Entrenched views

In which Andrew Dennis ponders the effect firmly held beliefs are having on our political discourse..

The thing I think most needs to change in politics, locally and nationally, is the continued entrenchment of political philosophies, culture, tradition and views. Views that are wrapped up in a political dogma, attitude or belief that isn’t perhaps as relevant today as it might have been when a person’s views were first formed – often in their teenage years, or, in the case of Chelsea Clinton, whose parents encouraged her take part in philosophical, social and political debate around the dinner table at the age of 5, much earlier!

Entrenchment is defined in an online dictionary resource as the fact of an attitude, habit or belief becoming so firmly established that change is very difficult or unlikely. The 1980s seem to be the time, in my lifetime, when views hardened, to the right, to the left, and you were either one of us, or one of them. 

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