Discussing politics at the diner table was something I was raised with, my parents believed in the importance of knowledge in politics and the world around you. They have always involved me in their debates and pushed me to be critical about what I saw in the news or read in the papers, which I still value a lot. Debating was, because of my parents influence, one of my favorite subjects in school and I always considered myself to be a good debater. My opinions mostly sympathized the left wing, just like the opinions parents, my friends and actually everybody else I surrounded myself with. Later I started to realize that I grew up in a politically left environment. I never really got in contact with people from the right wing, and because of that it was especially easy for me to shape an opinion about them. 

 

For this project I decided to challenge myself to feast the left. I cut myself of from all left media, created a different instagram where I only followed right parties and only watched tv programs mainly created for the right wing. Soon I started to get different kind of articles and advertisements recommended. But to really step out of the left wing bubble, that bubble that I was born in an comfortably stayed in, I decided to get in contact with politicians and members of right wing parties. I went to a meeting of one of the most conservative parties in the Netherlands and debated with the members. I visited three guys that where members of young VVD, a liberal party. And at last I went to lunch with Jordy a fanatical PVV sympathizer.

 

PVV is one of the more extreme parties from the right wing and one that I grew up to have very negative associations with. I had the understanding that if somebody voted PVV they must not be educated about politics. But meeting Jordy dismissed this. Jordy was politically very educated. And it was in a debate with him that I noticed it, I was never really debating with people, at least not in a challenging way. This meeting with Jordy made me realize how easy it is to debate in an environment where you constantly get the conformation that your opinion is the “right one”, how easy it was to get an image of people with a different opinion without ever having to discuss together about your different views.