How Can We Prevent Societal Rifts From Expanding into Violence

Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions. So the idea here at a high level is to reduce the number of people who feel disenfranchised... who feel as if they have no other avenues to express their political will than through violence, by strengthening major democratic institutions such that results are more reflective of the majority of the populous... right? I think that idea makes sense at a surface level. Though its difficult to say for me whether changing around the electoral college is the best way to do it. Could be worth a try though, especially in the absence of any better alternatives...

Hmm, I think this idea has come up in a few other threads. I understand the thinking behind it too, but I don't its a good idea.
From all that I've read about what Russia has been up to as far as trying to destabilize things in other countries,
it seems that the way those countries tend to succeed in remedying things afterwards usually involves more transparency, not less.
If politicians move towards doing more back-room deal stuff in the shadows behind closed doors, there's a possibility that compromise could arise out of it, but I think there's an even higher chance that it could backfire and have an opposite effect to what you're wanting, making voters more suspicious and cynical of the political processes rather than feeling like it works for them.

This one is a no-brain-er. And it still really baffles me given how long we as a country have been aware of it as an issue that we still after all this time havn't really done anything to fix it... I mean, its not like we don't have plenty of options to make redistricting fair across the board...
How To Reform Redistricting And End Political Gerrymandering

Reduce cynicism and disillusion by getting money out of politics? Yet another good idea.

You have a number of good ideas here, though I do have to wonder...
Say we did them all, and we succeeded in making the political system more reflective of the views of the majority of the citizens.
I think in doing that, it does make sense to believe that would result in fewer people feeling like they had no other option than to turn to violence (and actually, its something we ought to want to aspire to regardless). But even in such a scenario, there are still going to be fringe extremists at the edges of society for malicious actors like Russia to take advantage of. And it only takes a small handful of them for violence to break out. So... what should we do about those groups? Not that I'm suggesting there's anything we could do. It could simply be that there isn't any perfect solution here, and we just have to settle with simply mitigating violent outbreaks as much as possible...

-Meta

 

I agree, the constant demonization of one another in both the media and elsewhere is a problem.
But what specifically should we be doing about it? Is it just a matter of spreading the word more broadly that
demonization of political opponents is harmful to our social cohesion and needs to stop, or is there more that should be done?

Also, how do we identify harmful demonization vs legitimate criticisms?

-Meta

 

Can you be a bit more specific here? That sounds a little dangerous,
but want to make sure I really understand what you're suggesting.
How exactly should this be demonstrated, and by whom?

Personal self-defense should go without saying. Of course one should fight back if they are attacked.
But is there nothing else we can do to prevent the violence from happening in the first place?
Also, I think we need to be careful here as to what counts as an attack, and what
should count as justifiable self-defense.

I mean... just the other day I heard mention that a large group of guys beat the tar out of three other guys because someone's hat got stolen. Now, I don't know all the details of the situation, but I'm fairly sure that its pretty hard for three guys to steal one hat. If someone steals your hat, is it really justifiable self-defense for you and your buds to beat up the two blokes standing next to him? And for that matter... is it even justifiable self-defense to beat up the guy who took the hat??

I mean... I'm not trying to excuse robbery here, I consider that too to be part of the problem, but does it really make sense to repeatedly pound a dude's head into the pavement over a $5 hat? That sort of seems like unnecessary escalation of a situation to me. What if one of the trio had decided to pull out a knife or run and grab a big long pipe or something to fight back against getting beat up? Would they have been justified in their escalation? And then what if someone from the larger group responded to that by pulling out a gun and firing? Maybe someone gets shot... and what if then they all return the next day and now everyone has a gun? Is it still self-defense at that point? :/

Its easy to see how situations like that can quickly get out of hand, especially if the justification of self-defense is used in an overly broad or ill-defined manor. And if we ever get to a point where its considered "justifiable" for members of a group to be targeted for violence by another simply by casual association to someone else or to the group itself,... well at that point then we'll really have a problem on our hands.

-Meta

 

If all the sides become violent, whether it be because a foreign entity pushed them into violence, or because they were simply prone to violence to begin with, what can we do to stop such violence? What is the solution?... And please do not say war. I'm asking for things we can do to reduce the amount of violence.

-Meta

 

Is this in relation to Facebook? If so, can you be a bit more specific
about how you think Facebook should change what its doing,
and how the change would reduce the amount of violence?

-Meta

 

That makes sense... but then... how do we go about doing that?

Agreed.

To the extent we can, we should be sure not continue to make that same mistake.
As it always is by definition, the time to be proactive is now.

-Meta

 

Personally I don't want things to go back to the way they were during Nam.
I would much rather avoid mass violence in the streets, assassinations, etc.
How can we avoid it? Certainly there must be some things we can do to prevent such madness.
Or if not, there at least must be something we can do to mitigate the hatred and bloodshed.
For those who aren't a part of the violence, it isn't enough in my opinion to just stand
by horrified and speechless while the rest of the country falls apart around you.

-Meta

 

A shift towards problem solving would definitely help things, I agree.
Best to fill the conversational void with discussions on ideas for solving our country's major
issues, as it leaves less room for talking about all the reasons for why we ought to hate each-other.

-Meta

 

If that's the case, then what exactly do we need to do to heal the rift?
Also, certainly there must be ways to at least mitigate violence in the case that the rift persists.

-Meta

 

You've read a few of my other threads right?
In about half of them I ask members to supply ideas before posting my own latter.
And of course I want for violence to be avoided! Are you suggesting you don't?
But I am not an I alone can fix this type of person. Like @thinkitout was saying
in the other thread, this is an issue that we need to be trying to solve together.

And of course, the issue will not get fixed if no one tries to fix it. So if we want it to be fixed,
we should make the attempt to come up with ways to fix it. Apathy and or defeatism is not going to help anything here.
The Russians are trying to get us to view our political opponents as evil. But more people should take to heart the old saying,
that 'true evil only triumphs when good men do nothing'.

-Meta

 

So your solution would be for people to cut down on all of the name-calling. Yeah I guess that could help.
And its sort of in-line with a few of the other suggested options. I'll add it to the list.

I do not at all agree with you here, but I'll humor you for a bit.
Let's say "we" wanted to try what you suggested here and go our separate ways...
if we were to go that route, how exactly would/should we achieve such a separation?

-Meta

 

I think @Belch answered your question far better than I could.

Labels like that are irrelevant and ad hominem name-calling in general is unnecessary.
We should deal with ideas, rather than engaging in smear tactics and personal attacks.

-Meta

 

Very well said!