There have always been, at least within my experience, those whose opinions could brook no dissent. What we are seeing now, I think, is the increase of those types of people. Once upon a time, when I was younger, there were two subjects one did not breach in polite company - religion and politics. The reason for that prohibition is that those two subjects tend to allow for no dissenting opinion, and tempers flare during their discussion rather quickly if dissent is expressed.
What we seem to be seeing now is that EVERYTHING is starting to fall under one or the other of those two headings, sometimes both, and therefore conversation has been correspondingly truncated to keep it within those two subject areas, which has considerably shrunk the common area where discussion used to take place.
That is the result of confusing social issues with political issues (from both sides of the political spectrum) and thinking that morality can be legislated. It cannot. One's moral compass comes from within, and cannot be imposed from without. That attempt just leads to clashes and frictions. Religion and politics should NEVER be mixed, no matter what your politics or religion are. We are seeing the results of that attempt right now, before our very eyes.
Politics are becoming more polarized as Left Wing authoritarian philosophies become more prevalent in what was once a freedom-loving nation The clash between those two opposing stances is one of the things we are seeing that is being taken as an inability to converse... and literally everything is becoming a political football, where dissent cannot be allowed - from either side.
Compounding that is the fact that many things that were always secular discussions are taking on the aura of religious thought, where deviation from the proposed story line cannot be allowed. "Climate change" is one of those "New Religions", and is a political football as well. Bad combination. When a subject cannot be questioned, cannot bear any criticism, it has moved from the area of civil discussion into the realm of religious experience, regardless of the "god" being venerated in it.
Taken all together, this means that the areas available for open discussion are increasingly shrinking, with the net result that people cannot converse with one another any more. They have less and less "common ground" to build a discussion upon. Instead, we are increasingly being separated into tribalized camps and there is less and less of an ability to converse with anyone in any of the other camps, for fear of having one's own thought challenged. Challenging a belief system always carries the risk of destroying it, and so people are less and less willing to allow their beliefs to be challenged, for fear of having to construct a new system of thought - that's hard work. It's much easier to just find your own tribe's echo chamber to reinforce your own beliefs, and stay in your safe space.
We are witnessing the results of that line of action, just as all other failed civilizations of the past have done near their end. This does not mean the end of humanity, it just means that some pioneers are going to have to sort out a new civilization to replace the old, and that is often a bloody business. Think of the Dark Ages that created our own civilization out of the rags of what was left when the Roman Empire collapsed, and you'll get the drift. Like it or not, it's inevitable that humanity will get dragged kicking and screaming - and sometimes bleeding all over the carpet - into whatever the new civilization shakes out to be after this one takes it's last gasp. People make the mistake of thinking "the end of civilization" equates to "the end of humanity". it doesn't. Something New just comes along and develops. It's happened at least twice more or less globally, and will continue to happen as long as there are people. Once was The Late Bronze Age collapse of around 1170 BC, and another was the collapse of the Roman Empire. We survived those, and we will survive this one, too.
It's the Barbarian Tribesmen invading to take over the remnants of what was once a civilization that you have to watch out for. Those remnants serve as the foundational building blocks of The Next Big Thing, but run through he grinder of barbarian invasions and population movements.
It's how England became an "Anglo-Saxon" nation, for example. The remnants of the old Celtic Britons still exist - they're just under a new command, a new society. Roughly 2/3 of the British genome is the same stock as the ancient Britons.
"We" are still "them", just under different societal management.
ETA: It's funny how the worst of these societal collapses - examples are the late Bronze Age Collapse and the end of the Roman Empire - occur when civilizations become too overly connected "globally" - i.e. Globalism always brings them on... and no one has yet learned that is the case. All they'd have to do to discover it is release their preconceived - but erroneous - notions and crack a history book open to learn of Reality.
And they never do... so we get what we get. Humans were meant to live in tribes and nations, not as one big happy planet. that will NEVER work when one faction tries to Lord it over all of the rest. People are too diverse for that to ever take a real hold. Cooperation and trade between tribes and nations seems to work fine - just so long as each faction is allowed to retain it's own identity and fabric, until one gets the bright idea that it can take over the fabric of the other. Once that social fabric of a tribe or nation comes under attack like that, it's only a matter of time before it collapses... on BOTH sides. The aggressors collapse just as rapidly as the victim society..
... and chaos ensues, until a new Phoenix rises from the ashes.
.
What we seem to be seeing now is that EVERYTHING is starting to fall under one or the other of those two headings, sometimes both, and therefore conversation has been correspondingly truncated to keep it within those two subject areas, which has considerably shrunk the common area where discussion used to take place.
That is the result of confusing social issues with political issues (from both sides of the political spectrum) and thinking that morality can be legislated. It cannot. One's moral compass comes from within, and cannot be imposed from without. That attempt just leads to clashes and frictions. Religion and politics should NEVER be mixed, no matter what your politics or religion are. We are seeing the results of that attempt right now, before our very eyes.
Politics are becoming more polarized as Left Wing authoritarian philosophies become more prevalent in what was once a freedom-loving nation The clash between those two opposing stances is one of the things we are seeing that is being taken as an inability to converse... and literally everything is becoming a political football, where dissent cannot be allowed - from either side.
Compounding that is the fact that many things that were always secular discussions are taking on the aura of religious thought, where deviation from the proposed story line cannot be allowed. "Climate change" is one of those "New Religions", and is a political football as well. Bad combination. When a subject cannot be questioned, cannot bear any criticism, it has moved from the area of civil discussion into the realm of religious experience, regardless of the "god" being venerated in it.
Taken all together, this means that the areas available for open discussion are increasingly shrinking, with the net result that people cannot converse with one another any more. They have less and less "common ground" to build a discussion upon. Instead, we are increasingly being separated into tribalized camps and there is less and less of an ability to converse with anyone in any of the other camps, for fear of having one's own thought challenged. Challenging a belief system always carries the risk of destroying it, and so people are less and less willing to allow their beliefs to be challenged, for fear of having to construct a new system of thought - that's hard work. It's much easier to just find your own tribe's echo chamber to reinforce your own beliefs, and stay in your safe space.
We are witnessing the results of that line of action, just as all other failed civilizations of the past have done near their end. This does not mean the end of humanity, it just means that some pioneers are going to have to sort out a new civilization to replace the old, and that is often a bloody business. Think of the Dark Ages that created our own civilization out of the rags of what was left when the Roman Empire collapsed, and you'll get the drift. Like it or not, it's inevitable that humanity will get dragged kicking and screaming - and sometimes bleeding all over the carpet - into whatever the new civilization shakes out to be after this one takes it's last gasp. People make the mistake of thinking "the end of civilization" equates to "the end of humanity". it doesn't. Something New just comes along and develops. It's happened at least twice more or less globally, and will continue to happen as long as there are people. Once was The Late Bronze Age collapse of around 1170 BC, and another was the collapse of the Roman Empire. We survived those, and we will survive this one, too.
It's the Barbarian Tribesmen invading to take over the remnants of what was once a civilization that you have to watch out for. Those remnants serve as the foundational building blocks of The Next Big Thing, but run through he grinder of barbarian invasions and population movements.
It's how England became an "Anglo-Saxon" nation, for example. The remnants of the old Celtic Britons still exist - they're just under a new command, a new society. Roughly 2/3 of the British genome is the same stock as the ancient Britons.
"We" are still "them", just under different societal management.
ETA: It's funny how the worst of these societal collapses - examples are the late Bronze Age Collapse and the end of the Roman Empire - occur when civilizations become too overly connected "globally" - i.e. Globalism always brings them on... and no one has yet learned that is the case. All they'd have to do to discover it is release their preconceived - but erroneous - notions and crack a history book open to learn of Reality.
And they never do... so we get what we get. Humans were meant to live in tribes and nations, not as one big happy planet. that will NEVER work when one faction tries to Lord it over all of the rest. People are too diverse for that to ever take a real hold. Cooperation and trade between tribes and nations seems to work fine - just so long as each faction is allowed to retain it's own identity and fabric, until one gets the bright idea that it can take over the fabric of the other. Once that social fabric of a tribe or nation comes under attack like that, it's only a matter of time before it collapses... on BOTH sides. The aggressors collapse just as rapidly as the victim society..
... and chaos ensues, until a new Phoenix rises from the ashes.
.