Serious Post from me- Family rifts.

Cirrus

I'm sure this is an issue that a lot of people are dealing with.

My grandad worked on the railways and later as a lorry driver. Growing up in the late '40s+50s, he comes from a pretty strongly left wing/ worker/ unions mentality and I remember when I was younger hearing a lot of that talk around the dinner table on family trips to see him and my step gran. He had my mum young and split up with my gran a few years later, and from what I've gathered over the years did most of the work in raising mum. He's a sentimental guy who's into Glen Miller and Mark Knopfler, and I remember when I was at uni being so proud of him because he learned how to work a computer - we used to have MSN messenger video chats fairly regularly.

However, since he retired (iirc about 15 years ago?) his world has naturally got a bit smaller, and these days he is quite openly anti-foreigner. I'm sure he gets the vast majority of his news from the Daily Mail and the Mail Online, and over a decade I feel like I've actually lost my grandad at least partially to right wing propaganda. When I was over there at christmas I noticed his desktop background was the white cliffs of Dover, and I'm pretty sure that's a symbol that's quite prominent on BNP/EDL style propaganda videos. If you're an old man living in a small seaside town and day after day you're reading about how terrible migrants are, you're going to end up hating them. It's just the way the brain works, I'm sure we'd all be the same. Naturally, this effect acts in tandem with the other natural process of ageing - nostalgia for a world that doesn't exist any more (and possibly never did), and a sense that the things that are different now are objectively worse than how things used to be.

The heartbreaking this is that last year he fought leukaemia, and is currently in remission. I love him, he's family, and we've had great conversations in the past. I'm aware that time is passing. It's just hard to tiptoe around certain subjects because we're both as entrenched in our views as each other, and I know that even if we started off with a very calm and good natured disagreement, within 5 minutes he'll be railing about Johnny Foreigner and the Muslims (incidentally, what a GREAT band name!), bouncing from one unrelated subject to another by shouting "AND ANOTHER THING!". I just don't want to get him that wound up, and I try to avoid confrontation anyway, that's my nature.

It's just hard to accept because I know that the aggression is at odds with his personality.

Sporky

And that one didn't come up when I did a google dictionary search.

Google is a different friend to different people.

CabbageCat

@Sporky : Hello Sporky!

Sporky

@Sporky - well, at least people aren't calling me Sporty or Spooky today.

Handsome_Chris

Sporky said:

And that one didn't come up when I did a google dictionary search.

Google is a different friend to different people.

Sparky, I think you'll find Google is everyone's friend.

Chalky

A dictionary from Oxford University is a rather obscure source, isn't it? 

Sporky

Not very, no; I have Collins and Chambers but not Oxford. No idea why it didn't turn up in Google for me but feel free to keep poking if it makes you happy.

Handsome_Chris

Sporky said:

Not very, no; I have Collins and Chambers but not Oxford. No idea why it didn't turn up in Google for me but feel free to keep poking if it makes you happy.

Maybe Google Is @Sporky's Nemesis?

slacker

A lot of irony in this thread. I'll be positive...

Relationships are easy when you choose them. It's the ones you dont choose that are difficult, family, in-laws, colleagues. The way I deal with it is that there are people that I like being around and there are people I manage. By that I mean I limit the time I spent, the location and the context. 

The hardest situations for me is when people go from close to managed through various circumstances. I had to accept that things had changed. People divorce and remarry or they get ill etc etc. EDIT I'm not anti divorce, the dynamic changes when they are single or remarry someone you dont know etc. 

I've had a friend who was seriously ill and it changed our relationship. I've had to deal with that or lose a friend. And it really was me and not them. I had to sort myself out. EDIT it wasnt that I cannot cope with illness, the personality changed. 

ToneControl

Sporky said:

Also depends which dictionaries you check. I've had a look through two paper ones and six online ones and can't find the one ToneControl did. Generally the definition is more "intolerance of different religions or races", but he got 4 Wisdoms to my two LOLs so the one he found is clearly more appealing here.

I was thinking of Gordon Brown when I searched

I just put it into google, first result back (google's own I think)

2nd hit was  Cambridge:

a person who has strong, unreasonable beliefs and who does not like otherpeople who have different beliefs or a different way of life:

a religious bigotHe was known to be a loud-mouthed, opinionated bigot.

3rd is dictionary.com
stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.

most seem to be like this, a few mention religion or race

I just wondered what the correct usage was.
Going the other way, starting with the most official site I could think of, I got more confused just now:
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/18890?redirectedFrom=bigot#eid

it seems the origin and main meaning is that  of someone religious, who shows too much zeal.  So that would be  meaning  fundamentalist religious people and very  in-your-face religious people I would assume
"A person considered to adhere unreasonably or obstinately to a particular religious belief, practice, etc."

So I guess  ISIS and the  Christian evangelists are bigots, but not Mrs Gillian Duffy 

;-)

Sporky

ToneControl said:

it seems the origin and main meaning is that  of someone religious, who shows too much zeal.  So that would be  meaning  fundamentalist religious people and very  in-your-face religious people I would assume
"A person considered to adhere unreasonably or obstinately to a particular religious belief, practice, etc."

I think it's that and the bit about having strong opinions oneself, so that intolerant-of-intolerance thing might not count as bigotry.

Also I read back my post and it reads much "pointier" than I'd intended, sorry.

Also most interesting to see the OED one - I think @Chalky may have been confused and thought that oxforddictionaries was the OED.

bingefeller

How could your mothers vote have a material effect on you?

 I can't imagine falling out with a family member over their political views, especially my parents.  

crunchman

I think @Gassage may need to calm down a little.

For instance, his disparaging of anyone who voted leave as not being intelligent is plainly untrue. I voted leave and I like to think of myself as intelligent.  I've got a degree from a university that's ranked in the top ten of the Times Worldwide rankings so hopefully I'm not completely deluding myself.  Whatever your view of Boris is, he's not thick.  If you are thick you don't get a scholarship to Eton and a place at Balliol - which is one of Oxford's most prestigious colleges.

I don't think anyone would have described Tony Benn as unintelligent (or bigoted) either but he wanted out:


People have their reasons for voting the way they did.  For me immigration was not that big an issue, but the complete lack of democratic accountability in the EU, the overwhelming bureaucracy that means nothing can get done, and what it is likely to become in the future if it survives at all were very big issues.

I accept that there will be some short term economic pain, although that's being made worse by speculators and by people who do well out of the current system throwing their toys out of the pram, but 15 years down the line I think we will be a lot better off out.

TheBlueWolf

Sporky said:

TheBlueWolf said:

My view is that people are entitled to an opinion, even if their opinions are objectionable.

Mine is that people have opinions; I'm not keen on this entitlement thing as it heads towards validating any opinion.

However, basic manners dictate that you don't express every opinion in every situation. As a simple example, let's say you don't like a particular guitar. A friend says "I'm thinking of buying one of these"; at that point, saying you don't like it is fine. A friend says "I've just bought one of these" - at that point it's not so fine to piss on their chips.

Having opinions is one thing, articulating them willy-nilly is another.

Fair points

Thinking about it, entitling people to express unsavoury opinions probably does suggest that said opinions are valid which isn't entirely what I meant, which is why I suggested @Gassage politely ask his mum not to express those opinions around him

LoFi

Sporky said:

However, basic manners dictate that you don't express every opinion in every situation. As a simple example, let's say you don't like a particular guitar. A friend says "I'm thinking of buying one of these"; at that point, saying you don't like it is fine. A friend says "I've just bought one of these" - at that point it's not so fine to piss on their chips.

Unless he paid full whack for a 2015 LP and won't stop going on about how great it is, in which case it's perfectly fair to nod and smile until you can't take it any more, then shout "Oh, for God's sake - it's a dreadful guitar with a bunch of features no-one wanted, which is why even in the middle of 2015 you could get them for several hundred quid under initial street price, and why there are now shops that are punting them out new for less than a second-hand 2014 model!"

Not that I'm speaking from experience.

Sporky

I will concede that any statement (including this one) can be stretched beyond its original application.

hungrymark

Falling out with her because of how she voted? Get a grip man, she can vote how she likes. You think you're right, she thinks she's right. It happens. 

Just avoid contentious subjects. If she starts to have a chunter, nip it in the bud. My mum's a bit of a racist but it's not a problem as far as my relationship with her goes. We try and let her know why it's not really socially acceptable. Part of me thinks she just says things to wind us up. She's great though. 

bingefeller

You are quite uppity Gassage.  The fact you mention material wealth says a lot about you. Maybe you are putting money before family?  That's what your post says to me. 

Chalky

Sporky said:

ToneControl said:

it seems the origin and main meaning is that  of someone religious, who shows too much zeal.  So that would be  meaning  fundamentalist religious people and very  in-your-face religious people I would assume
"A person considered to adhere unreasonably or obstinately to a particular religious belief, practice, etc."

I think it's that and the bit about having strong opinions oneself, so that intolerant-of-intolerance thing might not count as bigotry.

Also I read back my post and it reads much "pointier" than I'd intended, sorry.

Also most interesting to see the OED one - I think @Chalky may have been confused and thought that oxforddictionaries was the OED.

No confusion - oxforddictionaries is from Oxford University Press. Clue's in the name!

Sporky

Well, then, it might have been me that was confused.