Broadly, as a society and culture? Absolutely. Debate is dead, facts are relative, and walls are built-in to the human condition.
But as individuals, it’s a different game. And this is where a lot of people are going to curl their lips in disgust at the idea but it’s also a part of learning to be more social, learning to be better at engagement and getting people to listen to you, so it’s objectively a good exercise whether you succeed or not, but people are all just people, and even if their ideology is revolting against the idea, they fundamentally want to connect and be accepted, and if you can make people like you enough that they listen to you, they WILL want to earn your acceptance, even if they don’t cognitively agree with you.
I’ve done this a lot. I’ve changed people’s beliefs on vaccines, on abortion, and a host of other “walled off” topics that we can’t change on a large scale. This is where I am deliberately trying to antagonize users on Lemmy; the idea that we need to socialize outside of our comfort zone and return to face-to-face socializing and conversation. We CAN turn this around if more of us would get off the internet and do what I’ve done for years now, which is listen to people so you can then learn how to be heard in return… every person is different, with a different set of emotional locks and keys, and if you can be smarter you can learn where these keys are.
So far nobody has presented me a better idea. We’ve been trying to butt heads, scold, and scream and shame for decades and we’ve lost almost all our ground.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you aren’t a member of one of the demographics that the fascists are trying to oppress. Debating abortion rights as a woman of reproductive age is literally arguing for my right to live in the event that I accidentally get pregnant because a pregnancy would quite literally kill me. Arguing for LGBTQ+ rights is arguing for the rights of my sibling to exist or for my best friend to marry her soon-to-be wife. I have the privilege of being white, but for BIPOC, arguing for racial equality and justice is literally trying to convince bigots that they are actually humans with equal rights.
These discussions become significantly more taxing and distressing when you’re going in rhetorical circles with someone who is telling you to your face that they think you are less worthy of rights and that your life doesn’t matter to them.
Please, correct me if I’m wrong here, but this is something I see a lot from leftist cis-men and white leftists is the failure to recognize the toll these conversations take on those who are the direct targets of that bigotry.
Broadly, as a society and culture? Absolutely. Debate is dead, facts are relative, and walls are built-in to the human condition.
But as individuals, it’s a different game. And this is where a lot of people are going to curl their lips in disgust at the idea but it’s also a part of learning to be more social, learning to be better at engagement and getting people to listen to you, so it’s objectively a good exercise whether you succeed or not, but people are all just people, and even if their ideology is revolting against the idea, they fundamentally want to connect and be accepted, and if you can make people like you enough that they listen to you, they WILL want to earn your acceptance, even if they don’t cognitively agree with you.
I’ve done this a lot. I’ve changed people’s beliefs on vaccines, on abortion, and a host of other “walled off” topics that we can’t change on a large scale. This is where I am deliberately trying to antagonize users on Lemmy; the idea that we need to socialize outside of our comfort zone and return to face-to-face socializing and conversation. We CAN turn this around if more of us would get off the internet and do what I’ve done for years now, which is listen to people so you can then learn how to be heard in return… every person is different, with a different set of emotional locks and keys, and if you can be smarter you can learn where these keys are.
So far nobody has presented me a better idea. We’ve been trying to butt heads, scold, and scream and shame for decades and we’ve lost almost all our ground.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you aren’t a member of one of the demographics that the fascists are trying to oppress. Debating abortion rights as a woman of reproductive age is literally arguing for my right to live in the event that I accidentally get pregnant because a pregnancy would quite literally kill me. Arguing for LGBTQ+ rights is arguing for the rights of my sibling to exist or for my best friend to marry her soon-to-be wife. I have the privilege of being white, but for BIPOC, arguing for racial equality and justice is literally trying to convince bigots that they are actually humans with equal rights.
These discussions become significantly more taxing and distressing when you’re going in rhetorical circles with someone who is telling you to your face that they think you are less worthy of rights and that your life doesn’t matter to them.
Please, correct me if I’m wrong here, but this is something I see a lot from leftist cis-men and white leftists is the failure to recognize the toll these conversations take on those who are the direct targets of that bigotry.