Friendships with People with Completely Different POV's

[PRlady]

@AxelAnnie, sorry, I did not mean to be cryptic. I grew up in the former Soviet Union with a Russian mother and a Jewish father. Growing up, I was often reminded that for Russians descent was traced through the paternal line, and for Russians I was a Jew; but for Jewish people descent was traced through the maternal line, and for Jews I was a Russian.

For many years I was happy to be no one in particular. Given that I do not practice Judaism or know/follow any customs or traditions, I never felt that I had any right to call myself Jewish, so I didn't. But after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottseville and the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue (which is a few blocks away from my house), not acknowledging this part of my heritage felt like hiding. Practicing or not, my children and I would have been plenty enough Jewish for concentration camps in 1934 and then for the gas chambers after WWII started. Therefore, 'wrong half Jew' is the most honest way I know how to describe myself.

Ania, Reform Jews consider you Jewish by patrilineal descent and many Russian Jews in Israel are “wrong half.” (They are citizens but not considered legally Jewish by the ultra-Orthodox authorities.) My daughter is “right-half” and my niece and nephew “wrong-half” but they all consider themselves to be half-and-half’s. My SIL is also that but without any Jewish education or affiliation.

You can be as tribal as you want to be.

 

[mjb52]

I think this guy sounds horrible but it seems like the OP is nonetheless conflicted about cutting him off entirely so that is perhaps shaping the course of the discussion. I think the one thing I wonder - although it would be totally justified to end the friendship and his comments are awful - is if in this case, where it does seem like there is some internal conflict about it, it might be worth it to be really frank with him, like "when you say things like that, it makes me want to never talk to you again" or something like that. He probably wouldn't change any but maybe it would help to feel like he'd been given a clear warning and after that it might be easier to move on?

 

[AxelAnnie]

Ania, Reform Jews consider you Jewish by patrilineal descent and many Russian Jews in Israel are “wrong half.” (They are citizens but not considered legally Jewish by the ultra-Orthodox authorities.) My daughter is “right-half” and my niece and nephew “wrong-half” but they all consider themselves to be half-and-half’s. My SIL is also that but without any Jewish education or affiliation.

You can be as tribal as you want to be.

I am always bemused by the thought of someone being religiously half of something. Given that religion is the belief in a proscribed set of rules/values/codes....one sort of has to pick. 1/2 + 1/2 in this case adds to 0.

One either practices / believes in a religion or you don't. You follow it, or you don't. You practice it to the degree you do, or you don't.

BTW - I do not think that the Conservative movement has accepted patrillineal descent. And the Orthodox do not consider a Conservative Conversion valid.

 

[A.H.Black]

I think you can be up front with this friend. The friendship may change or it may go. You can tell him -

"Look, I am very uncomfortable talking about these subjects with you. You and I see things very differently and I really disagree with you. I value our friendship and you have helped me so many times, but there are some topics we just cannot discuss. When we see each other can we please talk about other things. I respect your right to your own opinions. I hope you will respect my wish to not discuss them."

If you can find a graceful way to handle things, that, of course, would be best, but it sounds like it's time to confront the situation. If he values you as a friend, he will respect your wishes. If not......you will see much less of him. I don't think relationships "begin" and "end". They evolve.

 

[Ania]

Ania, Reform Jews consider you Jewish by patrilineal descent and many Russian Jews in Israel are “wrong half.” (They are citizens but not considered legally Jewish by the ultra-Orthodox authorities.) My daughter is “right-half” and my niece and nephew “wrong-half” but they all consider themselves to be half-and-half’s. My SIL is also that but without any Jewish education or affiliation.
You can be as tribal as you want to be.

Thank you @PRlady! I was told this when I moved to the U.S. but have not felt the pull in this direction until recently. Was just trying to explain what I meant by 'wrong half Jew'.

I am always bemused by the thought of someone being religiously half of something. Given that religion is the belief in a proscribed set of rules/values/codes....one sort of has to pick. 1/2 + 1/2 in this case adds to 0.
One either practices / believes in a religion or you don't. You follow it, or you don't. You practice it to the degree you do, or you don't.

I'm an atheist. Nearly all of the population of the Former Soviet Union was atheists when I was growing up. Practicing any religion was against the law. This did not stop the persecution of Jews (few or none of whom were practicing Judaism). Architects of the 'Doctor's plot' did not care about religious practice. My dad (who was and still is a non-religious Jew) could not enroll in the university of his choice because of Jewish quotas. I was lucky in that I mostly had to only endure slurs when growing up.

As I said above, I'm out of my depth here. But according to Wikipedia: "Opinion polls have suggested that the majority of Jews see being Jewish as predominantly a matter of ancestry and culture, rather than religion". This is what I meant in my posts. This is wholly consistent with my lived experience. It seems that you have a different view on this, but I'm not up for debating various definitions of who is a Jew because it is not pertinent to this thread.

 

[PRlady]

Thank you @PRlady! I was told this when I moved to the U.S. but have not felt the pull in this direction until recently. Was just trying to explain what I meant by 'wrong half Jew'.



I'm an atheist. Nearly all of the population of the Former Soviet Union was atheists when I was growing up. Practicing any religion was against the law. This did not stop the persecution of Jews (few or none of whom were practicing Judaism). Architects of the 'Doctor's plot' did not care about religious practice. My dad (who was and still is a non-religious Jew) could not enroll in the university of his choice because of Jewish quotas. I was lucky in that I mostly had to only endure slurs when growing up.

As I said above, I'm out of my depth here. But according to Wikipedia: "Opinion polls have suggested that the majority of Jews see being Jewish as predominantly a matter of ancestry and culture, rather than religion". This is what I meant in my posts. This is wholly consistent with my lived experience. It seems that you have a different view on this, but I'm not up for debating various definitions of who is a Jew because it is not pertinent to this thread.

Agreed this is thread drift, but just FYI I’m also an atheist and vigorously opposed to any religious interference in public policy, here or in Israel. I was just being informative, not telling you to join up.

 

[Vagabond]

Is it part of the curriculum here or were you doing some reading on your own?

Reading on my own, prompted by a desire to find the inspiration for my mother's own aphorism: "Into each river some mud must flow."

 

[Aussie Willy]

I think you can be up front with this friend. The friendship may change or it may go. You can tell him -

"Look, I am very uncomfortable talking about these subjects with you. You and I see things very differently and I really disagree with you. I value our friendship and you have helped me so many times, but there are some topics we just cannot discuss. When we see each other can we please talk about other things. I respect your right to your own opinions. I hope you will respect my wish to not discuss them."

If you can find a graceful way to handle things, that, of course, would be best, but it sounds like it's time to confront the situation. If he values you as a friend, he will respect your wishes. If not......you will see much less of him. I don't think relationships "begin" and "end". They evolve.

I totally understand. I think if you take that approach you have to be careful. Some could interpret it as the PC police shutting down freedom of speech.

My mother complains about people not accepting her pretty nasty views on a variety of topic. She used to be left wing in her thinking but has become quite extreme in her right wing opinions. She just doesn't seem to get that she is coming across as rude and not pleasant to listen to.

 

[misskarne]

How is it that all the people who are encouraging OP to keep this person in her life can't see this is exactly how we ended up with Trump and co? Because we normalised it, because we told people not to cut toxic people out of their lives, because we made up all this guff about echo chambers and different opinions being good and at some point we lost the boundary between different opinions ("I like pineapple on pizza" vs "I don't like pineapple on pizza") and actually abhorrent, hateful people that view other humans as "lesser" (eg racists, sexists, misogynists etc).

And so now we end up in a situation where people try to claim that this clearly disgusting person just has a "different opinion" and OP should have to tolerate it. No. The person is a horrible person and needs to be called out on it and cut from the lives of decent people. Normalising people like this person is how we got Trump.

 

[hanca]

I don’t think people in this thread are encouraging OP to keep this person in her life. In this specific situation I think the decision is pretty straightforward. But what people are saying is that one shouldn’t have only friends who are the same and have the same opinions.

 

[canbelto]

Well I haven't spoken to him since that really awful discussion and am moving towards just ghosting him. It came to my attention that he has been allowing really racist comments on his blog and even encouraging it from a mutual friend (well actually ex-friend since this friend cut off communications with my friend).

I don't like to ghost people but I feel like this is the thing to do. Any discussion we have will only make him say that I am "politically correct" and "emotional" (his favorite term for women).

 

[CaliSteve]

Ok so ... I was reading a NYTimes article on friendships ending today:

Opinion | How to End a Friendship (Published 2019)

The rules governing romantic love are clearer. But few relationships are meant to last forever.

www.nytimes.com

And I'm thinking about a friendship I've been considering terminating. This friend is in my profession (longtime teacher) and when I was younger he gave me a lot of sage veteran teacher advice. He helped me through some really hard times personally and professionally. I'm truly grateful to him for being supportive of me when I needed it.

However he was always politically very conservative and recently has become way more so. It reached a head the other day when he was talking about families and he said that in the 1950's, things were better because the father was the breadwinner and the mother stayed at home. I said actually no, that wasn't "better" because if the father was a drunken wastrel or abusive the mother often had no recourse as she was completely financially dependent on her husband. And he said that still, females valued marriage more than they valued their kids, and that was a good thing. And that they were prepared to make "sacrifices" (like taking beatings) for the sake of keeping the family together.

I don't agree with any of this but I've heard this sort of worldview expressed many times so I'm like okay. But then he started going into Phyllis Schlafly territory by saying that men became irresponsible because females entering the workforce had "neutered" them. That when men knew they were the dominant authority in society, in the workplace, and in the home, they had more of a sense of responsibility, but since females started "disrupting" that order they became less responsible. I tried to play devil's advocate but he became really insistent on this, saying that he was around when women spent all their time at home and men "had their fun" and it was just a better system.

Has this ever happened to you guys? Where a friendship became strained because of big differences in worldviews? I don't know quite what to do here.

Tell him how you really feel and take it on from there. If you can't be honest with your friends, then there is your answer.

 

[A.H.Black]

I totally understand. I think if you take that approach you have to be careful. Some could interpret it as the PC police shutting down freedom of speech.

My mother complains about people not accepting her pretty nasty views on a variety of topic. She used to be left wing in her thinking but has become quite extreme in her right wing opinions. She just doesn't seem to get that she is coming across as rude and not pleasant to listen to.

For me there are rights on both sides. Any person has the right to an opinion. They also have a right to express it. I have the right to not listen. I also have the right to not have to hear it. I view it as a time and place question - not a free speech question.

If I ask someone with whom I am friends to not talk about a subject, they can respect my wishes or not. If they choose to respect my request, we remain friends and associate. If they don't respect my request I then have the right to remove myself from their presence. The same goes for my opinions. I have a right to express them, even to try to persuade others that my point of view is correct. However, it is the other person's right to accept my opinion or not - to listen or not - to agree or not.

 

[Aussie Willy]

For me there are rights on both sides. Any person has the right to an opinion. They also have a right to express it. I have the right to not listen. I also have the right to not have to hear it. I view it as a time and place question - not a free speech question.

I agree. People on both sides of the political spectrum behave badly. My sister who is on the opposite side of the political fence is even ruder than my mum. And has been banned on Facebook a number of times not for her opinion but how she addresses people.

What Canbelto said though about being accused as "emotional" and "politically correct" - that is what I was pointing to in my post. This person who she is now ghosting is the kind that I am talking about. They kind of don't get nor understand that their opinions can be unpalatable to some and will stoop to denegrating the listener and making out they are the one with the problem. Yes there is the adage that it is how we respond to things is our problem, but there is also showing respect to the listener and being sensitive to them.

I think regardless, we should all be careful what we say to others. Or more the point how we say it.

 

[Japanfan]

I'm an atheist. Nearly all of the population of the Former Soviet Union was atheists when I was growing up. Practicing any religion was against the law. This did not stop the persecution of Jews (few or none of whom were practicing Judaism). Architects of the 'Doctor's plot' did not care about religious practice. My dad (who was and still is a non-religious Jew) could not enroll in the university of his choice because of Jewish quotas. I was lucky in that I mostly had to only endure slurs when growing up.

As I said above, I'm out of my depth here. But according to Wikipedia: "Opinion polls have suggested that the majority of Jews see being Jewish as predominantly a matter of ancestry and culture, rather than religion". This is what I meant in my posts. This is wholly consistent with my lived experience. It seems that you have a different view on this, but I'm not up for debating various definitions of who is a Jew because it is not pertinent to this thread.

I'm one of the least Jewish Jews you will ever meet. I grew up in a small northern Canadian mining town with only five Jewish families. My father grew up in a family of practicing Jews, and I think he wanted to escape the restraints of both the religion and the Jewish community. We did celebrate Chanukah, but nothing else - that was as Jewish as our household got. I went to a school where The Lord's Prayer was recited every morning (I could have refused on the basis of religion I guess, but didn't want to be singled out or excluded, as most kids don't).

Yet, I always identified as a Jew, although my spirituality is more aligned with pagan/Indigenous spiritualities. It seemed something one was/is -ancestry is my case - rather than something one chose (excepting those who choose to convert).

When the Jehovah Witnesses come to the door, I tell them 'You are out of luck, you've got a Jewish pagan here'. That sends them .

 

[AxelAnnie]

As to friends..............I think you have particular friends at different times, and for different reasons.
Some friends transcend everything.......and they are rare treasures.

Some people come into your life as you share particular experiences....like the friends you make with some of the parents of your children's classmates. The friendships are great, fade as the kids move on, but perfect for that particular time.

Family - love 'em to death (in fact I have a few that really could go into the light). There are certain topics that I have asked my sisters, for example, not to talk about. They each have landlords/room mates that have various levels of dementia. After listening to the same complaints 1,000,437 times, (asking someone to competently carry out tasks or remember things when their minds are failing is fruitless. - either stop asking, or stop being surprised at the outcome).

Epic Friendships. I have a few cherished friends. The kind that perhaps you don't speak to for months, and then you pick up right where you left off. The kind that would write you a check if you asked, and wouldn't ask why. And, as epic as they are, and as long as we have known each other....the births, marriages, divorces, grandchildren & deaths, we just don't discuss politics much. We each have our POV's and there will not be a fundamental change.

With the group of women with whom I ride.........three days a week.....for years and years......and about whom I know much of their struggles, their husbands, kids, achievements, etc..........We are not close friends. We are barn friends. And they start to discuss politics......I just walk my horse. They are liberal (and I know it is a surprise....I am pretty conservative....libertarian, really). One of the women is friends with Nancy Pelosi. Even with the very divergent views on things like choice or politics - it is our safe place. Our happy place.

So, yes, it is possible and lovely to have friendships with people who have different POV's. You be you, and let them be them. Does this work all the time with all the people....nope. It is also important to know when a friendship is less delight and more burden. And, there are some lines for each of us, that can't be crossed. That is when you have to tell the truth to yourself. There is no promise or vow or contract involved with friendship. You actually can chose what works for you. What a great world.

 

[Japanfan]

There is no promise or vow or contract involved with friendship.

I think there sometimes is. I do feel a commitment to the few close friends I have.

I've 'broken up' with a few friends over the years, and the friends I have, have done the same.

IMO (speaking of female friendships), friends are sometimes too quick and cavalier to end friendships, but will hang on to problematic male partners (maybe female partners too?). And friendships often end without closure in my experience, and are more likely to do so than relationships with boyfriends.

 

[nlloyd]

Has anyone read Marshall Rosenberg's work on non-violent communication? Rosenberg has helped communities and individuals deal with some really entrenched conflict. His approach seems to me to offer a useful middle path between simply avoiding difficult issues, on the one hand, and cutting people off, on the other. Much of what he suggests is common-sense conflict resolution (use "I" language, avoid judgmental language, provide concrete examples etc.), but he proposes as sequence of steps that seems helpful:

1. Observations
2. Feelings
3. Need
4. Request

Here's a one-pager I found explaining the approach (and from which the above steps/guidelines are derived): https://thepowermoves.com/nonviolent-communication/

Using a less serious situation, the writer of this summary provides the following example for non-violent communication between a parent and child:

Parent: When I see your toys spread across the kitchen’s floor [observation], I feel frustrated [feelings] because I need our house to be clean and safe. [need]. Do you think you can pick up your toys and take them to your room when you are done playing? [request]

What would it look like to take a non-violent communication approach in the OP's situation? For me, this would have the advantage of the friend understanding the impact of his behavior on the OP and thus giving him a chance to see the personal ramifications of what he may deem to be simply PC or leftist rhetoric. That seems to me to be a better way of bringing about social change than disconnecting from him without an explanation. It also gives the friend an opportunity to understand the implications for himself if he continues down that path, since the OP feels some indebtedness to him. Of course, he may still proceed down the path of racist invective etc., and if he is truly creepy/dangerous then I would avoid him altogether, but if not, he would have been given a chance to understand the options and at a minimum, called on his behavior.

 

[Matryeshka]

I think there’s a degree to having friends with different opinions. My parish (county for you poor non-La types) had the highest votes for Trump in an already deeply-red state. If I couldn’t be friends with people who weren’t liberal, well, I’d have no friends.

For example, I have friends who are pro-life BUT they are also pro more social welfare, easier access to headstart programs, easier path to adoption, totally paid for maternity care and leave, stricter penalties for dead-beat dads, are totally against the death penalty, etc. I don’t agree, but they aren’t just pro-birth. I can find common ground with this. But I could not be friends with some incel who believes that women should have no autonomy and their only worth is how useful they are to men or who views pregnancy as a punishment for having sex.

In @canbelto ‘s case, if he had said “well I’m more conservative, believe in the nuclear family blah-blah” BUT also believed that men, as their protector role, would NEVER hit, hurt, touch a woman in a demeaning way and would defend the fairer sex with everything, his views would be more palatable. But if he’s defending abusers, there’s nothing defensible about him.