> You can believe something without proselytizing.
You can talk about politics without proselytising. Why should discussing a topic even invoke the words like “belief” and “proselytising”?
Not only stating an opinion is compatible with a constructive discussion that could lead to a mutual adjustment of opinions—in fact, stating your opinion is often a pre-requisite to having a discussion that could lead to it being changed.
The magic happens when person A realizes that another, equally sane person B can think very differently about topic X. At that point, the person A has to either 1) write the person B off as crazy (not so easy when that person is obviously sane in every other way), or 2) realize that there may be something to it and ever so slightly adjust own opinion on topic X, or at least become more tolerant.
Not being able or willing to freely exchange and converge on opinions with people whom you routinely meet in real life, only discussing them online in your respective bubbles, is a sure way to having only more and more wildly incompatible and divisive opinions, and I suspect it is exactly what has been happening in recent years.
You can talk about politics without proselytising. Why should discussing a topic even invoke the words like “belief” and “proselytising”?
Not only stating an opinion is compatible with a constructive discussion that could lead to a mutual adjustment of opinions—in fact, stating your opinion is often a pre-requisite to having a discussion that could lead to it being changed.
The magic happens when person A realizes that another, equally sane person B can think very differently about topic X. At that point, the person A has to either 1) write the person B off as crazy (not so easy when that person is obviously sane in every other way), or 2) realize that there may be something to it and ever so slightly adjust own opinion on topic X, or at least become more tolerant.
Not being able or willing to freely exchange and converge on opinions with people whom you routinely meet in real life, only discussing them online in your respective bubbles, is a sure way to having only more and more wildly incompatible and divisive opinions, and I suspect it is exactly what has been happening in recent years.