BDZ NEWS | CULTURE Why We Can't Seem to Disagree Anymore

Disagreement isn't new. What seems different is how quickly an opposing opinion can become a judgment about someone's intelligence, morality or character. Somewhere along the way, we stopped arguing only about ideas and started arguing about what kind of people we think those ideas make us.

By Elena BDZ News Desk

There was a time when two people could argue about politics over dinner and still pass the potatoes.

They might get loud.

Someone might roll their eyes.

An uncle would inevitably say something that made half the table uncomfortable.

Then dessert arrived.

Nobody blocked anyone.

Nobody posted a screenshot.

Nobody spent the next three days collecting strangers who agreed that Aunt Linda was literally everything wrong with America.

Obviously, the past wasn't some golden age of thoughtful disagreement. Families stopped speaking over politics long before Facebook existed. Americans have fought bitterly over religion, race, war, economics, immigration, civil rights and what the country should become.

Disagreement isn't new.

But something about the way we experience disagreement has changed.

Increasingly, an opposing opinion doesn't feel like:

"I think you're wrong."

It feels like:

"What kind of person would believe that?"

And once disagreement becomes a judgment of character, conversation gets much harder.

We Aren't Just Arguing About Policies

Political disagreement becomes particularly difficult when people believe the other side doesn't merely have different solutions, but fundamentally different values.

Pew Research Center found during the 2024 election that 75% of Harris supporters and 81% of Trump supporters said they fundamentally disagreed with supporters of the opposing candidate about America's core values and goals.

That's different from arguing about a tax rate.

If I think your economic policy is ineffective, we can debate numbers.

If I think your political beliefs reveal that you're a terrible human being, why would I bother listening?

And if you believe the same thing about me, we're no longer having a disagreement.

We're defending our identities.

The Country Really Is Divided

It's tempting to explain everything by blaming social media.

Reality is more complicated.

Americans genuinely disagree about important things.

Pew's long-term research shows that the country's two major political coalitions have become increasingly different from one another across demographics, geography, education and ideology. In its analysis of registered voters through 2023, Pew found the electorate almost evenly divided between voters identifying with or leaning Democratic, at 49%, and Republican, at 48%.

There are also substantial differences over government's role, immigration, abortion, guns, education, taxes and many other issues.

Pretending those differences don't exist doesn't bring people together.

Sometimes disagreement is legitimate.

Sometimes the stakes really are high.

Sometimes compromise isn't possible.

And sometimes one side of a factual argument simply has stronger evidence.

"Everyone has a perspective" does not mean every claim is equally true.

That's an important distinction.

But We May Be More Divided in Our Heads Than in Reality

Here's where things get interesting.

We don't only disagree with other groups.

We also make assumptions about what those groups believe.

And those assumptions can be wrong.

A 2019 More in Common study involving 2,100 Americans asked Democrats and Republicans about their own positions and what they believed members of the opposing party thought. The researchers found substantial gaps between people's perceptions of their political opponents and those opponents' actual reported positions.

That research is older and shouldn't be treated as a snapshot of Americans in 2026. But the phenomenon it examined remains worth considering.

Because most of us don't encounter "the other side" as a representative sample.

We encounter its loudest examples.

The ridiculous video.

The offensive comment.

The politician saying something outrageous.

The protester holding the craziest sign.

The person screaming into a camera.

And then something subtle happens.

That person becomes "them."

Not one person.

Not one account.

Not one activist.

Them.

Millions of people reduced to the worst example we can find.

The Internet Rewards the Worst Possible Representative

Imagine you're scrolling through your feed.

You see someone calmly explain:

I understand why people disagree with me, but here's how I see the issue.

Maybe you read it.

Maybe you don't.

Now imagine the next post says:

ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THIS IS A COMPLETE IDIOT.

Which one generates more comments?

Which one gets shared by people who are furious?

Which one gets shared by people saying, "Look how crazy these people are"?

Which one keeps everyone arguing?

The second person may represent almost nobody.

But they're more interesting to the algorithm.

Extreme content doesn't have to represent the average person to shape what the average person thinks the other side looks like.

Eventually, we aren't debating our actual neighbors anymore.

We're debating a caricature assembled from the worst things we've seen online.

Outrage Feels Like Participation

There's another reason disagreement becomes addictive.

Anger feels productive.

You see something outrageous.

You repost it.

You write three paragraphs explaining why it's wrong.

People agree with you.

Someone congratulates you for "saying what needed to be said."

For a moment, it feels like you've done something.

Sometimes public criticism absolutely matters.

But there is a difference between addressing a problem and participating in an outrage cycle.

The second one requires a constant supply of villains.

And the internet never runs out.

We Perform for Our Own Side

A lot of online arguments aren't actually attempts to persuade the person being addressed.

They're performances for everyone watching.

You don't write the devastating comeback because you think the other person will read it and say:

"You know what? Excellent point. You've completely changed my worldview."

You write it for your team.

Likes.

Shares.

Applause.

Validation.

The incentives change.

If your goal is understanding, you ask questions.

If your goal is performing, you make declarations.

If your goal is persuasion, you look for common ground.

If your goal is applause, you make the other person look stupid.

Guess which one social media makes easier?

Being Wrong Has Become Expensive

Another problem is that changing your mind can feel humiliating.

Imagine publicly arguing something for years.

You've posted about it.

Fought with people about it.

Maybe insulted people over it.

Your friends know your position.

Your online identity may partly revolve around it.

Then you encounter evidence that complicates what you believe.

Changing your mind now doesn't feel like intellectual growth.

It feels like losing.

So instead of asking:

"Is this true?"

we start asking:

"How do I defend my side?"

That's dangerous regardless of which side you're on.

A belief should survive because the evidence supports it, not because abandoning it would be embarrassing.

Politics Isn't the Only Place This Happens

We've imported this behavior into almost everything.

Parenting.

Diet.

Relationships.

Education.

Religion.

Gender roles.

Cars.

Technology.

Working from home.

Going to the office.

College.

Marriage.

Fitness.

Sometimes even what kind of milk you're supposed to drink.

Pick a subject and eventually someone will turn a preference into a moral identity.

You don't simply disagree about the best way to raise children.

You're a bad parent.

You don't merely have a different opinion about work.

You're lazy.

You don't just eat differently.

You're poisoning yourself.

You don't disagree about relationships.

You're what's wrong with modern men or modern women.

Everything becomes a team.

And every team eventually needs an enemy.

Listening Doesn't Mean Agreeing

This is where people sometimes misunderstand calls for civility.

Listening to someone does not require agreeing with them.

Understanding an argument doesn't mean accepting it.

Respecting someone's humanity doesn't require respecting every idea they hold.

Some ideas deserve strong criticism.

Some claims are false.

Some behavior is harmful.

Some disagreements cannot be resolved by sitting around a table and discovering that everybody secretly agrees.

But listening still serves a purpose.

You can't meaningfully challenge an argument you don't understand.

If the only version of the opposing position you've heard comes from someone who already agrees with you, there's a decent chance you're arguing against the weakest version of it.

Ask the person who actually believes it.

Why?

Not:

"How could you possibly believe something so stupid?"

Just:

"Why do you see it that way?"

You might still disagree completely.

But at least you'll be disagreeing with the person's actual position.

Most People Are More Complicated Than Their Labels

Consider how we categorize people.

Conservative.

Liberal.

Religious.

Atheist.

Traditional.

Progressive.

Rich.

Poor.

Urban.

Rural.

Immigrant.

Native-born.

College educated.

Working class.

Those labels tell you something.

They don't tell you everything.

Pew's research illustrates this even within political identity. In its 2024 analysis, a quarter of registered voters associated with the Democratic Party while describing themselves as conservative or moderate. Fourteen percent were Republicans or Republican-leaning voters who described themselves as moderate or liberal.

Human beings don't fit perfectly into boxes.

A person can believe something conservative about one issue and something progressive about another.

Someone can dislike both political parties.

Someone can support a policy while disliking the politician promoting it.

Someone can change.

Someone can be uncertain.

Someone can say:

"I don't know."

We've somehow made that last answer sound weak.

It isn't.

Sometimes "I don't know" is the most intellectually honest sentence available.

A Lot of People Are Tired of the Fight

The loudest voices can make constant political combat look universal.

It isn't.

In 2023, Pew found that 84% of U.S. adults said political debate had become less respectful over the preceding several years, while 78% said it had become less fact-based. Interestingly, 57% also said disagreements between Republicans and Democrats received too much attention, while 78% said important issues facing the country received too little.

Pew separately conducted focus groups with Americans who had largely tuned out of politics. Participants described politics as something they often preferred avoiding rather than embracing. The focus groups were small and aren't statistically representative of the country, but they offer another window into political exhaustion.

Maybe the people screaming at one another aren't always representative of everybody else.

Maybe they're simply easier to hear.

Try Arguing Better

We aren't going to stop disagreeing.

Nor should we.

Disagreement can expose bad ideas.

It can challenge assumptions.

It can force us to defend what we believe.

It can change minds.

It can change societies.

The goal shouldn't be eliminating disagreement.

The goal should be becoming better at it.

That could start with a few simple habits:

Ask someone what they actually believe before telling them what they believe.

Criticize the argument instead of diagnosing the person.

Be willing to say when the other side makes a legitimate point.

Separate facts from values.

Don't share something simply because it confirms what you already wanted to believe.

And perhaps most importantly:

Leave open the possibility that you might be wrong about something.

Not everything.

Something.

Because the person who believes they're incapable of being wrong has also made themselves incapable of learning.

Another Side

Maybe the problem isn't that we disagree too much.

Maybe we've forgotten what disagreement is supposed to be.

It isn't war.

It isn't surrender.

It isn't betrayal.

And listening isn't losing.

Two people can examine the same problem, bring different experiences to it and reach different conclusions.

Sometimes one will be wrong.

Sometimes both will be partly right.

Sometimes the evidence will change.

Sometimes neither will convince the other.

That's okay.

The person sitting across from you doesn't automatically become stupid, evil or your enemy because they see something differently.

And if your argument is strong, you shouldn't need to dehumanize someone to defend it.

So the next time someone says something you completely disagree with, resist the easiest response for a moment.

Don't immediately prepare your comeback.

Ask one more question.

You might not change your mind.

They might not change theirs.

But you may discover something increasingly rare:

A disagreement with an actual human being instead of the version of them you created in your head.