Not to be that guy, but exactly what kind of conversation are we supposed to have with fascists and people openly calling for an end to both your and my liberties?
Ideas are debatable, but there’s no debating that we all deserve to live and to exist. But I’ve ever only encountered far too many people from the right openly calling for the opposite of that. My own existence to them is offensive and worthy of murder. I want to have no conversation with such people, but you seem to be willing to tolerate that for the sake of “just having a conversation”.
what kind of conversation are we supposed to have with fascists and people openly calling for an end to both your and my liberties?
Depends heavily on who you’re dealing with. Obviously, very hard to talk to a cop in the middle of cracking your skull open. But a lot of Americans are polarized into fascism through mass media and other forms of propaganda. You have to talk to them like you’d talk to anyone else. And you have to get them disconnected from the fascist media stream as best you can.
It’s less about a specific conversation and more about building trust relative to their mass media of choice. No single thing you say is going to outweigh a daily dose of right wing agitprop. So divorcing people from that mass media has to be the first step, either by keying them in on how and why the network is uncomfortable to listen to or by engaging them with alternatives.
there’s no debating that we all deserve to live and to exist.
The fascist theory is, at it’s heart, that egalitarian coexistence is impossible. You are in a tribal war of domination and you either win or you die.
The counter has to be evidence to the contrary. Introducing friends and family to people who are “the enemy” but are clearly no threat. Reminding them of who they’re being asked to reject.
Not to be that guy, but exactly what kind of conversation are we supposed to have with fascists and people openly calling for an end to both your and my liberties?
Ideas are debatable, but there’s no debating that we all deserve to live and to exist. But I’ve ever only encountered far too many people from the right openly calling for the opposite of that. My own existence to them is offensive and worthy of murder. I want to have no conversation with such people, but you seem to be willing to tolerate that for the sake of “just having a conversation”.
Depends heavily on who you’re dealing with. Obviously, very hard to talk to a cop in the middle of cracking your skull open. But a lot of Americans are polarized into fascism through mass media and other forms of propaganda. You have to talk to them like you’d talk to anyone else. And you have to get them disconnected from the fascist media stream as best you can.
It’s less about a specific conversation and more about building trust relative to their mass media of choice. No single thing you say is going to outweigh a daily dose of right wing agitprop. So divorcing people from that mass media has to be the first step, either by keying them in on how and why the network is uncomfortable to listen to or by engaging them with alternatives.
The fascist theory is, at it’s heart, that egalitarian coexistence is impossible. You are in a tribal war of domination and you either win or you die.
The counter has to be evidence to the contrary. Introducing friends and family to people who are “the enemy” but are clearly no threat. Reminding them of who they’re being asked to reject.