Same. I even went to the extent of completely deleting my Facebook account. I knew that it was going to be a shit show with this upcoming election, and I knew that being constantly bombarded with opinions from a ton of people would stress me out, even if we're in agreement. I don't have enough self control to just ignore those people, so I would inevitably end up in heated debates which ultimately serve no purpose other than pissing everyone off.
As for your A/B scenarios: the latter seems more common amongst my peers, but it may actually be indirectly caused by the former.
I frequently see people opting out of political discussions just to avoid being tag teamed by a group of political extremists.
I think the fundamental issue is that many people want to be accepted and liked by everyone, which is impossible once you start expressing your political views. Therefore, we take the safe option of remaining silent.
> many people want to be accepted and liked by everyone, which is impossible once you start expressing your political views
Joke's on them.. I unfriended plenty of people for being sick of their never taking a stance on anything meaningful. There is no safe option, at least not with me. Or as the title of that documentary about Howard Zinn goes, you can't be neutral on a moving train. Besides:
> She had blue skin, and so did he. He kept it hid and so did she. They searched for blue their whole life through, then passed right by - and never knew.
-- Shel Silverstein
Of course this includes not being on FB, or not talking about politics in social settings, if that is what you want. But it's also the reason I wear my heart and mind on my sleeve.. I don't miss any of the people I "lost" that way, and I wouldn't want to miss any of the people I gained through it.
B seems like the way to go, unless you feel like you're in a position to effect some kind of real change. B also lets you forge the widest social and professional network without engaging in friction that probably doesn't need to exist in social or professional settings.
The other thing that's emerged is C) Outrage addicts and D) Trolls. They don't care about the politics, may not even have much in the way of firm politics, but they're bored and maybe not entirely sane; and now with the internet, they have a global platform.
I would say that might be a side effect of a more fundamental shift – that of social networks making us more stupid (unintelligent?) and unable to coherently defend ideas in real life.
On the internet, it is easy to type out long comments, cherry-pick and refute the ideas of the person on the other side, and sometimes be incredibly rude to them. But performing the jugglery of coherently defending your point while talking frankly, without being rude, in person, is a skill that seems to be conspicuous by absence in Americans today. I have noticed way too many people recently who post 200 things on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest/Instagram, and yet are unable to keep up a decent conversation for more than five minutes without uncomfortable silences or pulling out their phones.
It's one thing to have a debate on the internet, where all the information in the world is basically at your fingertips and you have a chance to review your comments before posting them.
It's another thing to do this on the fly in real life.
How are social networks making us more stupid than generations of family-run farming communities?
Anyway, I don't see any evidence that people were ever able to speak frankly without being rude, nor that silence being uncomfortable is anything but a personal problem. Maybe you think silence is uncomfortable because you aren't properly socialized?
In previous decades "rude" in politics would literally get people killed. Trolling on FB doesn't move the needle in comparison.
As a rue of thumb, if windows, limbs, and necks aren't being broken, the discourse is still relatively civilised.
I don't believe there's evidence to support the idea that there was ever a golden age of mainstream political civility. I think there may have been a golden age of literate and moderated political journalism, but that was always distinct from the kinds of things that happened - and still do happen, in some ways - to people who happen to be in the wrong out-group.
I think its important to draw a distinction between the past and now. In the past, many oppressed people would never have a chance to participate in "the discourse" because the mere act of them speaking could be seen as inappropriate. The violence against them would be leveled at them outside of the realm of discourse. The discourse may have been civilised, but the civilisation wasn't!
The idea that those people can all participate in the discussion without the fear of direct fist-to-the-face violence, is to me a positive.
I pretty much only post things that can be verified easily. Most are snopes type things, and only for people I'm on a pretty firm footing with.
I unfeed people who post inflammatory stuff.
IMO, the medium could be great for compare-contrast type things - "I think tradition <x> is important because <y>" but it seems like less and less of that happens now.
Edit: I've been moving towards B myself.