Ever since I was a little kid I always found strange that people got all upset with ridiculous things. It is a deep belief of mine that our environment - family, country, region, people we hang out with - usually shape how we see things. That's why in the USA people are absolutely phobic about socialism as they are indoctrinated to automatically relate it to be an equal of communism.
For now I'll focus on politics, but it's the same in everything else really (sports, religion, pretty much everything).
Here, in Europe, all countries have social parties. In general, the political parties that go to government are not right or left, but center. And they have turns at it. They are center left (socialists) or center right (social democratics). And they aren't really all that different, although socialists tend to have a slight more preoccupation with wellfare and social issues and social democrats are typically a bit more liberal economically, and frequently as liberal in social customs as the socialists. Those are viewed as normal because we grew up with it and we have no traumas with socialism. There are even communist parties, with very little representation. But there, as we dealed more closely with communism from the eastern countries, there is a higher division among the voters in how they view them. On the other side there are the right conservatives, that are conservative in both customs and economics and had in the last decades up untill now usually a slightly higher representation than communists.
This varies from country to country, obviously. Now the far right is rising exponentially due to the growing insatisfaction with immigrants, and it has been so for a while. Several European governments have elected for the first time those parties to power. Which is kind of scary.
I believe in the middle path defitinion from buddhism. It can apply to anything. Basically the prosperity we have achieved in Europe in the last decades is very much related to the compromise of those center parties. Don't get me wrong, I feel an anarchist more than anything. But I can see that in most countries they evolve when having less radical expression, when center parties compromise. The virtue is in the middle.
Returning to the beginning, it's strange how people get all angry because of sports, religion, politics. Because they need to belong to something... they don't really need, but they do. That makes 'em blind to other opinions. The others must be always wrong. It's a primitive gregarious reaction to belong to a group so that you are safe, and you target other groups as the root of all evil or dangerousness because that justifies your righteousness. As long as there is an enemy, everything is stable and in place, and you don't have to think about yourself, being that you are miserable and without meaning and want to avoid at all costs to think about it. You are justified and you have others that support your view.
This relates also to mass hysteria, in varying degrees. And to a ton of different things, that make our society as it is.
I just wanted to share this view, and know if some kindred souls, somewhere, agree. Or not. Because arguing is the best you can do on any subject to achieve a true conclusion. As long as you do it with open-mindedness, and not just waiting for the other one to end his part so you can start yours, while not hearing at all what he says...
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From @awkwardawk