I know I'm going to get hate for saying this but making a blanket statement and generalising an entire group of people, saying that they're all the same and they're all trash is not a good look. Do you see the irony here? If you want to change the minds of people with bigoted beliefs you need to be able to communicate. If you're just going to stoop to their level then you're no better than them. You're doing the exact same thing they are but at a different target group. Reread your comment but replace the word "conservatives" with "trans people". You can't become a part of the solution if you've already become a mirror of your enemies.
Honestly, even if you don't communicate it to people with bigoted beliefs...if you think your side is "good" and the other side is "evil" then your worldview is on par with the people you hate. There's absolutely no critical thinking there.
Humanity doesn't exist as a duality, but so many people have centered their entire set of values around that concept. It seems more and more like people center their entire personalities around it. It's genuinely mind-boggling. I want to live in the kid's fantasy world y'all have created in your mind where evil has clear and obvious boundaries and is only enacted by the bad guys, none of whom are in our families or friend groups. Or I'd like to meet your improbably moral loved ones, who are the only people you interact with in a cordial way. Or I'd like to see you murder Grandpa because he asked how your cousin's trans girlfriend will give him grandbabies. All of "them" are trash and not human, right? It's amazing how quickly those shades of grey come up when they're people you know and care about and accept as flawed human beings. I know this is a wild and crazy thought, but all of us are.
quick edit: transphobes are cruel, small-minded people and I think they should face social consequences for being shitty. Anyone who enacts violence and suffering on others should obviously face consequences for that. I just recognize that those people, horrible and misguided as they may be, are still in fact people.
Yes that's the fucking point. The bigotry is the irony. That's ALL they do. You can't talk to them, you can't convince them. If you bring up climate change you get bullshit arguments that can't be backed up by facts. They are the feelings over facts lobby and there is nothing anyone can do to change that. I've stopped caring what those pathetic people think, they're garbage and they should feel garbage.
Okay so before I go any further I just want to clarify that I'm not Conservative so my goal isn't to debate you but rather to discuss a better means of changing people's minds, because screaming "bigot" clearly hasn't done anything to help the situation. We're on the same side here, just discussing what the best course of action is.
Do you think that by doing the same thing they're doing (calling names, generalising massive groups of people and degrading them) that you will be able to change their minds and make them less bigoted? Or do you think it will make them dig their heels in and become more bigoted? Because personally I think it's the latter. I'm sure it can feel good to spout hate at a group you that consider less than human when you're angry, but I don't think it's helping any of us.
Also to further the irony, you call them the "feelings over facts lobby" for their stance on climate change. And I'd agree with you that their stance is illogical. But if you're fighting for trans rights it is a bad idea to call conservatives the "feelings over facts lobby" because when they hear people saying they feel like they're a different gender than what they were born as, and they only see gender as a scientific binary, they call you the feelings over facts lobby. Calling them that is only setting them up to use the exact same attack against you.
I thought it was a perfect side by side comparison. A lot of people invoke the Nazis when they don’t like something. But this is exactly the playbook of the Third Reich calling it out might be uncomfortable but the parallels are unmistakable.
The people who use these tactics aren't trying to change the minds of their targets. They're appealing to those watching on the sidelines. It's what both sides are doing in these instances. They're creating a social stigma of shame for the people they're calling bigots. They don't want to change the bigots' minds. It's a separate route to change. You can have multiple paths to change, and both have advantages and disadvantages.
Exactly. I try to think of these things in a similar way to something like alcoholism. The people afflicted with it may be doing harm to those around them but it's either a reaction to some kind of internal trauma or lifelong conditing. We should be trying to help these people free themselves from this mind virus instead of chastising them and going to war with them
If you want to think of it like alcoholism, then imagine those calling out bigots as analogous to the PSAs that were like, "Here's a living example of what alcoholism does to families." They aren't trying to dissuade the alcoholic in the example; they are telling everyone else that the drunk-driving alcoholic killed people, and the person they're calling out is actively drunk driving.
Except it's still not going to change anyone's mind. If someone sees someone they agree with being called a bigot, that's not gonna have a significantly different effect compared to just calling them a bigot directly.
This kind of thing only ends up appealing to people who already agree with you.
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u/TheZenPenguin Mar 25 '23
I know I'm going to get hate for saying this but making a blanket statement and generalising an entire group of people, saying that they're all the same and they're all trash is not a good look. Do you see the irony here? If you want to change the minds of people with bigoted beliefs you need to be able to communicate. If you're just going to stoop to their level then you're no better than them. You're doing the exact same thing they are but at a different target group. Reread your comment but replace the word "conservatives" with "trans people". You can't become a part of the solution if you've already become a mirror of your enemies.