. Petersburg Beach. He brought up weird questions about vaccines and said, “Did you hear that these vaccines can change your DNA?”
I couldn’t get him away from the subject. He mentioned off-the-wall ideas I’d never even heard of. Finally, feeling exasperated and hoping we could move on, I asked, “Do you have any evidence of this stuff? It all sounds far fetched.”
He nodded, “Oh yeah. I was listening to this podcast…” And named an extreme political ideologue, who was primarily a comedian (no, not Joe Rogan).
Honestly, I was shocked. Drew was an otherwise brilliant guy. It wasn’t even a subject that I had strong opinions on, nor that I was particularly interested in. He was sounding so paranoid and gullible. What happened?
I saw him again a few months later. He mentioned the election being stolen from Trump, and that’s when I started squirming. He’d always been a bit more conservative than me, but we’d often agreed on so many things too. Now? The gulf between us was wide.
I didn’t like that he was just repeating headlines and talking points without his own thoughts. It didn’t seem like he was inspecting the stories behind them, doing real research or, candidly, using basic logic. I began to question myself, “Is this just political differences between us? It seems so obvious that these opinions are ridiculous.” I’m a left-of-center moderate and have always harbored doubt that I could be wrong in my views. It was weird to feel so confident that I was on the right side of this issue. It was also discombobulating to have someone I cared about espousing views that were borderline offensive.
My renewed goal was to avoid discussing anything political with him. But he was a heavy consumer of political content, so I couldn’t change the subject. My patience grew thin.
Eventually, I said, “Can please we stop talking politics?”
He looked caught off guard and said, “Why? I find it helpful to explore these things and talk things out.”
I said, “Because I don’t think we’re really exploring them, Drew. It feels like we’re talking past each other and I value our friendship too much to keep doing this.”
He wasn’t thrilled that I shut the conversation down but I was genuine in what I’d told him. I was liking him less and less the more he shared his politics with me. He isn’t a lone actor either. I’ve been dealing with friends being too political more and more, and them veering into troubling beliefs, particularly as this election has passed, and inauguration looms over us.
The origins behind conspiratorial thinking
Per Dr. Roland Imhoff, people who orient towards these strange and unrealistic beliefs have a “conspiracy mentality”, meaning they believe society’s powerful act in hidden and nefarious ways. It’s believed we evolved to hold these beliefs over thousands of years, when our safety and rights could be violated by unseen powers. It was better to be safe and go with extreme views than not because in the .1% of cases where the conspiracy proved true, it could save the life of believers.
These views are also common when people feel they have a lack of control in their life. Conspiracies offer a sense of community, with the most glaring example being the prevalence of flat earthers, who couldn’t be fighting a more uphill battle against facts, yet still defy them. Why? Because those beliefs become a bonding agent between people, and feed into our intrinsic need for group belonging.
Combine this with an individual’s strong desire for uniqueness — which believing in in a flat earth will certainly provide — and you end up with an army of anti-science believers. Even further, these beliefs give someone a break from the mundane. If you work an ordinary, boring job and live a middle-of-the-road family life, conspiracy theories give you the feeling of being on the cutting edge of something important. In short, people will look for any way for meaning or a group of like-minded people.
When I think about frustrating friends like Drew from this view, I tend to see them with more empathy. It prevents anger from overtaking me, causing me to shout at them, “Snap out of it!” I realize it is evolution and psychology speaking, as much as it is the individual.
Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that most people who initiate and want to discuss politics aren’t as open minded or eager to hear differing views as they might seem. Which makes the discussion inherently problematic from the get go. The presence of an agenda, even when it’s not explicitly recognized by the person, becomes manifested and we end up in this nasty discussion.
This isn’t to say political discussions are always doomed. My friend John is one of the most right wing people I know. We exchange views all the time on politics and do so respectfully and without forcing views on each other. It can be done. But usually shouldn’t be.
The problem begins when you go into a discussion with an intent of changing someone’s mind. Because you invariably run up against the brick wall of someone’s ideological identity, which doesn’t change easily and without great frustration. A study by neuroscientist, Dr. Jonas Kaplan, found that the portion of our brain that reacts to personal insults is often activated when we have our political views challenged. In short, we are wired to be easily offended with political discussions, even if we think otherwise.
The futility of arguing
Years ago, I had a college friend who believed that 9/11 was an inside job and it wasn’t until years after knowing him that he started spouting this. It came out of nowhere. I began arguing with him about it and getting quite angry and noticed he seemed even more emboldened by his beliefs. No matter how obvious the explanation, or the source I showed to him, he only seemed more devout.
This was the backfire effect in full motion, where someone doubles down on their opinion when presented with evidence to the contrary. It happens with ease and should remind you of the difficulty of changing someone’s mind.
I try to remind myself that the war between facts and stubborn falsehoods is an ancient struggle. More than 2000 years ago, the Greek astronomer and mathematician, Aristarchus of Samos, presented a revolutionary idea: that the Earth and its surrounding planets revolved around the sun. It made logical sense after he realized the sun was far larger than any nearby planet. Yet, despite presenting a sound argument, his theory got little traction and was largely rejected — so much so that the theory died and was revived 1500 years later.
Even beyond conspiracy theories — you will likely deal with someone of very different political opinions who is eager to discuss them. When I’m pressed into these conversations, I try to focus on things I agree with them on. I tend to omit opinions that might lead to in-fighting if I can help it. This is a good first step rather than just shutting down the conversation because the other person might feel like you don’t value their views.
Remember that a political discussion is not worth burning a friendship over, which happens with surprising ease. Friends are only harder to make as you get older and nearly every family and friend group has huge variation in political orientations. In fact, I would argue it is unhealthy for all of them to have the same opinions.
Making sense of it all
I’ve been quite distressed at the state of the world. The election results, along with wars raging in Europe and Gaza right now, have left me uneasy. This global high frequency has fired up people in my life, and tipped a few over the edge, into strange echo chambers that have warped their perception of reality.
There’s a difference between being conservative and liberal, and being unrealistic. But it isn’t our job to convince people to see the light. I’ve seen friendships blow up — often, because they chose to engage in a discussion online, rather than in person, which is proven to heighten tensions significantly.
I acknowledge that much of my criticism in this piece is aimed at conservative leaning folks. I’d caution my fellow liberals against being sanctimonious and condescending during these discussions, as that is how we are sometimes perceived. Even if it is unintentional, the impression is still there and we should remember that the knife cuts both ways with political frustration. No level of aggravation justifies being disrespectful. It will only make things worse and further the divide.
I’d urge you to protect your friendships. Remember the things you love about a person, not their offensive politics. Bad information is stubborn, but that doesn’t mean you have to be.
