Normalizing Healthy Disagreement

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I knew someone once who was not a friend but not not a friend, and they happened to disagree with something I believed. As far as political leanings, I skew heavily left. Left-leaning policies (I believe) are better for workers and better for humans. As far as social issues go, I sort of resent their ability to divide people and parties with such blatant aggression, but here we are. It’s 2022 and everyone has done or said some distasteful things, only now, we’re all persecuting each other for it. Socially, I skew left as well. I generally don’t care what you do so long as you’re not bothering me, but I also dislike the general attitude of victimhood and woe-is-me-ism that seems to penetrate our collective psyche. A good way to gain attention and sympathy is to paint yourself as a victim, but that story has been told and retold so many times it’s worn quite thin.

So anyway, I had this friend-who-wasn’t-really-my-friend who disagreed with something I believed and they have more or less annexed me from their life. It’s not much of a loss, because I realized what I was losing was someone who wouldn’t (or maybe, couldn’t) care anyway. What really annoys and saddens me though, is the propensity for people to end relationships or even try to end careers over relatively minor disagreements. I might believe in a woman’s…