ID: A scene from Legally Blonde of a conversation between Warner and Elle in the corridor at Harvard, in 4 panels:
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Warner asks “What happened to the tolerant left?”
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Elle replies, smiling “Who said we were tolerant?”
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Warner continues “I thought you were supposed to be tolerant of all beliefs!”
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Elle looks confused “Why would we tolerate bigotry, inequity, or oppression?”
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The best solution I found for the Paradox of Tolerance (or, more accurately, for a bigger class of problems that contain that problem) is https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/24/nominating-oneself-for-the-short-end-of-a-tradeoff/
The gist of it is that we decide on the following maxim: in conflicts of interest we should favor that cannot easily back off over the side who can.
For example - we want to tolerate a black person existing and we also want to tolerate[1] a racist person being racist. These two toleration are conflicting. The black person can’t stop being black - they were born that way - but the racist person can choose to stop being racist. So we favor the black person’s existence, and do not tolerate the racist person’s racism.
This maxim is not perfect, of course. It does not apply to all cases, and it does leave up to debate the question of who is forced into the conflict and who is doing it out of choice (e.g. - a conservative may claim that LBGT people are willingly choosing to be so while they are forced, by word of God, to hate them). But I still think it’s an improvement:
- It’s morally arguable. As long as we don’t go into the details, it’s easy to defend as a principle.
- The question of who if forced into the conflict and who is willingly entering it can be discussed more objectively than the question of what should be tolerated and what shouldn’t (I’m not saying it’s always easy to agree - just that the discussion is more objective)
- Even in cases where both sides are forced or cases where both sides are willing, looking at it through the lens of this maxim allows to point at the true perpetrators and/or the true victims, instead of arbitrarily picking one side to blindly side with.
You may argue that we should not tolerate racism at all to begin with, to which I’d say the reason we should not tolerate racism is that there are people who get hurt from it, which is what this maxim is all about. ↩︎
The left doesn’t even tolerate the left.
Damn Leftists! They ruined the Left!
I thought that was millennials. What’s the latest thing MSM claims they’ve ruined now?
I like this but I’m not even sure it’s such a paradox - if you are tolerating people who do not follow that social contract then can you call yourself a part of the tolerant group yourself? It is a necessary part of being tolerant to reject the intolerant.
It’s not a paradox because nobody says that absolutely anything anyone does is fine. There are always rules to acceptable behavior in society. The “paradox of tolerance” is a strawman.
I once heard a professor of physics tell us that paradoxes were just questions posed incorrectly (paraphrasing since we weren’t speaking English, sorry if I wrote it in a confusing way) and I’ve never stopped thinking about it that way
The liar’s paradox would beg to differ!
If one tolerates all actions other than those causing harm to non-consenting others (basically “adults can do whatever they want with themselves and with other consenting adults”) which is sort of the traditional maximum tolerance boundary, one will tolerate many practices which, whilst not amounting to causing harm to non-consenting others, do spread intolerance.
From where rises the Paradox that such choice of putting one’s boundary of Tolerance at the maximum level possible actually ends up in aggregate reducing Tolerance.
Making it a social contract reduces the boundaries of tolerance by the minimum amount possible that’s needed to just stop Tolerance from allowing the very tools of its destruction to work.
Under “social contract rules”, at a personal level those who are NOT tolerant of intolerance are, very strictly speaking, being less tolerant, but at a Systemic Level they are actually making there be more Tolerance in aggregate than if they had tolerated the intolerant.
PS: I actually work in Systems Design (amongst other things) and it’s actually quite common for certain ways of doing things which are perfect at the individual level will in aggregate cause systemic problems making the whole function worse, so the optimal choice for the whole is actually to use a less optimal individual choice. Thinking about it, I would say that pretty much all Tragedy Of The Commons situations are good examples of that kind of thing.
Mind you the actual tragedy that happened at the commons is that the rich fucking stole them.
Any “solution” to “protect” the Commons that involves private ownership of it is always meant to make somebody very wealthy from it.
The original Commons (things like pasture spaces with no owners and shared use by the community) were all stolen from the community and given owners already way back in Monarchic times (for example, via Inclosure Acts in England) and Capitalism is just a continuation of Monarchy were the reduction of choices for the riff-raff is a bit more disguised so that people think they are free and hence are more productive for the Owner Class.
I think there’s a subvariety of “paradox” which aren’t actually paradoxes, but we call them that because at some point, the name stuck
This doesn’t eliminate the paradox. Why does the contract exist in the first place?
It’s a moral standard. If moral people didn’t decide that tolerance was a good thing for society, the contract wouldn’t exist.
So yes, thinking about it as a contract sidesteps the paradox, but the paradox still exists.
So Karl Popper was still right and society shouldn’t tolerate the intolerant.
There’s no paradox. Although, Karl Popper’s words are as good as any.
My point is, no one said “the left have to tolerate everything.” In fact, not tolerating capitalism is the defining feature of all left leaning ideologies. More so, where you are on the scale of leftism is based almost entirely on the extent to which you won’t tolerate capitalism. Rhetorically, for what possible reason would the left ever have to tolerate nazis, in the first place? Who said they did? Where are they? Of course, no one said they did.
I found it’s best to, rightly, just reject the false premise of it being a paradox out of hand. The type who use it know its BS too.
Basically, I want my various types of weirdness tolerated by others. Others want their weirdness tolerated. We mutually agree that it’s beneficial to each of us to tolerate each other. This gets expanded to other forms of weirdness. So long as it doesn’t significantly impinge on others who dont want it, we have no reason not to be tolerant of others. This is the social contract.
Intolerance inherently impinges on others. While it might not impinge on my personal weirdness, I will still fight against it. I know it could be me next, and I would hope others would stand with me then. In turn, I will do that for others, both because it is right (in my mind) and because I don’t want to be targeted next.
I will default to assuming people are happy with the contract. If they demonstrate disagreement, or contempt for the contract, then I withdraw its protections.
You just need to tolerate their life and continued living, don’t need to give them anything more.
Nah let’s fuck em up fam.
Sounds exactly like how someone might justify things like internment camps, forced sterilization, and segregation.
“Hey, they’re alive and continuing to live, so what’s the problem?”
Well, no the argument would be to remove them otherwise. It’s AGAINST that stuff.
Life is sacred, even filth deserve to live. Dont support their business, dont serve them, eventually they will be off on their own and “segregate” themselves. If it’s their own doing and choice so they can survive, well they can be their own “remote tribe” and be with their own kind.
They’re free to change their views and rejoin society, nothing is being forced on them or anything.
We incarcerate people in jail when they’ve done something we’ve deemed wrong as a society and they are supposed to be changed and put back into society. How would this be any different? Why are going to eugenics lmfao, that’s a wild stretch dude.
Tolerant left? Leftists barely tolerate other Leftists!
Damn Leftists! They ruined the Left!
Splitters!
other ‘leftists’ post legally blonde dialogue as ‘lefty meme’ content…
Is Legally Blonde not left enough for you?
its more an aversion to cliquey identity memes in general, but yeah, legally blonde is part of it
Legally Blonde taught me that attractive people are able to do the type of things that regular people can do.
I hold it very near and dear to my heart.
Did you also get the part about how people with stereotypical high fem gender expression who are often described as “ditzy” by a misogynistic society can be intelligent even though they like “girly” things?
That wanting to dress a certain way and naturally having a certain personality or way of speaking doesn’t define who you are or what you can do or how good at your job you are?
That in a male dominated field you should be able to express yourself even though the industry wants you to conform and “tone it down” and “not be so emotional” and also smile less but not too much less or else you’re “bitchy”? That diversity is good and helps bring in new ideas/perspectives?
No that part went over my head.
Yeah, exactly like that! ^
The problem I found with the American left this past year as an outsider looking in, is that they all splintered into groups and started seeing the other group on the left as “just as bad as trump”, nobody was “left” enough to be an ally for anyone’s rigid tastes. The left fought among itself for labels, while the conservatives on the right were united.
I understand a lot of it for the younger left had to do with gaza but to anyone else, it’s clear Netanyahu and Musk and other oligarchs planned this out and the American left bought it and let Trump win.
All you can do is unify and strengthen and cut out fascists and fix your country, stop trying to be world police if you can’t even fix yourself.
ah right, its not that genocide is wrong in all cases, its that the dumb left was the victim of propoganda, which you are clearly too smart to be influenced by. Which is why you voted for genocide.
Makes perfect sense.
If only the dumb left had voted for genocide, Biden the hyper zionist would have been reelected and he for sure would have stopped the genocide, right?
And then you go on to say:
stop trying to be world police
How is funding a genocide “being the police”? oh… wait I see. You mean the US police go around doing crimes with impunity and no accountability. OK, you’re right on that one.
You can hate the Biden/Harris stance on Gaza as much as you like (and there’s good reason to). But if you failed to vote for the obviously less bad option, you are partially responsible for the actions of the obviously even worse option.
You could go into all manner of discussions about how being all but forced to vote for the lesser evil because of a broken and corrupt electoral system is terrible and a major systematic issue. And there’s a lot of merit there as well. But at the end of the day, those systems were not on the ballot.
You actively failed to do the bare minimum for the people of Gaza, along with many other groups of people inside and outside the US just so you could watch the suffering from a slightly higher horse.
‘But being world police is the only thing that helps us forget about our problems!’
-People who consume too much propaganda
This is a direct result of the same propoganda networks that fed trumpism. Primarily, youtube and tiktok because they feed the populate with video after video that the algorithm chooses for them. It amplifies any divisiveness we have to split us into factions.
Yeah, I’ve started watching some YouTube lately for the first time ever, and it certainly seems to want me to be conservative incel.
Previously I never watched YouTube because the ads were so intrusive and annoying, now I’m about ready to give up because most of what the algorithm shows me is offensive. Whether it truly thinks I’m conservative, such as based on demographics it shouldn’t have, or knows I’m not but thinks stirring up outrage will keep me coming back, they might be wrong
I didn’t see that at all. I saw a bunch of liberals who were confused why the left weren’t kowtowing to a liberal party as it committed genocide and telling everyone to shut up, but liberals aren’t the left. Meanwhile, anarchists, communists, and anyone else was busy trying to stop this slow motion train wreck.
Yeah you pretty much Proved my point
Liberals literally aren’t the left though, we’re not on the same side; liberals support capitalism, we don’t.
This is why liberals would literally rather lose an election than enact the overwhelmingly popular policy the left prescribes.
This is not the common definition of “liberal” used for the past few years. I’ve only ever seen that distinction here on Lemmy. Colloquially, liberal now seems to mean liberal social views like acceptance, progressive safety nets, etc. NOT liberal capitalist views. That’s why people use left and liberal interchangeably these days and then folks like yourself and others who know true definitions have to clarify and remind all the time. To the average, US citizen, liberal and left are the same, liberal and libertarian are two completely separate things.
I’ve only ever seen that distinction here on Lemmy.
If that’s true, it’s because you have never read a book or a serious article. This is a hundred year old distinction, and is how the entire rest of the world and the study of politics uses these words normally. E.g. in Australia “the liberal party” is the right wing pro capitalist party.
It’s true that in North America the common use has diverged somewhat, so it’s not totally surprising that people haven’t always heard it, and you could make a good argument that it might be more practical for American leftists to do outreach using different words to make conversation easier. But it’s nonsense to come into a leftist space and get upset about a much more traditional usage of those terms and which draws exactly the distinction which divides leftists from liberals, even “centre-left” liberals.
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As a leftist I cannot stand most leftests. Typically ones from blue states because they tend to have a very warped view of why some of these red areas are the way they are. When you grow up isolated from the rest of the country and your only connection is the internet and the one racist uncle who lives near one of the bigger cities of the state you are going to have some fucked up views.
Honestly, I have no idea how I did not end up being a republican.
Edit: case in point; the down votes. If you do not understand your enemy all you can do is lose. And I am someone who hates them.
Grew up in a conservative religious household, ended up a lefty because people who understood how to talk to outsiders without being fucking assholes about it made me question my beliefs.
I see the same problem as you with many lefties today: they have no ability to understand conservatives, and seemingly no desire either. They will choose the dumbest fucking hills to die on (drag queen story hour for example) instead of attempting an ounce of empathy.
You could talk to conservatives about corporate welfare or how inequality causes the economy to slow down rather than grow, leading to discussions about taxation, unionization, maybe even shorter workweeks! Nope gotta focus on some obscure identity shit: putting gender neutral bathrooms in city hall while your city’s homelessness doubles is a sign your priorities are stupid. Focus on material, actionable things and actually talk to people: conservatives will respond to that.
If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing
~ Malcolm X
Honestly real talk for all my inclusion and belonging folks: we really gotta work on our vocab.
Was the term “tolerance” ever anything but confusing? In my lifetime I’ve only ever heard it used by conservatives dragging out this straw-man. Did “tolerance” once connote open-mindedness, graciousness, charitable judgment, acceptance/inclusion, or anything other than “weary endurance of something unpleasant?” Legit curious.
Similar examples include “consent” (sexual). Why are we pretending its primary non-figurative meaning isn’t legal or contractual when literally trying to say it’s the opposite? It has a strongly passive connotation, to acquiesce to a request, allow an event to occur, or go along with a plan — as in “tacit consent,” “consent form,” “consent to search,” and so forth. So it sounds gross, like “fine I guess you can do sex to me.” I know we tried to fix it with “enthusiastic consent” but seriously has anyone ever filled out a consent form with enthusiasm? What we really mean is active, reciprocal desire. The point is to give someone what they want if what they want is you, not to secure their consent to get what you want from them, so why the fuck do we insist on still using a word that’s in so many ways the opposite of what we mean?
I even think Crenshaw’s identity is confusing, because most people want to think of personal identity as something discovered or self-actualized, but intersectionality’s dependence on lived experience implies that to some extent it’s always something that happens to you. It’s how other people perceive you and the labels they give you that furnish these identities. But that probably sounds like a good thing if wearing those labels helped you bond with others similarly labeled, offering you a community or roots. Otherwise, calling these labels “identities” might sound like letting others define who you are instead of deciding for yourself. Gender identity for example is usually approached as an outward expression of one’s true self which can entirely reject the labels others give. But to ask someone “how do you identify” concerning something like ethnicity or race is not treated the same at all. To an outsider, these theoretical constructs might sound preposterous simply because we insisted on using the wrong words for our ideas, then overloading or bending their definitions to the point that a person needs a graduate seminar to actually parse the intended meaning.
Edit: to be clear, I’m only against the word choices, not the ideas. It’s because it feels like our messaging is hamstrung by insisting on using the wrong words as jargon with wildly different in-group definitions that to outsiders can make us sound inconsistent, confused, or at least difficult to understand. /rant
They steal our vocab and twist it.
Polysemy is a regular part of language, and rather than accept Warner’s assumptions, Elle could have countered that tolerance (in the stricter sense of allowing or overlooking an objectionable matter) is satisfied.
That said, tolerance is not that confusing, and a looser sense of tolerant (meaning not intolerant) was commonly understood as more live and let live, open-minded, gracious, charitable, inclusive, etc. In the 90s & early 2000s, leftists were more commonly easy-going, freedom loving, unconventional, uncritical like the Dude while rightists were more rigid puritans critical of any provocative influence (non-judeo-christian) they believed would corrupt society & children. When rightists claimed to be tolerant (stricter sense), skeptics might wonder if they’re really that tolerant of objects they frequently complain about. Leftists, in contrast, were largely more tolerant in that looser sense. Later, more critical leftists gained influence and may have increasingly distanced themselves from people with disagreeable ideas even on technologies that could bring people together (can’t platform those pesky ideas).
Consent can have a more open meaning, though it seems you’re trying to load a biased definition. It’s an agreement to participate where rights are at stake. Your negative connotation isn’t necessary: people can consent to share something fun together or take risks. There are certainly other words that could better fit your idea like interest, eagerness, or willingness.
I don’t know what identity is doing here. I think we already knew without much explanation that social identity is made up of multiple, diverse factors: some personally determined, others inherited or socially determined. Buzzy intersectionality isn’t needed to understand that, and it doesn’t blow the imagination.
No, it was never confusing, the right’s propaganda engine ceased on it, called it confusing.
Whatever message we put out will be “mired” in confusion as long as the right media factory deems that a useful statement to make and their undereducated masses will just blindly agree.
For sure they seize on these terms constantly, but these pundits are opportunistic brawlers. They tend to pick words and phrases they know are easily misconstrued then just amplify the confusion.
Consider the reason why a bunch of Americans literally never understood the slogan “black lives matter.” Its punchiness as a chant at rallies was the juxtaposition of an extreme understatement with police brutality everyone was intimately aware of. The blunder was trying to use it to spread awareness of the violence (because without awareness of the violence its meaning is lost) so all the pundits had to do to discredit the movement was just… pan away from the violence.
I totally get ya. I don’t think any slogan is ever safe, well, Cops Disproportionately Kill Black People and nobody cares might have worked. but it lacks that je ne sais quoi.
Yeah I’m with you. Just want the downtrodden to prevail the way a footballer wants his team to win. Sorry for yelling in the locker room.
Ehhh it’s a good locker room to be in, and we are all in good company.
Cheers!
tolerance /tŏl′ər-əns/ noun
- The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.
- Leeway for variation from a standard.
- The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent.
consent /kən-sĕnt′/ intransitive verb
- To give assent, as to the proposal of another; agree: synonym: assent.
“consent to medical treatment; consent to going on a business trip; consent to see someone on short notice.” Similar: assent - To be of the same mind or opinion.
- To agree in opinion or sentiment; to be of the same mind; to accord; to concur. Similar: consented
Dictionary definitions are nice but rarely capture the full meaning of the word. Connotations of the word are pretty important.
If I say “I tolerate that behavior,” you can probably infer that I don’t like that behavior based on the connotations of the word tolerate. It invokes a negativity toward the subject.
Similarly for consent. The examples bear this out: medical treatments, business trips, and short notice are generally not pleasant things.
Fuck tolerance.
See? It’s that easy. No paradoxes required.
Normally when I hear this, good things follow.
The whole idea that Tolerance is a Social Contract seems to be what works best: One is Tolerant towards others who are Tolerant and those who are not Tolerant are breaking the Social Contract of Tolerance and thus are not entitled to be the recipients of Tolerance from others.
Tolerance as a Principle doesn’t work well exactly because of the Paradox Of Tolerance which is that by Tolerating the Intolerant one is causing there to be less Tolerance since the Intolerant when their actions are tolerated will spread Intolerance (as painfully demonstrated in Present day America, especially with Trump).
The paradox of tolerance doesn’t lead to a unique conclusion. Philosophers drew all kinds of conclusions. I favor John Rawls’:
Either way, philosopher John Rawls concludes differently in his 1971 A Theory of Justice, stating that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls qualifies this assertion, conceding that under extraordinary circumstances, if constitutional safeguards do not suffice to ensure the security of the tolerant and the institutions of liberty, a tolerant society has a reasonable right to self-preservation to act against intolerance if it would limit the liberty of others under a just constitution. Rawls emphasizes that the liberties of the intolerant should be constrained only insofar as they demonstrably affect the liberties of others: “While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger.”
Accordingly, constraining some liberties such as freedom of speech is unnecessary for self-preservation in extraordinary circumstances as speaking one’s mind is not an act that directly & demonstrably harms/threatens security or liberty. However, violence or violations of rights & regulations could justifiably be constrained.
I was talking only about the individual tolerating or not the intolerant (in ways such as speaking or not against them).
As soon as Force is also thrown into the equation (which what a Society would use to stop the intolerant) it’s a whole different thing because Force itself has its own much more complex moral framework.
It’s easy to see the conundrum that one gets around using Force against intolerance by considering that it wouldn’t be acceptable to kill somebody (an extreme use of Force) for merely saying something deemed racist. If there’s an unacceptable use of Force against the intolerant, then is there one which is acceptable and if there is, were does the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable lie in the use of Force against intolerance and who gets to set it?
Add Force into the equation and it’s just not the same thing as an individual’s moral guidance for nonviolent reactions against nonviolent intolerance.
If there’s an unacceptable use of Force against the intolerant, then is there one which is acceptable and if there is
I don’t see how that follows: spell out the logic?
use of Force against intolerance
I’m mostly confused, because I was thinking of violence/force used by the intolerant for intolerant acts: that can be justifiably constrained.
Legal constraint implies force by legal authorities: violators go to jail or get legal penalties.
Tolerance by itself already does not tolerate harming non-consenting adults, quite independently of the agressor being an intolerant or not.
Further, violent intolerance is already covered by the rules against violence in general (there is a case to be made about the punishment for intolerant violence being greater than for similar violence which is not intolerant, but I’m not going into that here).
I was only talking about personal acts in the framework of non-violence, for example speaking out or not against non-violent displays of intolerance, allowing the intolerant to use a space you control to spread their intolerance in a non-violent way and so on.
So yeah, as soon as Force (be it via a social structure for the exercise of Force such as the Law or outside such structures) is considered against non-violent displays of intolerance, merelly Tolerance as a Social Contract does not suffice to cover it since the initiation of violence against other human beings who are not being violent comes with its own rules of morality.
I never liked the analogy of a social contract. A contract is something that people agree on. Most of society is just people going through life fairly passively, and inheriting the values of those around them.
A lot of hate comes from ignorance, whether taught or absorbed from someone’s surroundings. Not because they are opting out of some kind of previously agreed upon contract. I think that’s an important thing to recognise.
The paradox of tolerance is a hypothetical idea of complete tolerance, which I’m not sure ever exists in humans in the real world.
The concept of a “social contract” is regularly used to deny rights to prisoners.
It’s not necessary, even to address the “paradox of tolerance”, it’s actively harmful, and it’s erroneous anyway (contracts are necessarily consensual[1], but exceptionally few people get to make a choice about the society they live in)
Yes, this criteria invalidates a lot of modern contracts in the US especially around tech, but this is largely a failure of the judicial system. Legislation still makes it clear that contracts must be consensual in the US and other western countries, and it often goes further in that they must be reciprocal. ↩︎
Every time I hear or read that phrase, all I can think is “BITCH I NEVER SAID I WAS TOLERANT OF YOUR SHIT”
Tolerating intolerance isn’t tolerance. It’s bigotry.
Tolerance isn’t acceptance.
We tolerate the shitty uncle who gets drunk and says stupid shit at thanksgiving.
We punch Nazis in the face.
I don’t tolerate maga folks. I just kind of ignore them, and don’t allow them to be a part of my life.
I do have republican and conservative friends. I do not have any maga friends.
I do have republican and conservative friends.
So you’ll tolerate a little bigotry, as a treat… 🙄
Yes. Outreach is an important part of helping people change their minds.
It’s the same reason you shouldn’t fuck with Jehovah’s Witnesses. By treating them badly, you increase the feeling of isolation they have towards broader society and shove them further into the clutches of the cult.
I think one problem is that Dems have been screaming that every republican candidate in my lifetime will end democracy.
Many republicans have become immune to introspection because of this.
If we label everyone who disgrees with us a fascist it doesn’t serve any purpose, and most likely hinders the progress we’re trying to make.
Every Republican candidate in your lifetime (and tbf many Democrats) did end democracy. It wasn’t any single particular instant, but at this point we’ve been living under oligarchy for over a decade.
You’re right in general, but those screaming Dems were right too.
Lol
You can disengage from political debate and only engage in infighting with your own party or what not, good for you.
Considering most peoples get their politics from their parents and it’s more a football team mentality, I think you’re a little off.
For what it’s worth, a non zero amount of republicans and conservatives didn’t vote for Trump, probably in no small part due to the people in their life who remind them of their humanity. You might not be surprised to hear of estranged family becoming more radicalized by the right once they’ve been cut off. I have people in my life who are conservative and will never believe that abortion is acceptable, but I have been able to share stories of where it was medically necessary and they have changed their mind on supporting a total ban. Is that great? No, not really, but it’s certainly something. I don’t know that I’d call these people “friends” because I don’t really like them or share with them in the way I would my actual friends, but I have had them in my home. Unfortunately, changing hearts and minds requires a little buy in. It’s not always safe for everyone to do, and I get that, but people love to show stories of people becoming deradicalized while hating on people engaging in deradicalization. There are people out there who say “conservatives are good people they’re just misguided”, and I don’t really believe that, but I do believe they can BECOME good people. Obviously, some are a lost cause, but some can be pulled back to reality. I had a Hollywood is all trans/they’re hiding the true science (not a flat earther, just not a believer in the globe??) coworker I eventually turned into a socialist. That doesn’t happen overnight, and if they don’t at least consider you friendly, you’re not gonna see any movement.
You don’t get it. They are just voting for fascism, but they are not fascists themselves. It’s totally cool. Nothing to worry about.
For what it’s worth, a non zero amount of republicans and conservatives didn’t vote for Trump, probably in no small part due to the people in their life who remind them of their humanity. You might not be surprised to hear of estranged family becoming more radicalized by the right once they’ve been cut off. I have people in my life who are conservative and will never believe that abortion is acceptable, but I have been able to share stories of where it was medically necessary and they have changed their mind on supporting a total ban. Is that great? No, not really, but it’s certainly something. I don’t know that I’d call these people “friends” because I don’t really like them or share with them in the way I would my actual friends, but I have had them in my home. Unfortunately, changing hearts and minds requires a little buy in. It’s not always safe for everyone to do, and I get that, but people love to show stories of people becoming deradicalized while hating on people engaging in deradicalization. There are people out there who say “conservatives are good people they’re just misguided”, and I don’t really believe that, but I do believe they can BECOME good people. Obviously, some are a lost cause, but some can be pulled back to reality. I had a Hollywood is all trans/they’re hiding the true science (not a flat earther, just not a believer in the globe??) coworker I eventually turned into a socialist. That doesn’t happen overnight, and if they don’t at least consider you friendly, you’re not gonna see any movement.
I mean, Joe Biden is right of center on the political spectrum. So are all neoliberal centrist democrats now facists?
Did you mean to reply to me? Not sure what this has to do with my comment.
Yes wrong person thanks
This is exactly why my mother is no longer a part of my life. Shes not long for this world (morbid obesity, and severe unchecked mental health issues) and she voted for trump. Leaving me and my 9 year old son to exist in a wasteland of what used to be America. As great as America could have been, it never was. It was so close, yet so far. And then, as good as we had it (not that great) she voted to make it a hundred times worse. And that was it. She simply didn’t care enough about me or my son to do what’s right for the country, and now she dies alone. And it sucks, I wish it was different, but wishing doesn’t change things. And now it’s on her to wish for better things. I blocked her # and all of her side of the family, which keeps texting me to resolve it, people I haven’t talked to in 25 years.
Like fuck off. It’s over. Consider yourself lucky if you don’t live to see the culmination, but I won’t be around to bother to care.
Oops I responded to this comment on the wrong place
… Joe Biden is right of center politically. Do you consider every neoliberal centrist democrat and republican fascist?
That’s pretty reductionist and also untrue.
It’s hard to reconcile, but here are actually Republicans and conservatives that aren’t bigots.
They’re a minority, and a quickly fading one, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Remember, the Republican party of today was formed post civil rights. People cling to their identity and ideas long after reality has left them behind.
Does that make them stupid? No more or less than anyone that clings to any party affiliation past when the party changes.
But there is movement away from the Republican party by those that weren’t bigots that bought into the whole idea (falsely claimed) of reduced government control and free market ideals.
While I tend to think those stances are pretty fucking dumb to begin with, it isn’t bigotry.
The other problem is that as those leave, even more bigots pull off their masks and some of the extremist bigots that weren’t previously engaged in the political structure jump on board.
People are very stupid. We all are in some way or another, usually multiple some ways. One of those forms of stupidity is thinking that change from the inside is the only choice. Another is that you have to pick someone to vote for. Another is that you can resist bigots by engaging with them. And all of those are common among the non bigot Republicans.
I keep running into Republicans and ex Republicans and having to remind them that the party as it exists is not the party they thought it was, that it has used dog whistling and other tools of the so called southern strategy so long and so well that it has transformed into something even worse than the left thought possible.
But they are not all bigots.
That being said, there’s also a good bit of ACAB present too. Those non bigots are still part of the problem, they’re just as responsible for it happening. I would call it ARAB, but that’s a pretty horrible initialism lol. But that’s why identity politics is a horrible thing.
No Elons allowed
The farther left I lean, the less tolerant I become.
tolerance is a contract not a gift
