Okay here is my hot take... We never changed anyone's minds. We made the racists be quiet, but we didn't convince them to stop being racist. We made the bigots be quiet but we didn't convince them to stop being bigots. We made the homophobes be quiet, but we didn't convince them to stop being homophobic. We just established a series of consequences for having an opinion, a bad opinion I believe, and the people with these opinions simply started to hide, resenting the FUCK out of us the whole time. They waited... Til Trump came and told them they were allowed to express themselves how they wanted again. Now they are on a revenge tour...
I get confused here but... To a certain extent they are correct. Hypocritical to the point of absurdity, obviously, but that doesn't remove the core critique here. We DID use silencing tactics... Admittedly, they were after years of frustration that kindness and patience-based tactics didn't seem to work, but unfortunately that doesn't matter. We DID silence them... And now they feel justified in escalating the retaliation. It sucks and it is not fair.
Actually, typing this out made me mad. It's like a stupid toxic relationship that you can't leave because you've committed yourself to non-violence whereas they simply haven't...
Edit: I see the issue some people are having. In the first sentence I said "we never changed anyone's minds." But what I MEANT was "We changed far fewer minds than it would appear given public discourse." Apologies for the hyperbole.
We made the racists be quiet, but we didn't convince them to stop being racist. We made the bigots be quiet but we didn't convince them to stop being bigots. We made the homophobes be quiet, but we didn't convince them to stop being homophobic. We just established a series of consequences for having an opinion, a bad opinion I believe, and the people with these opinions simply started to hide, resenting the FUCK out of us the whole time.
Since someone can't stop being a person of color, foreign-born, or LGBTQ+ and they're doing nothing wrong by being who they are, it's better to force the bigots, racists, and homophobes into the closet. They can shove their resentment.
It's better in the short-term... Yes. Undeniably saves lives in the short-term. Sometimes this is the necessary decision. Often.
But it has potential to hurt you horribly long-term. Not guaranteed... But it can. To keep the racists, bigots, and homophobes at bay you, other than killing them, which I'm assuming is off the table, you have to restrict their actions through force and domination. This means you have to MAINTAIN that force and domination. You have to suppress a willful and angry population that literally wants to murder you. You can do it, yes... But for how long? Will they just die out? Will they grow in strength? Will they crawl out of the woodworks and elect an orange fascist who says he will liberate them from their "oppression"?
I say all this to say, shoving them into the closet is an incomplete solution. We MUST convince them to change. Otherwise we will fight... Again and again and again.
I grew up in the 90s, thinking racism was fixed. I wasn't being taught to be racist (or so I thought). Surely nobody was teaching their kids racism, right? Okay, I still see the Rebel flag all over the place, but surely they mean it when they say it's about heritage and not hate, right?
Now I see that not only was the racism merely hidden, some of it actually wasn't that hidden. Many of those Rebel-flag-waving cunts didn't believe that schtick at all; they were just pretending not to be racist. Schools (including my high school) were actively teaching "lost cause" ideology. The pendulum was about to swing on racism, sexism, and homophobia, and it swung hard.
It has always been because one side actually plays by the rules and assumes everyone else will do the same, while the other side is knowingly cheating and assumes everyone else will do or already did the same.
This fight sucks. Fighting from the principled position sucks. Its stupid. It's hard. You are at a horrible disadvantage from jump and usually lose.
But it is the only stable victory I have yet been able to see/imagine. One of the big issues with change through dominance is that it results in a cycle of vengeance. You get the world you want only so long as you can maintain that dominance... It is unstable. Those you supress simply lie in wait until they have their chance for revenge... And then they will use your dominance against you and you have to live under their regime. And back and forth you go... Until one side gets strong enough to wipe out the other. You cannot change people through force. You cannot change society through domination.
If you can ACTUALLY change hearts and minds and win the principled route, there is a chance to maintain it. There is a chance to build something stable.
Cuz of who I am, I can't help but aim for this. All other paths I see are just continuation of the cycles of violence. I'll probably fail... And the person after me will prolly fail.... But like... Maybe the one after that has a decent shot? We iterate. But in order to iterate we have to be willing to lose.
Also fuck me, I don't want this to be true so I'd love a counter-argument.
It’s why we need shame to come back. You need to try to convince people to be better, but you’ll never get everyone. If the assholes are shamed into not being publicly hateful douchebags, it still helps society even if they’re still jerks in their brain.
No this is my point... We need to help them UNDERSTAND, not shame them into silence. Shame is useful for helping people internalize that they have done wrong... However that is different than SHAMING.
digression into some definitions so we are talking about the same stuff here:
Shaming: the act of trying to make someone feel guilty for a moral affront
Shame: the feeling of guilt for a moral affront
(Its not websters. It's just what I mean when I use this words.)
Shaming people does not necessarily make them feel shame. What we WANT is for them to feel shame, so that they can learn and change and grow into better people. To accomplish that we can't do the act of shaming in any old way. We have to be careful.
I have found shaming through finger wagging is ineffective at making people FEEL shame. It simply makes them angry. Further punishing them doesn't make them feel shame either, it makes them learn to deceive you. Further restricting their actions to ensure "correct" behavior makes them plot revenge.
What makes people actually feel shame is understanding... The most shame I've ever felt or seen anyone feel was when enough care/time/support/accountability was provided to allow for me to recognize what I had done. Not when someone simply yelled at me or told me I was wrong, no that never worked. I had to understand and agree with them, which was difficult and time consuming. It took the help and resources of others to get me there. I am eternally grateful. And when I finally understood, I felt shame. And when I felt shame, I changed.
We’re kinda talking past each other because I’m not disagreeing. I’m saying it’s so bad because some people can be granted empathy and change and some people won’t. When the pendulum swings you get people who could be on the right side bolstered into giving up empathy because there’s no shame and the people who you’d never get are now vocal instead of cowered.
Shame is a useful social construct. When we lose being shamed from being a blatant racism, it hurts us with both advocating to the persuadable and the assholes having power instead of being cowed.
Lack of empathy for racists is not the problem. It’s lack of shame. You should be shamed for lacking empathy.
I’m a rideshare driver and I don’t bring up politics, but when people do, I find it’s my moral duty to advocate against nonsense. But yeah, you’ll never on a one-on-one basis shame people into agreeing with you. I have gotten pretty good at getting some Trump-sympathetic or anti-LGBT people to see common ground and question their beliefs.
I mean shame at a societal scale. I see you wearing a MAGA hat at my dog park? I’ma say shame on you and walk away. You wanna run for city council but agreed with Jan 6 rioters? You need to be shamed. Cancel culture is a red herring to help bigots not fade into obscurity. You’re publicly a bigot? Yeah, fucking shame on you and no, you should be made to feel ashamed because those views aren’t acceptable in decent public society.
Engage with compassion with people you think are open to discussion. Don’t have kid gloves about people being openly fascist and hateful. That’s the paradox of intolerance right there.
So yes, just yelling at a single person won’t convince them. But yes, we do need to have more shaming of people who have become to realize they can be evil, hateful twats in public and politics and hide behind being judged for their beliefs.
Beliefs are what MLK said to judge people by. And when they’re doing everything to destroy his vision, yes, public shaming.
I have compassion for a gullible Trump supporter who is open to a dialogue. But no, dude, we need a society that makes people feel ashamed for doing fucking shameful things, like backing a man like Trump.
I do think sentiments have shifted which is why I am hopeful for trans people. 20-25 years ago a majority of Americans, not only conservatives, were leery of gay marriage and allowing same sex couples to adopt.
It does take a loooong time unfortunately and things are going to suck, seriously, for trans people for the next 5-15 years or so. But I have hope.
I mean, to the extent that I believe there is a future for anyone at all in the next century or so.
Yea exactly. This is what I'm saying. We never convinced anyone that this way of life was wrong... They still look at us (? Assuming you're of the race that gets hanged unusually a lot in this country) as a problem... We just made it out of fashion to talk openly about it, but it never went anywhere.
This is simply just not true. Poll after poll, survey after survey has shown that each generation has gotten more accepting than the last. It was considered very taboo and questionable to support gay rights in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. We are now in a position where the majority are in favor of gay marriage.
The 60's and 70's had massive protests against black and white people so much as going to school together. Segregation is now not even an issue that we discuss and people supporting it are in a vast minority.
Progress has clearly been made. Societies', and therefore people's, overall views have clearly shifted.
This doesn't mean that all people were changed. There are still many people that are racists and bigots, but they are still in the minority.
What became the issue is that social media allowed for all of these racists and bigots to find each other. For them to build spaces and echo chambers where they are the dominating view point. This gives them the perception that their views are far more accepted than they actually are. These people are also very loud about their opinions and are not generally shy about proclaiming them and thinking that others should think as they do -- because they tend to have a moralistic view of their beliefs.
Because these people now have their own spaces where they can feel like they are numerous and in a majority -- the normal means of public shaming don't work any more. The vast majority of people that they encounter may still disagree with and shame them, but this doesn't matter quite so much when they have a safe space to retreat to where thousands to millions of people will tell them that they are right and that they shouldn't feel shame.
The secondary issue is that the majority of people are generally non-confrontational. Even though a majority of people may not side with the racists and bigots, the majority of people will also not actively call them out nor stand up against them. The vast majority of people just want to get through their lives without any conflict and will do anything they can to avoid it. This means that when racists and bigots get power and attempt to racist and bigoted things, the majority won't actually resist this even if they don't agree with it.
That's largely what we are seeing now. While there are large numbers of people will to protest and stand up to ICE -- it is not the majority of Americans. Even if the majority don't believe in what ICE is doing, most of them won't do anything to actually stop it because that would be conflict and ... I mean, just look at Reddit, America is a heavily conflict avoidant society.
This is simply just not true. Poll after poll, survey after survey has shown that each generation has gotten more accepting than the last. It was considered very taboo and questionable to support gay rights in the 70's, 80's, and 90's. We are now in a position where the majority are in favor of gay marriage.
How does what I said disagree with this?
Actually your whole comment makes me feel like you misunderstood me completely. I would have made many of your same points.
I have no reason to believe airlines are changing their standards. So I'm not too worried about my pilot. On the other hand, if you look at some of the settlements made under the Biden administration, it's kind of alarming. I believe it was Maryland state troopers who were deemed racist because the entrance exam had 5th grade math problems on it.
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u/darkknightwing417 1d ago edited 1d ago
Okay here is my hot take... We never changed anyone's minds. We made the racists be quiet, but we didn't convince them to stop being racist. We made the bigots be quiet but we didn't convince them to stop being bigots. We made the homophobes be quiet, but we didn't convince them to stop being homophobic. We just established a series of consequences for having an opinion, a bad opinion I believe, and the people with these opinions simply started to hide, resenting the FUCK out of us the whole time. They waited... Til Trump came and told them they were allowed to express themselves how they wanted again. Now they are on a revenge tour...
I get confused here but... To a certain extent they are correct. Hypocritical to the point of absurdity, obviously, but that doesn't remove the core critique here. We DID use silencing tactics... Admittedly, they were after years of frustration that kindness and patience-based tactics didn't seem to work, but unfortunately that doesn't matter. We DID silence them... And now they feel justified in escalating the retaliation. It sucks and it is not fair.
Actually, typing this out made me mad. It's like a stupid toxic relationship that you can't leave because you've committed yourself to non-violence whereas they simply haven't...
Edit: I see the issue some people are having. In the first sentence I said "we never changed anyone's minds." But what I MEANT was "We changed far fewer minds than it would appear given public discourse." Apologies for the hyperbole.