If You Want To Be Friends, Then Why Aren’t You Friendly?
September 8, 2023 5:52 AM Subscribe
In a new essay, A. R. Moxon looks at calls for "civility" decrying how people are shunning others for holding hateful positions, and how the position dismisses the harm of such positions, as well as what friendship and acceptance actually mean. (SLSubstack)
Roy Edroso expands further on the topic.
Roy Edroso expands further on the topic.
They need the whole culture, they demand to be loved.
The real moral behind the Sword of Damocles story is "publicly say that my life as king is hard and that you like your current subservient station, or I'll drop a sword through your fucking skull."
compared to Pureflix and Truth Social
Ha ha, at this point it's so forgotten that we don't even both mentioning Conservapedia anymore. Conservatives know their ideas are unpopular, which is why they keep co-opting liberal ones: "blue lives matter", "straight pride parade", "white power", "pro-life", and even going back to "national socialism".
posted by AlSweigart at 6:35 AM on September 8, 2023 [30 favorites]
The real moral behind the Sword of Damocles story is "publicly say that my life as king is hard and that you like your current subservient station, or I'll drop a sword through your fucking skull."
compared to Pureflix and Truth Social
Ha ha, at this point it's so forgotten that we don't even both mentioning Conservapedia anymore. Conservatives know their ideas are unpopular, which is why they keep co-opting liberal ones: "blue lives matter", "straight pride parade", "white power", "pro-life", and even going back to "national socialism".
posted by AlSweigart at 6:35 AM on September 8, 2023 [30 favorites]
> Any abuser knows that they need accomplices. If dad is getting drunk each night and beating the children up he’s going to need everyone to keep nice and quiet about it
> Newt [Gingrich] knows what he’s doing. It’s textbook abuser behavior.
This article does a good job articulating things that my younger self could only recognize, and it's worth the full read. But if you want to find out more about this topic, I've found Why Does He Do That: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft to be similarly revealing. (This Internet Archive link is for an older edition.)
posted by AlSweigart at 6:41 AM on September 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
> Newt [Gingrich] knows what he’s doing. It’s textbook abuser behavior.
This article does a good job articulating things that my younger self could only recognize, and it's worth the full read. But if you want to find out more about this topic, I've found Why Does He Do That: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft to be similarly revealing. (This Internet Archive link is for an older edition.)
posted by AlSweigart at 6:41 AM on September 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
I, like many people, have arranged my life so that my run-ins with this problem are incidental and diffuse, but this article makes me think about my parents, currently aging in place in a conservative community and completing a decades- long process of being pushed into ostracizing themselves by insisting all people have dignity. I remember the early incidents in the 90’s, when my father (who won’t admit it but probably voted for Regan) joined the local school board and repeatedly refused to support efforts by parents to damage education and harm children, culminating in an overwhelming tirade of hate when he voted to allow a local high school to put on a production of The Laramie Project. Hours of evil, hateful answering machine messages that he had to listen to and delete, delete delete. He was placed on Fred Phelps “list of the damned”, which I am proud of to this day. My parents were interested but never political, religious but not evangelical, they were boring. And it only kept getting worse. They have a smaller group of friends now, but I think they’re happier.
This year, my mom joined a new mahjong group and let slip that they were planning a river cruise in Norway. One of the other players asked “isn’t that a socialist country?”
My mother replied “well, I am a socialist.” She still goes to mahjong, but I think she’s hoping certain people will stop coming.
posted by q*ben at 6:55 AM on September 8, 2023 [122 favorites]
This year, my mom joined a new mahjong group and let slip that they were planning a river cruise in Norway. One of the other players asked “isn’t that a socialist country?”
My mother replied “well, I am a socialist.” She still goes to mahjong, but I think she’s hoping certain people will stop coming.
posted by q*ben at 6:55 AM on September 8, 2023 [122 favorites]
The lesson from my parents is - the supremacists confuse friendship with conformity. No amount of “civility” will appease them, they expect your friendship to take the shape of opinions and actions that they deem right and proper. But in the end, they’ll argue, you separated yourself from the crowd through a refusal to align.
posted by q*ben at 7:09 AM on September 8, 2023 [45 favorites]
posted by q*ben at 7:09 AM on September 8, 2023 [45 favorites]
It bothers supremacists when humanists won’t be friends with them over their alignment with a supremacist spirit, I guess. They feel strongly that friendship is something they still deserve, though it feels less like something they actually want, and more like something they believe they’re owed.This.
posted by Fizz at 7:16 AM on September 8, 2023 [51 favorites]
This was very good. It will definitely help me frame some conversations with the next round of holidays coming. Thanks for posting.
…they do not usually approve of murder—unless, that is, the propagandists tell them that it was one of the good murders, which is something I believe the Germans call a rittenhaus.
Holy shit.
posted by Mchelly at 7:30 AM on September 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
…they do not usually approve of murder—unless, that is, the propagandists tell them that it was one of the good murders, which is something I believe the Germans call a rittenhaus.
Holy shit.
posted by Mchelly at 7:30 AM on September 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
Excellent piece. Thank you for posting it.
posted by sundrop at 7:32 AM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by sundrop at 7:32 AM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Unfortunately, some people can't arrange their lives to avoid these people, because they come after us. (There's a webcomic that perfectly shows how they do it, even.)
Conservatives complainting about this don't truly want friendship, philia, agape. What they want is the benefits: good reputation, connections in work and community, women who have no excuse not to get near them, kids and grandkids who have no reason or options for cutting them off.
They also want to wipe out any form of individuality, it feels like, which probably is part of that last bit. They just want you to be a robot. The difference between the "Civility!" people and those like the Pearls (who did the "To Train Up A Child" monstrosities is that society currently makes it unpalatable to whack a child and we have laws and child protective services to get in the way of that. (Wait for them to publically add those to the things that need to be changed.)
posted by mephron at 7:33 AM on September 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Conservatives complainting about this don't truly want friendship, philia, agape. What they want is the benefits: good reputation, connections in work and community, women who have no excuse not to get near them, kids and grandkids who have no reason or options for cutting them off.
They also want to wipe out any form of individuality, it feels like, which probably is part of that last bit. They just want you to be a robot. The difference between the "Civility!" people and those like the Pearls (who did the "To Train Up A Child" monstrosities is that society currently makes it unpalatable to whack a child and we have laws and child protective services to get in the way of that. (Wait for them to publically add those to the things that need to be changed.)
posted by mephron at 7:33 AM on September 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
I didn't know Laura but I'm so sad she's gone. This is a fitting eulogy and reminder to those of us still here.
posted by fritley at 7:37 AM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by fritley at 7:37 AM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Refusing to argue in good faith is uncivil. Refusing to address one's arguments is uncivil. Moving the goalposts is uncivil. Routinely, knowingly, and cheerfully deploying fallacies is uncivil. Tone policing is uncivil. And advocating for fascists is most definitely uncivil.
Right wing disingenuousness has been on vivid display since the early days of the Internet and before. Calls for "civility" are almost always made in bad faith, as they imply that their sides' arguments are inherently respectable. That's an assertion not at all in evidence.
And besides, bad faith argument deserves no respect, and so an "uncivil" response is perfectly appropriate. So they can take their special pleading and shove it.
posted by Gelatin at 7:38 AM on September 8, 2023 [30 favorites]
Right wing disingenuousness has been on vivid display since the early days of the Internet and before. Calls for "civility" are almost always made in bad faith, as they imply that their sides' arguments are inherently respectable. That's an assertion not at all in evidence.
And besides, bad faith argument deserves no respect, and so an "uncivil" response is perfectly appropriate. So they can take their special pleading and shove it.
posted by Gelatin at 7:38 AM on September 8, 2023 [30 favorites]
which is something I believe the Germans call a rittenhaus.
To be clear, this is Moxon making a bone-dry joke and knowing reference to acquitted murderer Kyle Rittenhouse. It's also a play on the cliche of German (and other languages) having unique one-word expressions that have to be unpacked as whole English sentences.
As far as I can tell, the name "rittenhaus" literally translates to either "reed house" or "riding house" in German, and has no deeper cultural meaning beyond the association with an infamous right-wing goon.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:48 AM on September 8, 2023 [36 favorites]
To be clear, this is Moxon making a bone-dry joke and knowing reference to acquitted murderer Kyle Rittenhouse. It's also a play on the cliche of German (and other languages) having unique one-word expressions that have to be unpacked as whole English sentences.
As far as I can tell, the name "rittenhaus" literally translates to either "reed house" or "riding house" in German, and has no deeper cultural meaning beyond the association with an infamous right-wing goon.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:48 AM on September 8, 2023 [36 favorites]
I think what’s really happening is that an unignorable critical mass of people are done putting up with abusive bullshit anymore—taking it or excusing it—which seems very divisive and dangerous to people who rely on abusive bullshit for either fortune or identity.
This seems to be the crux of the thing right here.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to replace my pride flag window decal with an actual flag. That I will fly from my house 365 days a year. I have two Trump flags a block in either direction. I'm DONE.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:56 AM on September 8, 2023 [17 favorites]
This seems to be the crux of the thing right here.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to replace my pride flag window decal with an actual flag. That I will fly from my house 365 days a year. I have two Trump flags a block in either direction. I'm DONE.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:56 AM on September 8, 2023 [17 favorites]
“…amateur shoe filler David Brooks…”
Fantastic piece, but this phrase alone was pure delight.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 8:03 AM on September 8, 2023 [59 favorites]
Fantastic piece, but this phrase alone was pure delight.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 8:03 AM on September 8, 2023 [59 favorites]
This is a fabulous essay. Living in a community that consists of many many white supremacists I have pondered this question of whether I wish to 'be friends' with those people. I have decided that I do not. What I found particularly enlightening in this essay is that the supremacist faction believes it is their right to have you (a humanist) as their friend. My own take on why this is so is because at some very deep level supremacists have a tiny notion that what they believe is hateful. This may be optimistic, and I have no delusions that this in any way might change their views, and I may think this because it is so difficult for me to believe in such a self satisfied hate-filled existence without any humanity. I realize that much of history disagrees with me.
posted by bluesky43 at 8:03 AM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by bluesky43 at 8:03 AM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Calls for "civility" are almost always made in bad faith, as they imply that their sides' arguments are inherently respectable. That's an assertion not at all in evidence.
The civility fetishism around political polarization in relationships has gotten so creepy the last couple years. It seems that every couple of months some centrist blowhards will write a largely fact-free article for the Atlantic or some other both-sidesism flagbearer, bemoaning the fact that the left side of the aisle--and especially women--largely refuses to date the right side of the aisle.
A lot of the time it's really just an extension of the "cancel culture" nonsense, but sometimes the commentators are very clearly upset that these Democrats--and again, especially women--don't just get over their stupid little feelings and start nice little whitebread families with the people that wouldn't complain about a spot of genocide here and there. It's all a little Fourteen Words, although the civility fetishists themselves would never admit to it.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:05 AM on September 8, 2023 [18 favorites]
The civility fetishism around political polarization in relationships has gotten so creepy the last couple years. It seems that every couple of months some centrist blowhards will write a largely fact-free article for the Atlantic or some other both-sidesism flagbearer, bemoaning the fact that the left side of the aisle--and especially women--largely refuses to date the right side of the aisle.
A lot of the time it's really just an extension of the "cancel culture" nonsense, but sometimes the commentators are very clearly upset that these Democrats--and again, especially women--don't just get over their stupid little feelings and start nice little whitebread families with the people that wouldn't complain about a spot of genocide here and there. It's all a little Fourteen Words, although the civility fetishists themselves would never admit to it.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:05 AM on September 8, 2023 [18 favorites]
This was an excellent read.
The onus is always on us to be the bigger person towards the kind of people who don't see anyone who is different from them as human. I refuse to play that game anymore. I don't owe them "civility". I don't owe them "friendship." Because as the article points out, just because you aren't shooting people who offend your delicate white supremacist sensibilities, doesn't absolve you. You choose to align yourself with the people who take those actions. You choose to believe the same bullshit they do. And in doing so, you support that violence.
posted by Kitteh at 8:22 AM on September 8, 2023 [27 favorites]
The onus is always on us to be the bigger person towards the kind of people who don't see anyone who is different from them as human. I refuse to play that game anymore. I don't owe them "civility". I don't owe them "friendship." Because as the article points out, just because you aren't shooting people who offend your delicate white supremacist sensibilities, doesn't absolve you. You choose to align yourself with the people who take those actions. You choose to believe the same bullshit they do. And in doing so, you support that violence.
posted by Kitteh at 8:22 AM on September 8, 2023 [27 favorites]
"When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles. But when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles." is a quote, as far as tumblr told me, seems oddly apropos here, too.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 8:32 AM on September 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by MonsieurPEB at 8:32 AM on September 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
Moxon writes with an air of barely suppressed rage that gets me in the feels every. single. time.
Good post. Thanks.
posted by flabdablet at 8:52 AM on September 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
Good post. Thanks.
posted by flabdablet at 8:52 AM on September 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
I get this from my family but at this point my only response is "You're voting for people that want my child to suffer and die. Don't ever expect me to pick you over her."
Brooksian hand-wringing aside, there aren't any fuzzy lines anymore. Republicans as a party want to cause immense harm, destroy democracy, and make life worse for everyone including themselves. They are in the grips of a fever of hate and destruction. Friendship isn't on the table.
Of course, they are also in denial about what's happened to them, how far they have gone. And so they get offended when you say it.
They want to believe they are normal, even good and decent, people doing the right things. But it's a fragile lie and so they hate liberals in part for threatening it.
posted by emjaybee at 9:01 AM on September 8, 2023 [42 favorites]
Brooksian hand-wringing aside, there aren't any fuzzy lines anymore. Republicans as a party want to cause immense harm, destroy democracy, and make life worse for everyone including themselves. They are in the grips of a fever of hate and destruction. Friendship isn't on the table.
Of course, they are also in denial about what's happened to them, how far they have gone. And so they get offended when you say it.
They want to believe they are normal, even good and decent, people doing the right things. But it's a fragile lie and so they hate liberals in part for threatening it.
posted by emjaybee at 9:01 AM on September 8, 2023 [42 favorites]
Call this the dumb cis-het white male about me, but I think the aspect of this that just clicked with me from reading this piece is that the supremecist's position is basically, "You're not in any of the categories I'm attacking, so aside from your political views, you could be just like me. The black woman over there, the gay dude on the bench, the Mexicans and so forth, they're the enemy. You're just a Person, like me, and it's bullshit that two normal People can't be friends just because of politics."
Which is, of course, nonsense, but if you squint you can see a bit of internal consistency in it.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:01 AM on September 8, 2023 [50 favorites]
Which is, of course, nonsense, but if you squint you can see a bit of internal consistency in it.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:01 AM on September 8, 2023 [50 favorites]
This is the summary pull quote that works best for me (emphasis mine):
"In this space I’ve talked at length about shunning, and about strategically avoiding debates with bad-faith actors, and I think there are strategic times to shun or to not, and to debate or to not, but really at the bottom of it there’s this: I don’t really want to be friends with bullies, and if you’re willing to be friends with bullies, I don’t really want to be friends with you, either."
posted by ZakDaddy at 9:24 AM on September 8, 2023 [25 favorites]
"In this space I’ve talked at length about shunning, and about strategically avoiding debates with bad-faith actors, and I think there are strategic times to shun or to not, and to debate or to not, but really at the bottom of it there’s this: I don’t really want to be friends with bullies, and if you’re willing to be friends with bullies, I don’t really want to be friends with you, either."
posted by ZakDaddy at 9:24 AM on September 8, 2023 [25 favorites]
Ostensibly this makes sense, but they've increased the severity of their personal attacks against white cis liberals, too. Matt Walsh just sent his flying monkeys after a regular lady because she hasn't gotten married yet. Why do conservatives want to be friends with soy boys, man haters, self-hating whites, and child abusers (they accuse straight parents who support their trans kids of Munchausen by proxy)? Is this their admission that it's kayfabe and that the opposition shouldn't take it personal?
posted by Selena777 at 9:28 AM on September 8, 2023
posted by Selena777 at 9:28 AM on September 8, 2023
The plaintive, "Why do you have to make everything 'political'? Why can't we all just get along?" is easily answered with, "Because you are telling me to be silent and to stop being different from you."
Peace that's key in place through intolerance (and the threat of violence) is only peaceful for the ones on top.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:41 AM on September 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
Peace that's key in place through intolerance (and the threat of violence) is only peaceful for the ones on top.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:41 AM on September 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
well there would be no need for this conflict if all the women and POC and queer people just knew their place and stayed in it. we all got along back when Amurikkka (and the world) was great, right????
{BIG ROTTEN HAMBURDER RIGHT HERE/}
posted by supermedusa at 9:54 AM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
{BIG ROTTEN HAMBURDER RIGHT HERE/}
posted by supermedusa at 9:54 AM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
So many great quotes in the Moxon article. I'll stick with just this one:
The former might result in some lively debate over beers. The latter might result in feeling unsafe around this so-called friend.
posted by asnider at 9:55 AM on September 8, 2023 [26 favorites]
Something I’ve noticed about professional civility mourners is that when they mourn the divisions over political views, they rarely mention what those views are, or what effect they have.Exactly! There is a massive difference between having a friend who is, for example, somewhat more fiscally conservative than oneself and having a friend who thinks that certain types of people do not have a fundamental right to life.
The former might result in some lively debate over beers. The latter might result in feeling unsafe around this so-called friend.
posted by asnider at 9:55 AM on September 8, 2023 [26 favorites]
I'm debating whether to cut off my aunts and uncles, but it is difficult. For example my uncle has made mildly homophobic comments. I am gay and LGPT. So should I just ignore him forever? And if I don't announce the reasons for ignoring him the next time we meet, of course they will take my coldness as being an asshole/immature/uncaring.
So I don't know yet and I'm still working through this, I guess. Part of me thinks that by extension I would have to cut off my entire family community by logical transitivity.
posted by polymodus at 10:33 AM on September 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
So I don't know yet and I'm still working through this, I guess. Part of me thinks that by extension I would have to cut off my entire family community by logical transitivity.
posted by polymodus at 10:33 AM on September 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don’t really want to be friends with bullies, and if you’re willing to be friends with bullies, I don’t really want to be friends with you, either.
You know what you call it if nine people knowingly sit down to dinner with a Nazi? A table of ten Nazis.
posted by nushustu at 10:50 AM on September 8, 2023 [18 favorites]
You know what you call it if nine people knowingly sit down to dinner with a Nazi? A table of ten Nazis.
posted by nushustu at 10:50 AM on September 8, 2023 [18 favorites]
The former might result in some lively debate over beers. The latter might result in feeling unsafe around this so-called friend.
Then, the civility people never ask about the painful cases where someone you thought was the first guy turns into or turns out to be the second and how it might lead a person to erect a boundary from that experience onwards.
posted by Selena777 at 11:00 AM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Then, the civility people never ask about the painful cases where someone you thought was the first guy turns into or turns out to be the second and how it might lead a person to erect a boundary from that experience onwards.
posted by Selena777 at 11:00 AM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
There is a massive difference between having a friend who is, for example, somewhat more fiscally conservative than oneself and having a friend who thinks that certain types of people do not have a fundamental right to life.
This certainly resonates with me. I'm a mathematician, and my colleagues are mostly ardent progressives but there are a not insignificant number of small-l libertarians. Mathematicians are all prone to populating every intellectual exercise with spherical cows, and if you ignore extant inequities and certain aspects of human nature, libertarianism looks pretty good. But most of these folks, when it comes to voting, end up valuing basic decency over their theoretical political position, and we can be friends. They like what libertarianism signifies about the underlying society but when it comes to the real world they ultimately recognize that it's not that society, and I can have lively discussions about political theory with them without it being "yeah, you want people not like you to die".
OTOH, the fiscal conservative who votes for the Grover Norquist bloc is an asshole, and it's not because they're a fiscal conservative. It's because they apparently value their fiscal conservatism more than respect for everyone's basic humanity.
posted by jackbishop at 11:01 AM on September 8, 2023 [22 favorites]
This certainly resonates with me. I'm a mathematician, and my colleagues are mostly ardent progressives but there are a not insignificant number of small-l libertarians. Mathematicians are all prone to populating every intellectual exercise with spherical cows, and if you ignore extant inequities and certain aspects of human nature, libertarianism looks pretty good. But most of these folks, when it comes to voting, end up valuing basic decency over their theoretical political position, and we can be friends. They like what libertarianism signifies about the underlying society but when it comes to the real world they ultimately recognize that it's not that society, and I can have lively discussions about political theory with them without it being "yeah, you want people not like you to die".
OTOH, the fiscal conservative who votes for the Grover Norquist bloc is an asshole, and it's not because they're a fiscal conservative. It's because they apparently value their fiscal conservatism more than respect for everyone's basic humanity.
posted by jackbishop at 11:01 AM on September 8, 2023 [22 favorites]
reminded of Sauron, but LOTR comparisons
#pedant#didyouknow
If we're talking about the 'founder' of orcs, the guy you want is Morgoth.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:27 AM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
#pedant#didyouknow
If we're talking about the 'founder' of orcs, the guy you want is Morgoth.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:27 AM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I cut off one side of my family years ago that are now mostly a bunch of right-wing conspiracy believers and Rump supporters who refused the vaccine. Five of those cousins have died in murder-suicide shooting incidents during the last 3 years. I'm sad for the orphaned children they left behind, but felt zero guilt skipping those funerals. Several family members attended who were actively ill with Covid, and at least one person died the following week (that I know of).
Would anything have been different if I'd stuck around, maybe tried to be a "good liberal" influence on those cousins? I doubt it. At this point I consider it a potentially life-threatening compromise I'm unwilling to put my husband in the middle of, especially on holidays.
I will always love some parts of my family I don't get along with. And I regret, on some level, not seeing their children grow up. But I see no reason to make peace with people who think it's fine to marry 14-year-old girls, give very small children handguns, or that Fauci should be publicly hanged. And I'm afraid that spending any time with them implies my tacit approval of their beliefs and behaviors, and that in and of itself is abhorrent to me.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 11:37 AM on September 8, 2023 [28 favorites]
Would anything have been different if I'd stuck around, maybe tried to be a "good liberal" influence on those cousins? I doubt it. At this point I consider it a potentially life-threatening compromise I'm unwilling to put my husband in the middle of, especially on holidays.
I will always love some parts of my family I don't get along with. And I regret, on some level, not seeing their children grow up. But I see no reason to make peace with people who think it's fine to marry 14-year-old girls, give very small children handguns, or that Fauci should be publicly hanged. And I'm afraid that spending any time with them implies my tacit approval of their beliefs and behaviors, and that in and of itself is abhorrent to me.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 11:37 AM on September 8, 2023 [28 favorites]
> Navelgazer: "the supremecist's position is basically, "You're not in any of the categories I'm attacking, so aside from your political views, you could be just like me. The black woman over there, the gay dude on the bench, the Mexicans and so forth, they're the enemy.
Also, cf. "No, no, of course I didn't mean that about you. You're one of the good ones."
posted by mhum at 12:02 PM on September 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
Also, cf. "No, no, of course I didn't mean that about you. You're one of the good ones."
posted by mhum at 12:02 PM on September 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
DO they insist upon friendship? I mostly see people insisting that liberals not say unpleasant things to conservatives, and the occasional insistence that liberal women concede to fuck conservative men. Neither of these is friendship, it's a command to subservience.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:07 PM on September 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:07 PM on September 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
Neither of these is friendship, it's a command to subservience.
You say potato...
posted by wenestvedt at 12:11 PM on September 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
You say potato...
posted by wenestvedt at 12:11 PM on September 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's not "I wish we could be friends, we have things to bring to each others' lives." It's "I get the impression here that you think you are allowed to say no to me, and that cannot be abided."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:12 PM on September 8, 2023 [33 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:12 PM on September 8, 2023 [33 favorites]
It is the toxic masculinity kind of friendship where no one in the in-group is held accountable. The have your bro's back no matter what he does kind of friendship.
It's not the greater than the sum of our parts, lift each other up kind of friendship that we might recognize by that word.
posted by Horkus at 12:33 PM on September 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's not the greater than the sum of our parts, lift each other up kind of friendship that we might recognize by that word.
posted by Horkus at 12:33 PM on September 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Solid essays.
To quote Sondheim, "nice is different than good."
posted by rmd1023 at 1:16 PM on September 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
To quote Sondheim, "nice is different than good."
posted by rmd1023 at 1:16 PM on September 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
DO they insist upon friendship? I mostly see people insisting that liberals not say unpleasant things to conservatives, and the occasional insistence that liberal women concede to fuck conservative men. Neither of these is friendship, it's a command to subservience.
I think, in addition to the David Brookses of the world inventing a framework for "how the world is today" and then inventing a glorious past that we should return to, and presenting both as facts, we have the far more mundane occurrence of, say, confrontations with cousins or old school friends on Facebook. That's where I've run into this before.
I was at a pub trying to get some writing done, and feeling pretty blocked and getting frustrated and reading the news and drinking a lot (this would have been in late 2019, I'd guess?) and I posted an intentionally-inflammatory thing about how nobody who identifies as a Republican can truthfully claim to also be a Christian. Within moments I got the response I was, I guess, hoping for, and the two girls (now women) whom I'd grown up next-door to in Houston came in frothing mad about how-dare-I, but as soon as I got into making my argument for moral hypocrisy, they shifted into "how dare you judge me based on who I vote for," and I realized this was pointless.
Now, to be clear, I was in the wrong there. I went looking for a fight and found the fight I was expecting and that's, like, uncivil by definition. I'm still deeply embarrassed whenever I remember having done that. But I still see a lot of stuff on FB from people trying to cull bigots from their friends list, and the pushback they get along these lines.
So, there's likely a bit of "I'm uncomfortable being asked to examine my beliefs" going on, sure, but I think just as much we're talking about a cultural mindset of this being like Yankees vs. Red Sox, a deeply-felt, lifelong devotion that they can feel magnanimous about setting aside where their "friends" are concerned. They likely feel like their vote makes about as much of a difference as cheering at the stadium does, and don't feel like the rioters flipping cars after a big win or loss represent them, so why would you unfriend them for something so minor?
Because remember, too, that they live for the most part above-the-fray of consequences from elections. When they lose, their lives remain more or less the same as when they win. Like cheering for a sports team.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:34 PM on September 8, 2023 [24 favorites]
I think, in addition to the David Brookses of the world inventing a framework for "how the world is today" and then inventing a glorious past that we should return to, and presenting both as facts, we have the far more mundane occurrence of, say, confrontations with cousins or old school friends on Facebook. That's where I've run into this before.
I was at a pub trying to get some writing done, and feeling pretty blocked and getting frustrated and reading the news and drinking a lot (this would have been in late 2019, I'd guess?) and I posted an intentionally-inflammatory thing about how nobody who identifies as a Republican can truthfully claim to also be a Christian. Within moments I got the response I was, I guess, hoping for, and the two girls (now women) whom I'd grown up next-door to in Houston came in frothing mad about how-dare-I, but as soon as I got into making my argument for moral hypocrisy, they shifted into "how dare you judge me based on who I vote for," and I realized this was pointless.
Now, to be clear, I was in the wrong there. I went looking for a fight and found the fight I was expecting and that's, like, uncivil by definition. I'm still deeply embarrassed whenever I remember having done that. But I still see a lot of stuff on FB from people trying to cull bigots from their friends list, and the pushback they get along these lines.
So, there's likely a bit of "I'm uncomfortable being asked to examine my beliefs" going on, sure, but I think just as much we're talking about a cultural mindset of this being like Yankees vs. Red Sox, a deeply-felt, lifelong devotion that they can feel magnanimous about setting aside where their "friends" are concerned. They likely feel like their vote makes about as much of a difference as cheering at the stadium does, and don't feel like the rioters flipping cars after a big win or loss represent them, so why would you unfriend them for something so minor?
Because remember, too, that they live for the most part above-the-fray of consequences from elections. When they lose, their lives remain more or less the same as when they win. Like cheering for a sports team.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:34 PM on September 8, 2023 [24 favorites]
Another way of framing this is called the Paradox of Toleration. "Oh woe is us, for we must tolerate those who would be intolerant of us or else we become hypocrites!" There is an answer to this paradox. Toleration is not a universal human right, it is a social contract. I will tolerate you so long as you tolerate me. We are not obligated to extend the benefits of the contract to those who do not accept the terms themselves.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:04 PM on September 8, 2023 [19 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:04 PM on September 8, 2023 [19 favorites]
In my country, where consensus is highly prized, this often takes the form of accusing people of being "divisive". Don't show a pride flag, because it's "divisive". Don't put the indigenous language on signs, it's DIVISIVE. Etc. I have learned that the strongest calls for unity and an end to division come from people who actually are much less tolerant. But they attribute divisiveness to other people, because they think they're NORMAL and the others are all wilfully deviant.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:05 PM on September 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:05 PM on September 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
Because remember, too, that they live for the most part above-the-fray of consequences from elections. When they lose, their lives remain more or less the same as when they win.
This is especially true when the outcome of their winning isn't even about making their own lives better, but about making the lives of others worse. Very often, those with the supremacist mindset (whether consciously or not) aren't voting for something but are voting against someone or something. They're not voting for tax cuts for their economic class, they've voting against [insert marginalized group] having equal rights and protection under the law. Their desired outcome has as much material impact on their own lives as failing to achieve that outcome does -- none at all.
posted by asnider at 2:14 PM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
This is especially true when the outcome of their winning isn't even about making their own lives better, but about making the lives of others worse. Very often, those with the supremacist mindset (whether consciously or not) aren't voting for something but are voting against someone or something. They're not voting for tax cuts for their economic class, they've voting against [insert marginalized group] having equal rights and protection under the law. Their desired outcome has as much material impact on their own lives as failing to achieve that outcome does -- none at all.
posted by asnider at 2:14 PM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
They want to believe they are normal, even good and decent, people doing the right things. But it's a fragile lie and so they hate liberals in part for threatening it.
This is also why they seem to get angrier when they do actually get something they've been demanding! For example: when all the old-blue-checks on Twitter lost their checks. The new-blue-checks who were willing to pay Elon still weren't getting blue-check-level engagement, because no one wanted to read their drivel. So it just became one more thing to have a conspiratorial persecution complex about.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 2:21 PM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is also why they seem to get angrier when they do actually get something they've been demanding! For example: when all the old-blue-checks on Twitter lost their checks. The new-blue-checks who were willing to pay Elon still weren't getting blue-check-level engagement, because no one wanted to read their drivel. So it just became one more thing to have a conspiratorial persecution complex about.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 2:21 PM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
> I have learned that the strongest calls for unity and an end to division come from people who actually are much less tolerant.
That's because "divisive" is a synonym for "disobedient". Unity is an antonym for diversity.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:26 PM on September 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
That's because "divisive" is a synonym for "disobedient". Unity is an antonym for diversity.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:26 PM on September 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
This year, my mom joined a new mahjong group and let slip that they were planning a river cruise in Norway. One of the other players asked “isn’t that a socialist country?”
My mother replied “well, I am a socialist.
Footnote: Norway is not socialist. It's mixed economy and the government is a representative democracy modelled on the United States and Britain. Which is to say they are simply pragmatic in their approach rather than idealogues.
Your mom is deffo cool though.
posted by srboisvert at 2:30 PM on September 8, 2023 [21 favorites]
My mother replied “well, I am a socialist.
Footnote: Norway is not socialist. It's mixed economy and the government is a representative democracy modelled on the United States and Britain. Which is to say they are simply pragmatic in their approach rather than idealogues.
Your mom is deffo cool though.
posted by srboisvert at 2:30 PM on September 8, 2023 [21 favorites]
Conservatives complainting about this don't truly want friendship, philia, agape. What they want is the benefits
I've noticed this on a personal level in my terrible Republican aunt who went all in on Trump. She had such a huge desire to be validated and included-- without doing any of the work to actually be a good person.
I think Trump himself shares these characteristics, and they both found the same solution: when you're a terrible person desperate to be liked, you have an incentive to be increasingly awful so the most awful people will like you more.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:46 PM on September 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
I've noticed this on a personal level in my terrible Republican aunt who went all in on Trump. She had such a huge desire to be validated and included-- without doing any of the work to actually be a good person.
I think Trump himself shares these characteristics, and they both found the same solution: when you're a terrible person desperate to be liked, you have an incentive to be increasingly awful so the most awful people will like you more.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:46 PM on September 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
Thank you, mephron, for linking webcomic name. The barrel of that gun is aimed directly at me. Thinking about "divisiveness", and I just got to this gem.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:47 PM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 2:47 PM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Moxon has a lot of essays that I think many MeFites would find worthwhile.
We already discussed "The Case For Shunning." But I'd also recommend:
The Finger Taker's Son
The Unconsidered Voice
The Owners of the World
We already discussed "The Case For Shunning." But I'd also recommend:
The Finger Taker's Son
The killer used an AR-15 rifle, which is a massacre tool; in fact it is the favored tool of people who decide it’s time for a massacre. It’s also the favored tool of Republican politicians when it is time to hand one to every member of their family during Christmas photos, and they distribute these horrific photographs as a way of signifying to their constituency that, should any of them ever want to enact a massacre, the ability to own unlimited massacre tools is, in their view, a foundational pillar of freedom and a right that, as politicians, they will fight (and, implicitly, kill) for.
The Unconsidered Voice
The most persuasive way to get others to walk toward truth is not to argue about truth, but to walk toward it yourself.
To listen to the unconsidered voice is to choose an orientation that faces not inward toward your opponent, but outward, farther beyond the limited scope that your perspective has allowed. And, if your opponent is truly persuadable, you may persuade them by leaving them behind and walking toward that truth.
The Owners of the World
This is my curse to the owners of the world.posted by straight at 4:38 PM on September 8, 2023 [19 favorites]
You will never know your children, even if they remain in your life; you will only ever know the thing that they’ve learned they can safely be around you.
You may get everything you ever want, but it will never grant you peace or happiness.
You may manage to get everyone looking at you, but you’ll never be the real deal.
Because you don’t know the difference between owning something, and having it.
Article reminds me of this great bit from Rebecca Solnit, which I’ve been sending to folks quite a bit the last couple years:
“The middle ground is not halfway between Nazis and antiracists. The reasonable position is not a compromise between rapists and feminists, slaveowners and abolitionists, Natives and General Crook. The truth is not midway between the liar and the truthteller. That has to be a factor in all those calls for reaching out and unity.
The murderer and his intended victim don't have to agree on what's right. The people who were harmed don't have to reach out to those who did the harming. The people who told the truth don't need to make liars feel better about themselves or what they said. Those who were targeted by this war don't have to do all the peacemaking. Being gracious, issuing invitations, sure for those who are up to it and see ways to do it constructively, but not compromising or normalizing hate and discrimination and destruction.
If reaching out and finding unity is good, the haters and liars can go find some olive branches and apologies and do the work to leave their will to destroy the rest of us behind. Then it begins. The party of hate never had a mandate; they lost the popular vote last time and this time; they may think of themselves as the real American and the gatekeepers but we don't have to, and we don't have to enter their gates or play by their rules.
We don't have to hate them either, but we don't have to protect them from the consequences of their choices or sell out our principles for their comfort. When you stand on the ground of truth and justice, let others find their way to you. If you stand firm, many will in the end. Not everyone will; that does not change what truth and justice are.”
posted by zoinks at 5:14 PM on September 8, 2023 [52 favorites]
“The middle ground is not halfway between Nazis and antiracists. The reasonable position is not a compromise between rapists and feminists, slaveowners and abolitionists, Natives and General Crook. The truth is not midway between the liar and the truthteller. That has to be a factor in all those calls for reaching out and unity.
The murderer and his intended victim don't have to agree on what's right. The people who were harmed don't have to reach out to those who did the harming. The people who told the truth don't need to make liars feel better about themselves or what they said. Those who were targeted by this war don't have to do all the peacemaking. Being gracious, issuing invitations, sure for those who are up to it and see ways to do it constructively, but not compromising or normalizing hate and discrimination and destruction.
If reaching out and finding unity is good, the haters and liars can go find some olive branches and apologies and do the work to leave their will to destroy the rest of us behind. Then it begins. The party of hate never had a mandate; they lost the popular vote last time and this time; they may think of themselves as the real American and the gatekeepers but we don't have to, and we don't have to enter their gates or play by their rules.
We don't have to hate them either, but we don't have to protect them from the consequences of their choices or sell out our principles for their comfort. When you stand on the ground of truth and justice, let others find their way to you. If you stand firm, many will in the end. Not everyone will; that does not change what truth and justice are.”
posted by zoinks at 5:14 PM on September 8, 2023 [52 favorites]
Like Navelgazer above I found digging into the point of view of the supremacist was really insightful. They get upset when they are cut of from "civility" because when supremacists cut others off from civility it is a precursor to genocide. As a relatively tolerant person, I hadn't made that connection before.
This is a really good piece and I don't think anyone owes friendship to supremacists but I am also struck by the stories of people who have rescued people from extremism through compassion. People like Mathew Stevenson who invited a neo nazi to shabbat dinner and through their relationship enabled someone to reject white supremacy. Or Daryl Davis, a black man who has convinced 200 KKK members to give up that way of life by befriending them.
So, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, these people are toxic and invested in a violent toxic worldview, and it is absolutely right and just to shun them. On the other hand a sizable minority of our population holds these toxic views. How do we bring them back to humanity? How do we even know which ones might be safe to engage with and which are too dangerous? It's such a conundrum.
posted by being_quiet at 6:00 PM on September 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is a really good piece and I don't think anyone owes friendship to supremacists but I am also struck by the stories of people who have rescued people from extremism through compassion. People like Mathew Stevenson who invited a neo nazi to shabbat dinner and through their relationship enabled someone to reject white supremacy. Or Daryl Davis, a black man who has convinced 200 KKK members to give up that way of life by befriending them.
So, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, these people are toxic and invested in a violent toxic worldview, and it is absolutely right and just to shun them. On the other hand a sizable minority of our population holds these toxic views. How do we bring them back to humanity? How do we even know which ones might be safe to engage with and which are too dangerous? It's such a conundrum.
posted by being_quiet at 6:00 PM on September 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
"The middle ground is not halfway between Nazis and antiracists..."
I immediately favorited this...but...if we move from the individual perspective of 'should' to the political world of 'could'...which has the more pragmatic end game?
I'm NOT begging the question. I've heard convincing cases for both. I've derided Biden and then been weirdly convinced by his economic policy and his silent media strategy. Things are strange right now.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:59 PM on September 8, 2023
I immediately favorited this...but...if we move from the individual perspective of 'should' to the political world of 'could'...which has the more pragmatic end game?
I'm NOT begging the question. I've heard convincing cases for both. I've derided Biden and then been weirdly convinced by his economic policy and his silent media strategy. Things are strange right now.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:59 PM on September 8, 2023
How do we bring them back to humanity?
The answer is simple - you can't. All you can do is provide an escape hatch, a point for them to reach for when they are ready to do the work to move forward. But you can't get them there - they have to get there on their own.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:39 PM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
The answer is simple - you can't. All you can do is provide an escape hatch, a point for them to reach for when they are ready to do the work to move forward. But you can't get them there - they have to get there on their own.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:39 PM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
The real moral behind the Sword of Damocles story is "publicly say that my life as king is hard and that you like your current subservient station, or I'll drop a sword through your fucking skull."
This. What the neofascists want from those who aren't on Their Team is most assuredly not friendship. It's tribute. It's subservience. It's compliance. It's cringing and forelock-tugging and ring-kissing and thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another. And if they can force you to pretend you're cool with it, so much the better.
The "civility" they seek isn't something to be freely exchanged between equals. It's something to be extracted from Untermenschen.
posted by non canadian guy at 9:49 PM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
This. What the neofascists want from those who aren't on Their Team is most assuredly not friendship. It's tribute. It's subservience. It's compliance. It's cringing and forelock-tugging and ring-kissing and thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another. And if they can force you to pretend you're cool with it, so much the better.
The "civility" they seek isn't something to be freely exchanged between equals. It's something to be extracted from Untermenschen.
posted by non canadian guy at 9:49 PM on September 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
If I were friends with David brooks I might say, "this is the sort of thing you would write if you were smarter than a can of dog food. " I suppose that would be bullying but hopefully the paradox of tolerance will give me some moral protection. In any case I'd find the end of our friendship to be an entirely satisfactory thing.
posted by klanawa at 8:22 AM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by klanawa at 8:22 AM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
which has the more pragmatic end game?
I am convinced, personally, that the pragmatic end game is not for all of us to be moderate and conciliatory, or none of us to be moderate and conciliatory, but for there to be enough radical uncompromising folks to effectively hold the moderate conciliatory folks' feet to the fire. This was true (I think) in the fight for Civil Rights, in AIDS activism in the 80s, it was true in the 1930s when the New Deal probably wouldn't have gotten passed if people hadn't been afraid of Communists - and also, I am not a Biden fan, but he has governed a little leftward of where I expected; I think he and his advisors know just how many people voted for him despite preferring a candidate much further to the left.
posted by Jeanne at 8:41 AM on September 9, 2023 [14 favorites]
I am convinced, personally, that the pragmatic end game is not for all of us to be moderate and conciliatory, or none of us to be moderate and conciliatory, but for there to be enough radical uncompromising folks to effectively hold the moderate conciliatory folks' feet to the fire. This was true (I think) in the fight for Civil Rights, in AIDS activism in the 80s, it was true in the 1930s when the New Deal probably wouldn't have gotten passed if people hadn't been afraid of Communists - and also, I am not a Biden fan, but he has governed a little leftward of where I expected; I think he and his advisors know just how many people voted for him despite preferring a candidate much further to the left.
posted by Jeanne at 8:41 AM on September 9, 2023 [14 favorites]
Rebecca Solnit: On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway
posted by kirkaracha at 9:08 AM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by kirkaracha at 9:08 AM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
"My most opinionated friend just cut me out of their life, so I will now undertake a deep re-examination of my views — a process that will most certainly result in my adopting the views of my Very Opinionated (former) Friend" said literally nobody in the history of ever.
posted by panama joe at 9:34 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by panama joe at 9:34 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
panama joe, it's unclear if you mean that as a critique of this discussion... maybe you could clarify your snarky comment?
posted by kokaku at 9:50 AM on September 9, 2023
posted by kokaku at 9:50 AM on September 9, 2023
I meant that as a critique on this entire viewpoint.
Cutting someone out of your life will not influence them. It does the opposite — it removes your ability to influence them. If it has any effect on them at all, it will make them more averse to your viewpoint. But even that is unlikely. Cutting contact with people who don't share your viewpoints is actually the expected thing now. It surprises nobody.
posted by panama joe at 9:58 AM on September 9, 2023
Cutting someone out of your life will not influence them. It does the opposite — it removes your ability to influence them. If it has any effect on them at all, it will make them more averse to your viewpoint. But even that is unlikely. Cutting contact with people who don't share your viewpoints is actually the expected thing now. It surprises nobody.
posted by panama joe at 9:58 AM on September 9, 2023
Cutting someone out of your life will not influence them. It does the opposite — it removes your ability to influence them.
This is pretty misguided though, unless you think you can fix them. That's the problem here: you're never going to get everyone to agree with you. Disagreement on some things is fine, fun even.* Other things are non-negotiable. On those points, I can give it the ol' college try to convince people of the error of their ways, but at some point, it's on them. Because if you insist that it's your responsibility or whatever to get them to change their ways, that's a nice way of saying it's your responsibility to make them change their ways. A) that makes you really no better than them, and B) at some point you're going to have to resort to physical force.
I'm all for force to keep people from fucking my shit up, but if we're going to go to war over opinions, then we need to be ready for physical force, and I don't know that that's a great idea. At some point, it's better to stop trying to fix people and instead just surround yourself with people who don't have literal fatal flaws.
*I don't care for Firefly. Change my mind.
posted by nushustu at 10:09 AM on September 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is pretty misguided though, unless you think you can fix them. That's the problem here: you're never going to get everyone to agree with you. Disagreement on some things is fine, fun even.* Other things are non-negotiable. On those points, I can give it the ol' college try to convince people of the error of their ways, but at some point, it's on them. Because if you insist that it's your responsibility or whatever to get them to change their ways, that's a nice way of saying it's your responsibility to make them change their ways. A) that makes you really no better than them, and B) at some point you're going to have to resort to physical force.
I'm all for force to keep people from fucking my shit up, but if we're going to go to war over opinions, then we need to be ready for physical force, and I don't know that that's a great idea. At some point, it's better to stop trying to fix people and instead just surround yourself with people who don't have literal fatal flaws.
*I don't care for Firefly. Change my mind.
posted by nushustu at 10:09 AM on September 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Spoken as someone who doesn't have a ton to directly fear from many conservative viewpoints, perhaps?
posted by sagc at 10:09 AM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by sagc at 10:09 AM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
This is pretty misguided though, unless you think you can fix them.
I did not say fix. I said influence.
Spoken as someone who doesn't have a ton to directly fear from many conservative viewpoints, perhaps?
You could assume that. But you would be wrong.
posted by panama joe at 10:19 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I did not say fix. I said influence.
Spoken as someone who doesn't have a ton to directly fear from many conservative viewpoints, perhaps?
You could assume that. But you would be wrong.
posted by panama joe at 10:19 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
So... What's the bar? How do you deal with people who want you dead, or suffering?
posted by sagc at 10:30 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by sagc at 10:30 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
On an individual level, it's a case by case. My uncle, who I am debating if I should just block him--there are pros and cons to me of doing that, and I guess maybe other tacts are possible... But just as one says presuming to change others would be fundamentally supremacist, one could argue the opposite, that abandoning my very flawed uncle could also quite callous and against empathic sensibilities, depending on the details of the case. Or maybe I have internalized oppression. Etc. etc. Thus it is worth emphasizing that the author of the article wisely refrains from offering any particular strategy, that's not really what the article is about and people should read it carefully.
However, polarization is on a societal level, and so what we have is a structural problem. It's why I think individual solution like "you can't/shouldn't change people" don't apply, the nature of the problem is a structural one. It's like the limitations of individual recycling to fix pollution. Except here the pollution is social.
posted by polymodus at 10:35 AM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
However, polarization is on a societal level, and so what we have is a structural problem. It's why I think individual solution like "you can't/shouldn't change people" don't apply, the nature of the problem is a structural one. It's like the limitations of individual recycling to fix pollution. Except here the pollution is social.
posted by polymodus at 10:35 AM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
So... What's the bar?
If they were part of an actual terrorist organization, I would cut them loose.
posted by panama joe at 10:37 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
If they were part of an actual terrorist organization, I would cut them loose.
posted by panama joe at 10:37 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
See, as a structural problem, I think that's exactly why we can't expect people to be responsible for changing others. Cutting people off isn't done to try to influence them. It is an acknowledgement that you have no hope of influencing them, so all you can do is protect yourself by leaving.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:28 AM on September 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:28 AM on September 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
I cut off a long-time friend after she went hard-right religious fundamentalist, and into heavily conspiratorial thinking. She also started ranting at people in public and engaging in terrifying road rage. I didn't cut her off because I'm so darn opinionated, I cut her off because our relationship devolved into me listening to her angry monologues. Trying to very gently express my own opinions resulted in her cutting me of, saying that she didn't want to talk about it while glaring at me in an unsettling, white-all-the-way-around-the-pupils manner. It was no longer a friendship. She just wanted to vomit out bile, and I just didn't have the spoons to deal with her anymore.
posted by LindsayIrene at 11:59 AM on September 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
posted by LindsayIrene at 11:59 AM on September 9, 2023 [15 favorites]
Folks who want to influence the bigots and authoritarians in their lives toward better morals are welcome to put in their own emotional labor toward that work. They are not welcome to assign it to me.
I'm a cishet white woman and I don't have time or energy for working on the awful people in my extended circles in the hope they will do better. And if that's how I feel, I can only imagine how queer folks, BIPOC folks, and folks in other marginalized groups feel about it.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 3:22 PM on September 9, 2023 [26 favorites]
I'm a cishet white woman and I don't have time or energy for working on the awful people in my extended circles in the hope they will do better. And if that's how I feel, I can only imagine how queer folks, BIPOC folks, and folks in other marginalized groups feel about it.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 3:22 PM on September 9, 2023 [26 favorites]
Adding, on thought, that one thing I object to about the idea that we should hang around with "conservatives" in the hope we can influence them is that it centers them in the relationships the rest of us have with them. One of the things I've read about bigotry is that it sucks away the time and energy of the marginalized to deal with the hatred and keeps them from doing whatever they want to do. When we frame calls for "civility" through that lens, we see energy that could be put toward our own goals spent on placating people who don't care if their words or actions or votes harm or upset us.
I'm lucky enough not to have full MAGA relatives, not least because my older relatives are mostly either dead or lost to Alzheimer's. But if I did, I'd evaluate my ongoing relationship with them on the basis of what it did for me, not just on what it might do for them.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 3:40 PM on September 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
I'm lucky enough not to have full MAGA relatives, not least because my older relatives are mostly either dead or lost to Alzheimer's. But if I did, I'd evaluate my ongoing relationship with them on the basis of what it did for me, not just on what it might do for them.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 3:40 PM on September 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
So I read Moxon’s essay. And she’s a fine writer, and she has a lot of interesting things to say. But she doesn’t quite seem to understand the concept of civility, because she lumps it up with a bunch of other things.
Civility is very different from friendship. And civility has little to do with associative behavior generally – it’s unrelated to how we decide who wants to sit with whom in the school cafeteria, for goodness’ sake. It’s even more confused to lump concerns about civility together with concerns about how Democrats should be more willing to date Republicans, as Moxon briefly does. Civility is very far from any kind of love.
Civility has everything to do with a set of coded and somewhat formalistic behaviors that are generally understood to convey a kind of politeness and mutual respect. Civility is a simulation of warmth, and it is properly understood as an acceptable kind of social fiction. Nobody really believes, for instance, that I have no more regard for my cousins or business associates than I do the average person on the street, but that kind of formal and theoretical equality is what the behavior of civility regularly conveys. Indeed, I am inclined to say that the formality of civility, rightly understood and exercised, necessarily signals a slight degree of distance and coldness. There is a wonderful sentence somewhere in Chandler’s writings, something very much like “She smiled with her mouth,” as if to say that such a smile would not be entirely genuine and heartfelt. Civility has a lot to do with smiling with one’s mouth; there are significant tensions between civility and authenticity.
I often think about Frederick Douglass in so many contexts, who was famously criticized by radical abolitionists for being a milquetoasty moderate, largely because – again and again – he demonstrated that he was genuinely willing to talk to anyone as long as he thought he had a shot at bringing them around. It’s an instructive contrast to those who have given up and have decided to isolate themselves from anyone without identical political views. Douglass’s posture had no implications – as far as I can tell – on his mature political views. Read his “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” It’s amazing. That speech underscores what amazing political progress the Constitution wrought in just 76 years – and what a thundering rebuke the institution of slavery was to those who pretended and postured that, in the 1850s, we were living in a genuine constitutional republic.
Among its many virtues (not the least its controlled outrage), Douglass’s speech is breathtakingly civil.
posted by PaulVario at 4:30 PM on September 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
Civility is very different from friendship. And civility has little to do with associative behavior generally – it’s unrelated to how we decide who wants to sit with whom in the school cafeteria, for goodness’ sake. It’s even more confused to lump concerns about civility together with concerns about how Democrats should be more willing to date Republicans, as Moxon briefly does. Civility is very far from any kind of love.
Civility has everything to do with a set of coded and somewhat formalistic behaviors that are generally understood to convey a kind of politeness and mutual respect. Civility is a simulation of warmth, and it is properly understood as an acceptable kind of social fiction. Nobody really believes, for instance, that I have no more regard for my cousins or business associates than I do the average person on the street, but that kind of formal and theoretical equality is what the behavior of civility regularly conveys. Indeed, I am inclined to say that the formality of civility, rightly understood and exercised, necessarily signals a slight degree of distance and coldness. There is a wonderful sentence somewhere in Chandler’s writings, something very much like “She smiled with her mouth,” as if to say that such a smile would not be entirely genuine and heartfelt. Civility has a lot to do with smiling with one’s mouth; there are significant tensions between civility and authenticity.
I often think about Frederick Douglass in so many contexts, who was famously criticized by radical abolitionists for being a milquetoasty moderate, largely because – again and again – he demonstrated that he was genuinely willing to talk to anyone as long as he thought he had a shot at bringing them around. It’s an instructive contrast to those who have given up and have decided to isolate themselves from anyone without identical political views. Douglass’s posture had no implications – as far as I can tell – on his mature political views. Read his “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” It’s amazing. That speech underscores what amazing political progress the Constitution wrought in just 76 years – and what a thundering rebuke the institution of slavery was to those who pretended and postured that, in the 1850s, we were living in a genuine constitutional republic.
Among its many virtues (not the least its controlled outrage), Douglass’s speech is breathtakingly civil.
posted by PaulVario at 4:30 PM on September 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
I personally think being a Democrat is my act of civility, because I want people that hate me to have healthcare, civil rights, clean air and water, and so on. Which, considering that some Republicans think that parents like me deserve the death penalty, is pretty fucking civil of me.
I apologize if you think this somehow makes the ghost of Frederick Douglass disappointed in me. But we all have the rights to draw our boundaries. I do not harass people in MAGA hats or brandish guns at them, or shoot them, or try to legislate them out of existence. I am polite to strangers, pay my taxes, and so on. I'm civil. But I am not the friend of people spouting hateful poison and advocating violence.
posted by emjaybee at 5:05 PM on September 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
I apologize if you think this somehow makes the ghost of Frederick Douglass disappointed in me. But we all have the rights to draw our boundaries. I do not harass people in MAGA hats or brandish guns at them, or shoot them, or try to legislate them out of existence. I am polite to strangers, pay my taxes, and so on. I'm civil. But I am not the friend of people spouting hateful poison and advocating violence.
posted by emjaybee at 5:05 PM on September 9, 2023 [20 favorites]
I cut my family off because in ten years of trying to gently and civilly influence them they only got worse and attacked me more savagely for being queer and trans.
I work with severe and persistent mental illness and have consistently found people in the throes of mania and psychosis more capable of change than the far-right community I grew up with. Perhaps it’s a question of my own lack of skills, but it seems a better use of my time to put my labor there than to waste more time and energy on people who have no desire to change.
posted by brook horse at 5:09 PM on September 9, 2023 [17 favorites]
I work with severe and persistent mental illness and have consistently found people in the throes of mania and psychosis more capable of change than the far-right community I grew up with. Perhaps it’s a question of my own lack of skills, but it seems a better use of my time to put my labor there than to waste more time and energy on people who have no desire to change.
posted by brook horse at 5:09 PM on September 9, 2023 [17 favorites]
The problem is that while the community surrounding someone with mental illness may be trying to help them change, the community surrounding people being radicalized is instead trying to prevent your influence. It's not enough to gently nudge someone whose peer group is actively trying to drown you out. You'd have to, I don't know, somehow remove them from all the people reinforcing the hate and bigotry.
"No dad, you're not allowed to hang out with those friends of yours anymore. They're a bad influence! And no more Fox News, either; don't you know television rots your brain?"
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:32 PM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
"No dad, you're not allowed to hang out with those friends of yours anymore. They're a bad influence! And no more Fox News, either; don't you know television rots your brain?"
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:32 PM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
See, as a structural problem, I think that's exactly why we can't expect people to be responsible for changing others. Cutting people off isn't done to try to influence them. It is an acknowledgement that you have no hope of influencing them, so all you can do is protect yourself by leaving.
I think it's telling that that's not the usual justification given for shunning. I.e. the standard reason is "We can't change others (specifically, conservatives) [abrupt end of reasoning, and/or some nonstructural reason]."
To use structurality as a justification about agency is a category error. Cutting people off, shunning is itself already inside the structural problem.
BTW if not clear, my relatives are mildly homophobic as I am LGBT so please make sure to speak for yourself when suggesting worldviews such as "acknowledgement that you have no hope of influencing them, so all you can do is protect yourself by leaving".
posted by polymodus at 11:44 PM on September 9, 2023
I think it's telling that that's not the usual justification given for shunning. I.e. the standard reason is "We can't change others (specifically, conservatives) [abrupt end of reasoning, and/or some nonstructural reason]."
To use structurality as a justification about agency is a category error. Cutting people off, shunning is itself already inside the structural problem.
BTW if not clear, my relatives are mildly homophobic as I am LGBT so please make sure to speak for yourself when suggesting worldviews such as "acknowledgement that you have no hope of influencing them, so all you can do is protect yourself by leaving".
posted by polymodus at 11:44 PM on September 9, 2023
So I read Moxon’s essay. And she’s a fine writer, and she has a lot of interesting things to say. But she doesn’t quite seem to understand the concept of civility, because she lumps it up with a bunch of other things.
I think he understands the concept of civility just fine. The "lumping in" that you identify doesn't come from Moxon, it comes from the professional mourners of crumbling civility he's taking aim at here.
Quite so.
Civility is predicated on mutual respect being an underlying social norm. Civility is a display of respect that invites the recipient to respond in kind; where mutual respect is a social norm, displaying civility acts to promote and reinforce it.
What civility can't do and never has done, because it is a fiction, is create genuine mutual respect where there was none to begin with. A breakdown in civility is symptomatic, not causal, of a breakdown in respect. And in this essay, Moxon is pointing his finger squarely at places where that breakdown in respect is most clearly evident.
In any case, what the professional mourners of crumbling civility are constantly complaining about these days is not actually an ongoing decline of civility, but a perceived ongoing rise in willingness to shun. If any of the usual suspects can knock out three sentences without whining about "cancel culture" it's a minor miracle.
Moxon's point is that if you're feeling a bit shunned, maybe you could re-examine your own attitudes instead of just taking it on faith that there's something wrong with the people shunning you.
posted by flabdablet at 11:46 PM on September 9, 2023 [24 favorites]
I think he understands the concept of civility just fine. The "lumping in" that you identify doesn't come from Moxon, it comes from the professional mourners of crumbling civility he's taking aim at here.
I’m thinking today about political views because there was a tweet going around the same time as Laura Ann Carleton was murdered for being a friend to queer people, that began thusly:Civility has everything to do with a set of coded and somewhat formalistic behaviors that are generally understood to convey a kind of politeness and mutual respect. Civility is a simulation of warmth, and it is properly understood as an acceptable kind of social fiction.Leftists can’t understand being friends with people who don’t share their political views, but for most people it's just the norm.The idea of the tweet being that a normal thing that normal people do is to not let political views harm the comity of existing relationships, or to affect starting new ones—and that a group called “leftists” apparently cannot comprehend this extremely normal posture.
A few days before the tweet, professional mourner of crumbling civility and amateur shoe filler David Brooks published a piece mourning—hold onto your hats—the crumbling of civility. Civility was apparently robust back in David Brooks’ childhood, back when Jim Crow laws were in place and enforced by a regime of vigilante/police terror known as lynching, and gayness was criminalized and prosecuted, and women couldn’t have their own bank accounts without their husband’s permissions, and so forth. These days, however, the channels that carry American abuse have apparently been dug closer to David Brooks’ house than they were in those more lovely days, so civility has nearly completely disappeared, at least according to David Brooks, now that the screams of marginalized people have finally grown loud enough for him to hear from his porch.
It’s a very common lament: that there is no civility left these days, as compared to earlier days, and the main reason appears to be that those on the “left” refuse to be friends with those on the “right,” shunning them simply because of their political views.
Quite so.
Civility is predicated on mutual respect being an underlying social norm. Civility is a display of respect that invites the recipient to respond in kind; where mutual respect is a social norm, displaying civility acts to promote and reinforce it.
What civility can't do and never has done, because it is a fiction, is create genuine mutual respect where there was none to begin with. A breakdown in civility is symptomatic, not causal, of a breakdown in respect. And in this essay, Moxon is pointing his finger squarely at places where that breakdown in respect is most clearly evident.
In any case, what the professional mourners of crumbling civility are constantly complaining about these days is not actually an ongoing decline of civility, but a perceived ongoing rise in willingness to shun. If any of the usual suspects can knock out three sentences without whining about "cancel culture" it's a minor miracle.
Moxon's point is that if you're feeling a bit shunned, maybe you could re-examine your own attitudes instead of just taking it on faith that there's something wrong with the people shunning you.
posted by flabdablet at 11:46 PM on September 9, 2023 [24 favorites]
I think it's telling that that's not the usual justification given for shunning. I.e. the standard reason is "We can't change others (specifically, conservatives) [abrupt end of reasoning, and/or some nonstructural reason]."
It's not the reason given because we live in a society where shunning is considered to be unacceptable behavior. And there are a lot of cases where it is abusive and harmful,and it needs to be called out. But there are also a lot of cases where individuals are shunned for good reason, and yet people are told that they are wrong for shunning abusers and bigots, that we're somehow obliged to give them a seat at the table for "the greater good".
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:39 AM on September 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's not the reason given because we live in a society where shunning is considered to be unacceptable behavior. And there are a lot of cases where it is abusive and harmful,and it needs to be called out. But there are also a lot of cases where individuals are shunned for good reason, and yet people are told that they are wrong for shunning abusers and bigots, that we're somehow obliged to give them a seat at the table for "the greater good".
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:39 AM on September 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
I really want to extra favorite comments from polymodus and Unicorn on the cob. Deciding who you are going to be friendly with, how often, and to what extent you can set boundaries is a horribly complex cost-benefit question and it exhausting how often people are sure you can just cut people completely out of your life without no effect at all, or if they say something they agreed not to say you should just pack up the whole family and leave right then and there in the middle of Auntie Annie's 85 birthday party.
And what of neighbors? Co-workers? People you see every time you go the grocery store? I would rather follow the Ashley Nicole Black model, than a lot of what out there.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 2:54 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
And what of neighbors? Co-workers? People you see every time you go the grocery store? I would rather follow the Ashley Nicole Black model, than a lot of what out there.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 2:54 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
You'd have to, I don't know, somehow remove them from all the people reinforcing the hate and bigotry.
And many of these people live in communities that, even if they don’t meet the strict definition, are distinctly cult-like. The entire 18 years of my life in the fundamentalist Christian community, I knew one atheist family—they lived across the street from us. I wasn’t banned from playing with them, but they were never, ever invited over for dinner. I didn’t meet any Catholics until I went to college, much less any other religions. All of the media was carefully censored to align with fundamentalist Christian ideals (I’m not talking “oh we couldn’t read Harry Potter,” I mean the Baby Sitter’s Club books were banned and if you can guess why you get a cookie), and our social lives were entirely set up around church or other Christian groups.
Frankly, the only reason I escaped the indoctrination was because my parents were also terribly neglectful, and I read a lot of smuggled library books in the 10+ hours a day they left me alone in the house. I just don’t know how it would be possible for people who are constantly having those ideals reinforced every day by their entire community and all of their media. My brothers, whose lives my parents were much more involved in, and who were never big readers, are still part of it. There’s just no way to take them out. It’s a terribly powerless feeling.
posted by brook horse at 3:55 PM on September 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
And many of these people live in communities that, even if they don’t meet the strict definition, are distinctly cult-like. The entire 18 years of my life in the fundamentalist Christian community, I knew one atheist family—they lived across the street from us. I wasn’t banned from playing with them, but they were never, ever invited over for dinner. I didn’t meet any Catholics until I went to college, much less any other religions. All of the media was carefully censored to align with fundamentalist Christian ideals (I’m not talking “oh we couldn’t read Harry Potter,” I mean the Baby Sitter’s Club books were banned and if you can guess why you get a cookie), and our social lives were entirely set up around church or other Christian groups.
Frankly, the only reason I escaped the indoctrination was because my parents were also terribly neglectful, and I read a lot of smuggled library books in the 10+ hours a day they left me alone in the house. I just don’t know how it would be possible for people who are constantly having those ideals reinforced every day by their entire community and all of their media. My brothers, whose lives my parents were much more involved in, and who were never big readers, are still part of it. There’s just no way to take them out. It’s a terribly powerless feeling.
posted by brook horse at 3:55 PM on September 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
I object to using the word shunning in this context. Shunning, at least the way I understand it, means casting someone out of a social group as a form of punishment. The implication is that, by casting them out, you are depriving them of a social network they either want or need.
And I just don't think that term is appropriate here. Chances are, they have a whole support network that disagrees with you. And when you cut contact with them, it's unlikely to surprise them — if they notice it at all. If anything, it will merely confirm whatever they already think of you, and they'll just go on their merry way. And if it has any effect at all on their political views, it will most likely be a hardening, not a softening.
There are many social functions of shunning, but generally the purpose is to influence someone's behavior. To deter them from doing a thing, or get them to stop doing a thing. Cutting contact with someone over of their political opinions does not constitute shunning, except maybe in the most narrow definition.
posted by panama joe at 7:59 AM on September 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
And I just don't think that term is appropriate here. Chances are, they have a whole support network that disagrees with you. And when you cut contact with them, it's unlikely to surprise them — if they notice it at all. If anything, it will merely confirm whatever they already think of you, and they'll just go on their merry way. And if it has any effect at all on their political views, it will most likely be a hardening, not a softening.
There are many social functions of shunning, but generally the purpose is to influence someone's behavior. To deter them from doing a thing, or get them to stop doing a thing. Cutting contact with someone over of their political opinions does not constitute shunning, except maybe in the most narrow definition.
posted by panama joe at 7:59 AM on September 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
I've never heard anyone call it shunning before this thread. Who came up with the idea to use that term?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:17 AM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:17 AM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Moxon. See my blockquote above.
But shunning, cancelling, deplatforming, refusing to engage with... potayto, potahto. Degree, not kind. Point is that simply refusing to waste time dignifying bad-faith horseshit with a polite and considered response is read as offensive by those who take it as their God-given right to have their horseshit taken seriously.
posted by flabdablet at 8:59 AM on September 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
But shunning, cancelling, deplatforming, refusing to engage with... potayto, potahto. Degree, not kind. Point is that simply refusing to waste time dignifying bad-faith horseshit with a polite and considered response is read as offensive by those who take it as their God-given right to have their horseshit taken seriously.
posted by flabdablet at 8:59 AM on September 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yes, I think focusing too much on the connotations of a particular term is missing the point. If "shunning" doesn't work for you, pick a different one from the pile. I personally like "Disengaging" because as a tabletop gamer, it has the connotation that the person you're disengaging from is trying to hit you with a sword.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:04 AM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:04 AM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Cutting someone out of your life will not influence them. It does the opposite — it removes your ability to influence them.
I have an American friend who used to vote straight-ticket Republican solely to protect his future inheritance. I'm Canadian, but I've basically been brainwashing him for twenty years, pointing out here and there the ways that Republicans are making his life worse and wrecking his childrens' future. I can't take all the credit, but it seems to be working! Influence is good!
But I also have a sister who's an unstable, judgmental, abusive religious fanatic. In certain right-wing circles she'd be considered a model citizen, but in my life she's dangerously toxic. I have feelings and struggles too, and I can't sacrifice my own safety to "influence" her. If it just comes down to the utilitarian value of influence I can't waste on her time that I could spend productively with someone else. So I cut her out.
See, people can make rational decisions about which relationships they cultivate and which ones they prune. If I don't have the strength to drag someone back from the edge I save myself.
posted by klanawa at 9:26 AM on September 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
I have an American friend who used to vote straight-ticket Republican solely to protect his future inheritance. I'm Canadian, but I've basically been brainwashing him for twenty years, pointing out here and there the ways that Republicans are making his life worse and wrecking his childrens' future. I can't take all the credit, but it seems to be working! Influence is good!
But I also have a sister who's an unstable, judgmental, abusive religious fanatic. In certain right-wing circles she'd be considered a model citizen, but in my life she's dangerously toxic. I have feelings and struggles too, and I can't sacrifice my own safety to "influence" her. If it just comes down to the utilitarian value of influence I can't waste on her time that I could spend productively with someone else. So I cut her out.
See, people can make rational decisions about which relationships they cultivate and which ones they prune. If I don't have the strength to drag someone back from the edge I save myself.
posted by klanawa at 9:26 AM on September 12, 2023 [7 favorites]
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This also explains why right-wingers are so desperate to get their hands on Hollywood and why they wanted Twitter so badly. It's not enough for them to make their own movies and have their own piss-filled social media pools. They need the whole culture, they demand to be loved. And no doubt they know in their heart of hearts that what they make on their own is a wretched, pitiful copy, because most creative people were long ago alienated from the conservative mindset. (I'm reminded of Sauron, but LOTR comparisons are tacky in this context, plus the orcs were a pretty good job compared to Pureflix and Truth Social.)
posted by Countess Elena at 6:23 AM on September 8, 2023 [89 favorites]