Can you maintain friendships with people you strongly disagree with?

Ferocious said:
It takes two (or more)people to form a friendship, and if they strongly disagree with each others points of views, then they should just make friends with others people instead and avoid each other, it's just common sense. It works for me.
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im glad someone expressed this pov. its commonsense to avoid people who neither listen nor empathise with us.
i started this thread with some difficult family relationships in mind. Part of me would like to resolve our conflict easily. But maybe I need to back off and accept that we will never see eye to eye. Respectful distance is the way to go perhaps.
 

My dad was career military, so we traveled far, wide and often.

As small children we were taught to respect other people culture, religion, politics and differences. We were encouraged to attend all manner of religious services, pay attention and be polite. We were taught to adapt to cultural differences and learn to understand why things were different for others.

I can and do have good friends who's opinions and choices differ vastly from mine. I have learned so much from them.

One thing I will not tolerate is someone who does not listen, yells at the other person and calls them names or stupid. Don't care what "side" you are on. If you want to change a persons point of view it requires a conversation, berating them ends all possibility of conversation.
 
I do have one particular friend who has polar opposite views of my own. I would not call him a close friend...he and his wife are neighbors. We have agreed to disagree on the hot topics. And I have often had to shut him down mid rant as I just was tired of it
 

No. My life is hard enough and I have my fill of problems presently, so I would not maintain a relationship with someone I disagree with strongly.
 
I keep making the mistake of contributing to political threads, and then get jumped on. It really does bring out the worst in people. It results in giving the wrong impression because, at the moment, if you don't agree with the modern liberalism, you're regarded as a pariah and your views are worthless. You can suppress people's views but you cannot destroy them. Hence the Brexit result (sorry there's that dirty word again), which came as such a shock because people were not allowed to criticise the EU.
 

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