Why People Argue So Vehemently Over Politics

Everyone knows the sensitive topics in the presence of polite company: religion, politics, and money. Money makes sense, as it breeds jealousy, and religion can spark deep debates about the meaning of the universe.  So why is politics such a hot topic?  Let’s discuss.

You might think that this is obvious: politics is tribal; people align to a tribe; they then hate the other tribe.  That’s true, but it’s not the whole story.  There is one simple reason for why people are passionate about politics: politics are applied ethics, and ethics are moral rules that people follow to maximize their own growth without harming anyone else.  So once you decide that something is morally abhorrent and another person states a contrary opinion, you automatically think that they are either ignorant, stupid, or evil (i.e., Hanlon’s law).  Let’s look at it from the three main perspectives in Western-style democracies: socially and fiscally liberal, socially and fiscally conservative, and socially liberal and fiscally conservative:

• Socially and Fiscally Liberal – The core ethic behind modern liberalism is that society has a duty not just to prevent harm but to ensure the well-being of all citizens.  So people should feel free to be whoever they want to be without any physical or verbal harm, but it comes at a cost of a central authority taking money from everyone to use it for public good.  As a result, the arguments within the left often involve to what degree citizens should be free to earn however much money they can vs. having it taken by the government via taxes and used for social welfare programs.
• Socially and Fiscally Conservative – The core ethic behind modern conservatism is that the government should be limited to punishing wrongdoing and promoting good moral values.  In this case, taking money for large programs to be spent inefficiently is seen as ineffective compared to churches, charities, and community programs, and moral values—often stemming from the Abrahamic religions—should be upheld via legislation.
• Socially Liberal and Fiscally Conservative – The core ethic behind modern libertarianism (as it’s most commonly called) is preserving individual liberty.  Effectively, people should be free to do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm anyone else.  “Harm” is defined as anything that violates the right to life, liberty, or property.  As a result, most welfare programs are condemned because, while well-meaning, they require a government to take money by force (i.e., against an individual’s will) before they can spend it.  Effectively, money is property, and taking it for anything beyond bare essentials such as lawmaking is violating property rights.

There are other flavors out there, but let’s stick with these for the purposes of this post to exemplify where debates come from.

Note: It’s very important to point out that everyone cares about both individual freedom and the safety and well-being of all citizens.  The debate involves prioritization of those ethics and also the role of authority—i.e., the government—in establishing and upholding them as laws.)

Using these three ethical models, one can see where the source of conflict comes.  To take some simple, somewhat exaggerated examples to make the point:

• To someone who is more liberal, anyone who does not believe in having a responsibility to contribute to the public good so that no one has to live without basic necessities is a monster.
• To someone who is more conservative, anyone who wants to remove their morals from the rules is contributing to the degradation and downfall of society.
• To someone who is more libertarian, anyone who wants to take their money for anything other than bare essentials of running a functioning society is a thief, and anyone who wants to tell them what to do as long as they aren’t hurting anyone is an authoritarian.

This is where the “vehement” part of arguing comes in.  If someone were debating whether second degree assault should be 1 year, 2 years, or 3, people can normally have a civil conversation.  There’s no doubt that assault is wrong, so it’s more about what the best rule definition, punishment, and enforcement methods are.

But when it comes to conflicting ethics, such as taxes (being allowed to take money for a good reason or not) or abortion (right to control one’s own body vs. protecting the new human organism within that body), now disagreement means that each person’s most important values and ethics are being violated by the person who disagrees.  Don’t like abortion?  “You want to control women’s bodies!”  Like abortion?  “You’re okay with killing babies just because you can’t see them!”  Like welfare?  “You’re making me pay for people who don’t feel like supporting themselves!”  Want to tax the rich?  “Taxes are theft, so you’re a thief!”  To the opposition, the deprioritization of their ethics is the same as having no ethics at all.

So we have tribalism and deep ethical violations that cause people to hate each other.  There’s one more thing, though: the emotional escalation that comes from a combination of theatrics, hypocrisy, and fiery commentary from politicians and media.  If you watch the news, you know that we now live in a world where people consume media that reinforces that belief.  That has always been true, but now instead of objective news reports and intelligently written op ed pieces in the newspaper, we have talking heads on cable news only reporting on the bad, dumb, and hypocritical things that their political opposition is doing.  It’s like watching a highlight reel—but instead of the best plays of a game you care about, it’s the worst moments of your opponent’s career.  Every.  Single.  Day.  24/7.  So now your opposition is a bunch of ignorant, stupid, evil people who are also massive hypocrites.

Put that all together, and it’s near-impossible to have a calm, rational conversation around politics with someone who disagrees with you.  The person you’re facing—unless you like/love them and know better than to say something that will insult them or piss them off—now represents every stupid clip you’ve seen in the last several days/months/years on the topic, and each of you have the talking points that your politicians and media personalities have fed you to fight them.  Except that your opposition now talks back and has their own talking points.  And, if you’re studied, you might’ve already been fed counterpoints to those original talking points and are now ready for a slugfest.  By the end of the conversation, you’ll be lucky if you don’t hate that person and never want to talk to them again.

So if you’re going to talk politics, remember to counteract these three things that can cause you to treat the person you are conversing with poorly: tribalism, different ethical priorities, and the emotional escalation caused by being fed dozens of examples of people who disagree with you doing things that make you angry.  Here are three ways to counteract them:

• Remember That You Don’t Fully Agree with Any Political Party or Ideology – Are you a libertarian?  Where do you fall on abortion, then, seeing as the individual has a right to control themselves but there’s another living organism inside of it that also presumably has rights?  Are you on the left?  Where do you stand on work, seeing as a large group of people on the left feel like no one should have to, whereas others know that nothing would get done if no one worked?  Are you on the right?  If so, what do you think about prayer in schools or other topics that conservatives might be split on?  The point is that you’re not your tribe, and so if you don’t act like it, you don’t have to defend everything it does and can speak for yourself in a civil dialogue—avoiding the “what-about-ism” and other “gotcha” debate tactics that aren’t productive.
• Remember That Your Opponent Cares about What You Do – Everyone cares about healthcare, education, homelessness, freedom, and safety.  They just prioritize other things over it.  Ethics conflict, and everyone has to come down somewhere as to which take precedence when it comes to voting for their government representatives.  If you know that they care and just prioritize something over what you care about, you can avoid seeing them as ignorant, stupid, or evil and even try to convince them how your ethic deserves a greater priority, thus increasing your likelihood of changing their mind.
• Remember That Others Are Entitled to Their Opinion and Are Not the People on TV – If you realize that you’re not fighting the people you endlessly see mocked on TV and that they have every right to their beliefs as you do to yours, you will respect them enough not to scream at them or hurl undeserved insults.  Of course, if they start insulting you, you can make a choice as to whether to counter or let it go, but you should treat people with respect until they have proven not to deserve it.

So that’s why people argue so vehemently over politics and how you can avoid doing so if you do wish to have a civil discussion with someone else.  Remember that people have different backgrounds, have experienced different traumas, and therefore have different reasons for believing what they believe and wanting what laws they want.  So one person might’ve grown up in poverty and seen how bad government programs can be (or, conversely, benefited from them and feel like programs are necessary), while someone else might have grown up wealthy and want to have more of those government programs thinking that it makes them benevolent (or, conversely, don’t see their value).

If you are going to debate politics, be ready for an argument.  Just remember that you can deescalate at any time by remaining calm, changing the subject, or a variety of other techniques to preserve the relationship.  There’s no need to make the world agree with you, so you can always avoid it.  But if you do wish to change others’ minds, keeping calm is the only way to do it since people will dig even more into their beliefs when having them directly, aggressively assaulted.  The choice is yours; you can debate in a civil manner, argue vehemently, or leave the topic alone.