I think most people are not far-left or far-right, but somewhere in the middle. But the extremes are what's exciting, and what drive attention so the media focuses almost entirely on them, promoting the false notion that everyone is an extremist lunatic. The media is shaping the political reality rather than conveying what's actually going on. The result is a warped perspective that most people accept despite the fact that it doesn't match their lived experience.
Discussion
I don't know mate.
I think if you dropped of a random person from Melbourne at just about any point in the past they would be seen as pretty radical.
Then again if you were to drop them off their views would change because they are incapable of thinking for themself and will just follow the dominant narritave.
I agree with you, although I can't speak about Australia specifically. But people have a tendency to pay a role, and outwardly model their behavior on what they perceive as expected. The media is shaping expectations, and people who are really somewhere in between far-left and far-right are changing their behavior to conform with with they believe is expected, as conveyed by the media. It's all performative. When you actually ask these people about their views on various topics, it becomes clear they're a lot less extreme than their performance would indicate.
Sure but at some point performative becomes reality. When you perform a certain way your actions are not on a stage. If you beat someone in a mob you can later say that your actions were just performative but there will still be a very real bloody person on the streets.
That's true. For some people, they do take on the underlying beliefs of the extremists, becoming extremists themselves. But I believe that if you were able to sit everyone down one-on-one and question them not about their political identity, but about their views on specific issues, the result would be a majority objectively landing somewhere in the space between far-left and far-right. Extremism may be their outward identity, but querying their specific beliefs would reveal more nuance, and a complex identity that can't be lumped into either extreme.
I like your optimism and I won't argue with you.
Oh there's no argument here. Just a friendly discussion and sharing of perspectives. I can't claim my beliefs as a fact because I don't have the data, but they are based on my personal interactions with a variety of people. I'm just extrapolating and applying my subjective experience to the larger population. I could easily be totally wrong.
I did not feel like it was anything other than friendly I am just saying there is maybe no point going back and forth since who knows where peoples minds are at. From my experience people got pretty wild during covid. More than just a performance. I think I also have a poor perception because I live in a city that is very left.