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[nenjin]

Totally irrational nonsense

The revulsion they're sensing on the other side of these conversations is most of the time not real.

But the contempt is. They may not understand half the issues they're railing against but they know when someone is talking down to them. If we don't hold their specific viewpoint in contempt (killing unborn children is a sin), we likely hold their rationales or the means by which they uphold their beliefs in.

Contempt, revulsion, dismissal.....whether you support any of these beliefs or not, appreciate that this is how they've felt marginalized in American society. Don't try to look at the statement "they hate our freedoms" or "war on Christianity" for their literal meaning. The statements are irrational and factually incorrect but the places they come from are real. The secularization of America, deemphasizing religious moral mandates in the law, religious plurality, "Happy Holidays" instead of Merry Christmas.....that amounts to a war in their minds. The fact there are people out there standing in a circle shouting "Death to America" still to this day is validation enough for the belief they hate something about us.

I watched a TED talk a month or two ago from a former member and leader of a white supremacist group, who went from preaching hate to trying to get people out of the movement. Along with all the usual "vulnerable youth" stuff, one of this big take aways is that you have to talk to people, have to. Even the worst people with the vilest ideologies. If you in any way want to change someone's point of view you have to talk to them, consistently, regularly and start breaking down barriers. Yeah, the shit average people say in the heat of the moment is absurd and possibly misguided. But they are still people. And even under the most hate filled white supremacist troll ass wipe is a person. I know it sounds touchy feely and I'm not saying it changes much. But lately it's like the more ridiculous things people say, the more I want to talk to them, not less. Not to berate them or educate them or shame them, even though I have that impulse. But just to make them talk through what they believe and feel to another living human being face to face. That is the only way you can really open people up.

Your generation is fucked in the head.

To be fair though, how many times has our generation said "the baby boomers fucked this all up with their shortsightedness, privilege and greed. And they won't acknowledge any of it. The hell is wrong with them?" Just to keep this all on an even keel.

And in this guy's case, he was so far out of his depth that the simple statement of "we have a thing that says what our rights are and we don't get to pick and choose" was too much for him to handle. Listening to ideology is a process, just like I was saying above. Whether you're trying to convince someone of something or literally trying to brainwash them, it takes time and what someone calls brainwashing versus educating varies a lot on their exposure to it.

Being exposed to different ideas is asking your morality to function like a muscle. At first its tight and painful to the slightest stimuli but with repeated exposure, it gets looser, more flexible, more adaptable. Many people probably don't have that many serious political conversations in their lives, just a lot of "yep ahuh" circle jerks.

[redwallzyl]

I would like to point out that that kind of talking is very different from the internet shit, ranting, and arguing that generally goes on. The slow fixing of such a person is a totally different beast from the dialog that is standard for such people most of the time.

[SalmonGod]

Totally irrational nonsense

The revulsion they're sensing on the other side of these conversations is most of the time not real.

But the contempt is. They may not understand half the issues they're railing against but they know when someone is talking down to them. If we don't hold their specific viewpoint in contempt (killing unborn children is a sin), we likely hold their rationales or the means by which they uphold their beliefs in.

Contempt, revulsion, dismissal.....whether you support any of these beliefs or not, appreciate that this is how they've felt marginalized in American society. Don't try to look at the statement "they hate our freedoms" or "war on Christianity" for their literal meaning. The statements are irrational and factually incorrect but the places they come from are real. The secularization of America, deemphasizing religious moral mandates in the law, religious plurality, "Happy Holidays" instead of Merry Christmas.....that amounts to a war in their minds. The fact there are people out there standing in a circle shouting "Death to America" still to this day is validation enough for the belief they hate something about us.

I watched a TED talk a month or two ago from a former member and leader of a white supremacist group, who went from preaching hate to trying to get people out of the movement. Along with all the usual "vulnerable youth" stuff, one of this big take aways is that you have to talk to people, have to. Even the worst people with the vilest ideologies. If you in any way want to change someone's point of view you have to talk to them, consistently, regularly and start breaking down barriers. Yeah, the shit average people say in the heat of the moment is absurd and possibly misguided. But they are still people. And even under the most hate filled white supremacist troll ass wipe is a person. I know it sounds touchy feely and I'm not saying it changes much. But lately it's like the more ridiculous things people say, the more I want to talk to them, not less. Not to berate them or educate them or shame them, even though I have that impulse. But just to make them talk through what they believe and feel to another living human being face to face. That is the only way you can really open people up.

Sure... not saying that your description of what they feel like they're up against is wrong.  I'm saying that this idea that Trump has stripped political discourse to reveal its bare nature is only true in some cases.  In others, it's mostly one-sided and confusing.

And I totally agree about needing to talk.  In fact, one of my pet peeves is people who shit on political conversation, claiming that it's pointless and nobody ever changes their minds.  I go well out of my way to challenge that sentiment when I see it.

[nenjin]

I would like to point out that that kind of talking is very different from the internet shit, ranting, and arguing that generally goes on. The slow fixing of such a person is a totally different beast from the dialog that is standard for such people most of the time.

Agreed, the internet is generally not a good medium for changing people's opinions. But as the saying goes /lame think globally act locally! /lame.

It's not like everyone could use a good, instructive argument either. On the same work trip I debated another coworker about Steam ethics around curation and all that stuff. He dutifully argued counter points to every position I took and honestly I felt like I learned something from a different perspective.....about a video game platform and their business model.

As I said above, exposure to foreign or unfamiliar ideas is just like exercise for your brain. And I don't doubt that part of our political predicament is that it is simply way, way easier (and more useful) for people to feel than to reason. Ain't nobody got time to learn. They have just enough time to make decision based on a gut reaction to a complicated issue. And once they've staked a position they will fight and die over that hill, because admitting you can be wrong is like fucking kryptonite to people. (I remember making this argument to the old guy too. He was like "Trump's just like us!" and I was like "Do you ever make mistakes or bad decisions?" And he thought about it for a split second before looking me in the face and going "No." Christ.)

[redwallzyl]

Part of the discourse thing is that Trump has removed the innuendos usually used to dress up unsavory opinions. And he as shown in the doing that they are no longer needed. You don't need to dress up blatant xenophobia and such any more.

[SalmonGod]

I think the internet is fine for it.

I agree with what you say about change taking time.  I always explain to people that world view and self-image are large, heavy, complex, intertwined things.  It takes a lot of emotional and mental energy to re-arrange it all around new information, and that just doesn't happen instantly.  Even if you manage to get someone to say that they're wrong, they probably don't FEEL that they're wrong until they take the time to go and dwell on things for a while. 

And I think this is why there's this widespread belief that the internet is bad for constructive political conversation.  Because it's full of one-off encounters with random people.  We usually don't get to see how those people change over time.

I think a lot of the cultural shifts we've seen with newer generations are exactly because the internet is such an effective platform for political expression.

[PTTG??]

@redwallzyl and nenjin: The left can be just as reactionary as the right. The pendulum of politics has swung hard to the right, correct? That pendulum is going to swing just as hard to the left due to the left reacting against the reactionaries. So, we're in for a hell of a rubberbanding around.

People say that a lot, but I don't see much support for the general idea that America rubberbands. And I sure as hell haven't seen anything that suggests that Liberals (at least in the US) can be as "reactionary" as the right. Obama or even a Sanders presidency didn't/wouldn't have actual extrajudicial concentration camps, for one.

[nenjin]

Well it's a platform for letting you know you're not alone. That's the life-blood of political expression.

It's the discourse that isn't so hot. I don't know if it's *just* that you have one off conversations with randos. I don't do FB or Twitter conversations personally. I think it's just you're still by and large not really responsible for what you say on the internet, short of admitting to a crime. You don't even have to be responsible to yourself. This is changing more and more, mostly employers watching FB (my roommate actually lost his job for something he was part of that got posted to FB) which is a real consequence for behavior. And there's social media trends and the media diving over dumb shit people choose to say. So it's changing. But we're not quite there yet, and Trump is basically a giant middle finger to the concept of being held accountable to what you say. I think we all just have to weather this storm of egotism and outright selfishness until the zeitgeist comes back around to having a sense of shame.

can be as "reactionary" as the right.

Misattributed or not, people would point to problems during Occupy and Antifa as examples of the reactionary left.

[smjjames]

Well, the definition of reactionary is wanting to return to something in the past, which isn't going to be solely the domain of the right.

[SalmonGod]

can be as "reactionary" as the right.

Misattributed or not, people would point to problems during Occupy and Antifa as examples of the reactionary left.

They would... and in my experience, the things they would point to would be examples of a single person's outlier behavior construed as representing a whole movement, other stuff taken grossly out of context, or fabricated whole cloth.

For example -- pointing to a picture of a public park after police ripped up everybody's tents and threw their stuff around everywhere during an eviction and saying "Look at how the protesters trashed this park!"

Indianapolis had a very small camp with a livestream set up.  They chose a monument downtown where there was a decent sized lawn, but not exactly a park or anything.  They weren't allowed to put up tents, or to even lay down on the steps and look like they were sleeping.  So it was basically just a constant vigil of a couple dozen people taking turns standing in front of a public monument.  When it was ongoing, I tried to hang out with them and talk on the livestream a lot, because they desperately needed that more than anything to keep them going.  There was a nearby business that allowed them to use their restroom, and I remember one guy talking for like an hour about how angry he was when he found a bit of graffiti in there, and how he did his best to remove it because he was afraid Occupy was going to be blamed for it.

Of course the larger camps would attract some more reckless people, but as a generality, that's what I think of when I hear a lot of the typical rags on Occupy.

[redwallzyl]

To add to that antifa is not reactionary. They are anti-reactionary. Or if you wanted to put it less favorably reactionary to the reactionaries. They are a bit extreme yes but they are made of a a variety of groups and generally do not check any of the typical reactionary boxes.

[Trekkin]

they are made of a a variety of groups

This is one of the things that mutually confounds the left and the right: right-wing organizations tend to be far more hierarchical than their left-wing counterparts, so the right tends to assume the worst things done by the left fringes were somehow officially sanctioned and the left in turn assumes that the right endorses everything their leaders say that they don't explicitly disclaim.

[martinuzz]

The US withdraws from the UN Human Rights Council. Nicky Haley said the UNHRC is a hypocrite and egoistic organisation that mocks human rights.
Inb4 UN sends a peacekeeping force to bomb US cities, to enforce human rights.
(I guess the US had to withdraw, because of the immigrant children locked in cages)

Think of the children, nuke Washington

[Rolan7]

Har har.
I assume we'd just keep subsidizing the developing world with actual material aid, while getting bombed for our oh-so-horrible, not-quite-European standard of living for our poor.

Oh, is that inane and unfunny?  So was your "joke".

[wierd]

In all seriousness, I would wager that one of the "pros" (as seen from the GOP perspective) of withdrawing from the UN convention for human rights, is that the US no longer will be supplying said material aid (and can then redirect those resources for profit.)