A few days ago I had a depressing experience when a reader—and apparently I can count my regular readers on one hand—posted a comment attacking me about vaccinations.
He was anti-vax, and I’m totally pro-vax, and he basically attacked me, my family, our choices and our community. There was a brief back and forth and I just deleted it.
I am a lifelong liberal Democrat but pragmatically minded. That’s not a secret but also not something I go around broadcasting—except, I guess, right here and right now.
I’ve always had friendships with people from all political persuasions, and I went out of my way to keep Film Score Monthly non-partisan. I figured that there are dozens of places online where people can argue about politics, and only a few where they can discuss film music—so let’s just agree not to bring up divisive stuff.
I do have strong politics beliefs but the last thing I want to do is turn this into a political blog.
The anti-vaccination movement does drive me crazy because this stuff never used to be political. We immunize ourselves and our kids against all sorts of infectious diseases that used to ravage humanity, and it was never controversial.
I think what really bothers me is that it’s no longer possible to have a good faith discussion about anything. Everything is weaponized and we’ve become tribes just hating the other tribe.
I could analyze it further...but I just don’t want to, because then I’ll look like “another liberal” and I’ll get obnoxious randos attacking me for it.
The thing is—I very well understand the conservative point of view. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it, and I can understand why people feel and vote they way they do.
It basically comes down to people being sick of being told they’re stupid and wrong by people they don’t know and don’t like. And vice versa.
If there’s one saving grace, it’s that this kind of thing has actually been going on forever. I remember watching Lincoln and its portrayal of the politics behind the amendments abolishing slavery.
My wife hated Lincoln, by the way. She just finds politics the complete opposite of entertaining. We were trying to decide whether to watch Dune together and I said, “Honey, it’s like Space Lincoln.”
That settled it!