On Bridging Political Differences Between Friends

There was a time, or so I am told by the kind of people who become maudlin after a third glass of scotch, when politics was the art of the possible and friendship the art of forgiveness. That era, like the well-mannered dinner party and the respectable cardigan, seems to have vanished. We now live in a time when politics is the art of self-righteousness, and friendship the art of cancellation.

The phenomenon is not merely observable in the puerile exchanges of university campuses or the echo chambers of social media. It has now entered the home, the café, the WhatsApp group. Friends—people who once shared secrets, sorrows, and cigarettes—now fall out over matters they neither fully understand nor have the means to change. That, to me, is the essence of the tragicomedy: that people will rupture decades-old affections over what some government functionary said about a trade regulation on national television.

We ought not to be surprised. For politics has ceased to be the art of governance and has become a theatre of identity, emotion, and moral exhibitionism. People no longer merely hold political views; they are their political views. To disagree with someone is no longer to question a conclusion, but to attack their very essence. One may have once disputed economic policy; now one is denounced as complicit in genocide or, worse still, suspected of insufficient hashtag enthusiasm.

It goes without saying that it would be a folly to advocate that one should be indifferent to politics. Far from it. Indifference is the soil in which tyranny takes root. But there is something grotesquely narcissistic in the contemporary assumption that one’s political convictions are a sort of moral accreditation, and therefore a litmus test for human decency. Bridging political differences is then, is not so much a matter of intellectual compromise as it is of psychological deflation. One must first deflate one’s own sense of righteousness—and that is perhaps the most painful operation known to man.

If one wishes to bridge political differences between friends, one must first examine what politics has come to represent. In modern democratic societies, the political has become the existential. The only remedy, it seems to me, lies in a deliberate and conscious act of humility. And here we encounter the first obstacle: humility is in short supply, and rapidly going out of fashion. Nevertheless, it is humility that allows us to admit that we may not know everything, that our sources may be biased, that our indignation may be disproportionate, and that our friend, misguided though he may be, is still capable of being right about many other things—such as jazz music or roast potatoes.

We must also recognise that many political opinions, even our own, are absorbed rather than reasoned. They are, like accent or fashion sense, picked up from the surrounding culture and worn without much thought. The person who holds an opposing view is not necessarily a fool, a knave, or a bigot—though he might be all three—but more likely, he is simply the target of a different set of influences. This is not relativism, but realism. It is not that all views are equal, but that the conditions under which people arrive at them are similarly human—fallible, emotional, contingent.

If one wishes to remain friends across the political chasm, then silence is sometimes the wisest response. Which, in the age of shrieking certainties, is itself a form of love. There is no shame in knowing which topics will lead only to mutual exasperation. Some may call this cowardice, but one might just as well call it tact—an old-fashioned virtue now rebranded as dishonesty by those who mistake bluntness for courage and rage for sincerity.

I am not, of course, recommending that we all become mute or vacuous. But the sacredness of friendship lies precisely in its ability to accommodate difference. If one can only be friends with ideological clones, then one deserves neither friends nor ideology. Friends are not political statements to be displayed like bumper stickers. They are flawed, fascinating beings whose contradictions mirror our own.

But let us suppose, for the sake of optimism (which, like red wine, is best taken in small doses), that dialogue is desired. The way forward, then, lies not in debate, but in curiosity. Ask questions not to trap, but to understand. Be less the prosecutor and more the anthropologist. Resist the urge to respond with a counterargument and instead respond with, “That’s interesting—how did you come to see it that way?” In short, behave less like Twitter and more like a Victorian gentleman at tea.

One must also accept that the friendship might contain irreconcilable dissonances. There is no guarantee of harmony, and attempts to manufacture it often lead to greater discord. Friendship is not founded on political agreement but on mutual respect, affection, and the recognition—again unfashionable—that the other is not reducible to their worst opinion.

The ability to remain friends with someone whose views one finds distasteful is a sign not of moral compromise, but of emotional maturity. It recognises that life is lived not in manifestos, but in gestures, routines, and small acts of grace. Your friend may vote for a party whose economic policy you consider ruinous, but he may also be the only one who accompanies you to your father’s funeral. Which is the greater proof of character?

In a saner world, friendships across ideological lines would be seen as evidence that the political has not devoured the personal. But in our time, where even children’s books are scrutinised for subversive undertones, such friendships are viewed with suspicion, as if civility were complicity.

To bridge political differences between friends, then, is not a matter of converting, correcting, or convincing. It requires a kind of emotional bifocals. One must see clearly the issue at hand, but also see past it—to the years of camaraderie, the shared vacations, the consoling phone calls during a divorce, the matching kurtas worn at each other’s weddings. These are not mere sentimental frills; they are the meat of the relationship. Politics, for most of us, should be only dressing.

Image Source: Afterlife (2019-2022)