Draw the Line

I've been debating in my mind lately the degree to which we tolerate differing views in our friends.  In a late-night TV interview this autumn Bill Clinton stated that we had made great strides in overcoming bigotries of gender, skin colour, and sexual orientation (still a long way to go, but a at least we're moving forward), but the last great bigotry, the one where we're moving backwards, is our increasing desire to segregate ourselves according to ideologies.  More and more we don't want to be around people who disagree with us.  (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist.)

I felt there was a lot of truth in this.  (Bill, though flawed, is no idiot, and is very good at reading people.)  We are becoming more and more polarized by ideas.  Much has been made lately of political polarization and whether or not we should be friends with those ticking the wrong side of a ballot.  There have even been photos of houses for sale, supposedly after the 2016 US presidential election alienated couples to a point beyond reconciliation.  And I recently read a Facebook post from a women who felt she could no longer be friends with a woman who spanked her (own) children as punishment.  Having decided to terminate this friendship based on differing approaches to parenting she then debated if she should permit her children to interact any further with the friend's children.  The children, apparently, were quite close.

There is a part of me that desperately longs for the good ol' days when I could have a raging argument with a good friend over some point of philosophy or politics, then put my arm around him or her and go for a drink after, still friends.  (Fuck man, that's what college was FOR.)  I remember hours-long discussions with good friends over Affirmative Action, abortion, gun control, free will, salvation, the comparative portrayals of Satan in Paradise Lost and the South Park movie (there's a serious dissertation in there for someone if it hasn't been done yet), trickle-down economics, vegainism, organic farming practices, hunting, inheritance tax, climate change, and countless other meaty topics.  Not once did one of these conversations ever make me reconsider my friendship with my intellectual adversary.  Not. Once.

And yet, there are some views I would find so abhorrent it would be impossible for me to respect the holder of such a view, and without respect there can be no friendship.  Never did a conversational opponent express a belief in the superiority of white-skinned people.  Such an expression would be a deal-breaker.  I am not friends with racists.  Ditto homophobes.  Ditto mysogynists.  But where does one draw the line?  What about people who support politicians with such views?  Is one degree of separation enough?

And if you place a sufficiently strong value jugement on views such as racism that you cannot respect, and therefore befriend, someone who supports a politician with those views, what about other positions? Take global warming. If you are in the "97% of scients know their shit" camp, can you respect someone in the "CO2 is good for trees and we don't need polar bears anyway" camp if said opinion betrays a fundamental, willful mistrust of the scientific process and a paucity of rational thought?  And what about anti-vaxxers?  Brexiters?  Where does it end?  If we follow this line of thought to its logical conclusion, we will end up very, very alone, becasuse no one agrees with us on everything, and nor should they.  But where does one draw the line?

At what point does one decide this value is of sufficient importance for me to make it a litmus of respect, but that one isn't?  In my next post I will attempt to answer this question for myself, but I would love to hear your responses in the comments.