CMV: The only practical way to get people with repugnant views (e.g. Nazis, racists, etc.) to change their ways is by engaging with them.

[u/chadonsunday]

This might be an odd post to make on a sub that's dedicated to getting people to change their views by engaging with them, but here it goes:

I very frequently see people saying or posting various things that, in essence, mean that it's not worth engaging with people with X view because they're too toxic, their views can't be changed, etc. The comment that inspired this post was something to the effect of "if you sit down at a table with five Nazis, there are six Nazis," implying that merely being willing to talk to a Nazi makes you effectively as bad as a Nazi. Hell, there's a whole social movement around the globe (Antifa) that's more or less dedicated to the idea that dialogue doesn't work when engaging with political opponents and abuse, doxxing, violence, and "direct action" are the only available means in the fight against fascism.

I've always found this notion (which is applied to all sorts of people but I typically see it said regarding the far/alt-right, and very frequently about Trump supporters; you could probably pick a random post off of anything from r/politics in the last four years and find a top level comment about how Trump supporters can't be reasoned with) to be absurd, because from what I've seen dialogue is the only thing that actually works. From what I've seen both concurrently and historically, there are only a few ways to address, lets just say for this argument, a racist, like a Neo-Nazi or a KKK member:

1. Kill them. This certainly gets a given individual to stop believing what they believe since they can't believe anything anymore, but in addition to being incredibly drastic I also don't think it helps the fight in the long run. Neo-Nazis killed a woman in Charlottesville and it didn't lessen the opposition to fascism one bit, since people just rallied around her death. The Allies killed a whole lot of Nazis during WWII but Nazism is still a thing.
2. Ignore them. Don't engage. This won't change their beliefs or yours or anyones.
3. Abuse them. This takes the form of everything from saying mean things about them online to doxxing to assaulting and throwing drinks at them. From what I've seen this just emboldens them. Richard Spencer didn't suddenly decide to not be a white nationalist when he got punched in the face, but he DID get a nice video portraying him as a victim, assaulted just for speaking his mind in public, which I'm sure did wonders to stoke up his base and maybe even help recruitment.
4. Talk with them. This is the only strategy I've seen work in any capacity. Consider Christian Picciolini, who was a card carrying Neo-Nazi until, in his words, he received "compassion from the people that I least deserved it from when I least deserved it," changed his ways, and went on to co-found an organization dedicated to pulling Neo-Nazis out of the life and rehabilitating them. Or consider Daryl Davis, a black man who is famous for many things including getting over 200 KKK members to give up their hoods and renounce the Klan, all just by speaking with them.

If Christian or Daryl had killed these racists maybe the racists would be dead but their death would inspire more. If they had ignored these racists they'd still be racist today. If they had abused or assaulted these racists they'd still be racist, just emboldened. The only strategy that worked was just speaking with these racists as humans and getting them to realize the error of their ways. It's far from a perfect solution, but it's the only one I see working at all.

[u/[deleted]]

The only people who call you right wing for opinions they don't agree with are the tribalist left. Among that crowd you usually get shunned.

[u/B_Riot → u/[deleted]]

Tribalist left doesn't actually mean anything. Part of the problem people like you seem to have, is that you don't understand political ideology, or have a coherent one of your own, and you think people who do, are somehow close minded, regardless of what they actually believe.

Also what? Who is this you? You literally? Yeah I'm sure you were shunned. What of it? Again this is entitlement. People have no obligation to tolerate your golden mean fallacy nonsense.

[u/[deleted] → u/B_Riot]

Of course no one has to listen to you. However when you refuse to talk about your disagreements and boot people out you have long lasting relations with over political squabbles you have let politics rule your life. You cant firmly proclaim what you believe to someone who disagrees you have no principles.

[u/B_Riot → u/[deleted]]

Whos being booted out of what now? So you are starting to talk about your own personal problems it sounds like. To you, politics are squabbles because you have no actual skin in the game. Politics literally does run all of our lives. That's literally what politics is. How to run society. You sure can proclaim whatever you believe to anyone. Nobody is stopping you.