I understand your reverence for the achievement of Mr. Davis and your hope that this can be widened. Our disagreement on the feasibility of this is something I don't need to reiterate. I have great respect for your goals and your skills in trying to achieve them but I despair. You are a gifted writer and a subtle thinker and more than on…
I understand your reverence for the achievement of Mr. Davis and your hope that this can be widened. Our disagreement on the feasibility of this is something I don't need to reiterate. I have great respect for your goals and your skills in trying to achieve them but I despair.
You are a gifted writer and a subtle thinker and more than once I've been envious of the craft with which you make your points. The next word is "but."
But. Suppose you were to write a supremely persuasive essay that anyone on the other side of the culture wars would be unable to dismiss, would be compelled to consider your arguments, and would not be given any excuses to tune you out. What would happen?
The moment he discerned that you weren't of his tribe, he would stop reading, give a little shake of his head, and forget everything he had just read. You would not reach anyone. The only way to reach someone on the other side is one at a time, a long and patient effort, with the establishment of respect and trust, and even then the chance of progress is very slim. Yes, it can be done and if you devote the rest of your life to it you might reach a half dozen people.
I think that given your talents at this kind of persuasion that you should work in more fertile ground, certainly not Twitter where hate speech is not only tolerated but expected. Where Musk has his remaining staff actively promote the ugly side of the culture wars. Medium was once such a place but is no longer I don't know how you've remained on there talking about gender ideology but it only takes one squeal of "transphobia" to get banned. There are probably better forums but they don't have the readership.
Even then, don't set your hopes too high.
I abhor the language of violence and war but I don't see any potential for reconciliation. The divisions are widening and both sides are overrepresented by their worst.
And, given that we do have a war, one of outlooks more than of weapons but with no shortage of weapons either, it is imperative that we win, that as one person put it, conservatives are crushed like bugs.
Because if they prevail they will kill you for being black, they will kill me for being gay, and they will kill the natural kingdom and in less than a century our world will be the eighth dead planet in the solar system.
And I am willing to compromise a lot to prevent that.
"The moment he discerned that you weren't of his tribe, he would stop reading, give a little shake of his head, and forget everything he had just read. You would not reach anyone."
No, this isn't true....well, let me be clear and say that of course, some people do exactly as you say. But some don't. Quite regularly I'm told that I've given somebody food for thought. Or that they've seen an issue on a way they hadn't seen it before. I suspect that many more have similar thoughts but don't write a comment telling me so.
And, of course, I'm just one person. There are lots of other people out there doing the same thing in various ways. And lots of others who need to see people speaking up before they find the courage to do the same. Moving the Overton window is a slow, painstaking process. Especially if you're trying to move it to a sensible middle ground instead of just tossing it between extremes. And it takes lots of people, chipping away at the insanity.
All that said, yes, I understand your point. Twitter certainly isn't going to become my primary medium for conversation or persuasion. As I said, I have lots of reasons for increasing my Twitter usage. And given Musk's antics, who knows if Twitter will even be around in a year or two!
"And lots of others who need to see people speaking up before they find the courage to do the same. Moving the Overton window is a slow, painstaking process. Especially if you're trying to move it to a sensible middle ground instead of just tossing it between extremes."
On some further thought I am going to disagree with you here. The big social changes start incremental and then there is a sudden shift in state. This is the nature of chaos theory. Which you can read about on your own time. But the essence is that there are abrupt transitions.
The most recent example that comes to mind is same sex marriage. The numbers shifted around a little, got a little better here and a little worse there, and then suddenly overnight to oppose SSM suddenly seemed absurd. Opposition remained but the majority was ready to see the opposition as nothing but bigotry. Opposition remains and the Catholic nutjobs on the SCOTUS will try to reverse it while Roberts remains tranquilized into detachment. The point is that there was an unexpected and largely unpredictable shift from "weirdos support SSM" to "weirdos oppose SSM."
But this was after a long and fairly steady movement in the right direction. In our contemporary culture wars, do we have that?
No. Things are moving in the wrong direction. Ideas like Christian nationalism that would have gotten an FBI infiltration a generation ago are becoming mainstream. They have the quiet support of many in law enforcement and the military. The flip that seems to be approaching is actual fascism, not the overused hyperbole but the real thing.
There is talk in some state governments of banning not just same-sex but *interracial* marriage. We're going in the wrong direction.
"Quite regularly I'm told that I've given somebody food for thought. Or that they've seen an issue on a way they hadn't seen it before. "
I've gotten the same thing. But I can count the number of minds I've actually changed in 25 years on the fingers of one hand. And all of them were intellectually honest and reflective people. Attributes that define very few indeed.
I hate to sound like I am counseling futility but the only thing that seems to reliably unite opposing sides is a threat from outside both. Remember in the weeks after 9/11 we seemed to drop our tribalism for a while? Well, it was a lot less intense then than now. And that didn't last long.
And any threat powerful enough to overcome the MAGA/Woke division is not likely to be survivable.
"As I said, I have lots of reasons for increasing my Twitter usage."
Maybe you like a challenge, but honestly this is just over the top for me. You know it's a cloaca and you know that the site is deliberately intended for unfinished thoughts.
I could mention a video I saw that this reminds me of but it would groß everyone out.
I understand your reverence for the achievement of Mr. Davis and your hope that this can be widened. Our disagreement on the feasibility of this is something I don't need to reiterate. I have great respect for your goals and your skills in trying to achieve them but I despair.
You are a gifted writer and a subtle thinker and more than once I've been envious of the craft with which you make your points. The next word is "but."
But. Suppose you were to write a supremely persuasive essay that anyone on the other side of the culture wars would be unable to dismiss, would be compelled to consider your arguments, and would not be given any excuses to tune you out. What would happen?
The moment he discerned that you weren't of his tribe, he would stop reading, give a little shake of his head, and forget everything he had just read. You would not reach anyone. The only way to reach someone on the other side is one at a time, a long and patient effort, with the establishment of respect and trust, and even then the chance of progress is very slim. Yes, it can be done and if you devote the rest of your life to it you might reach a half dozen people.
I think that given your talents at this kind of persuasion that you should work in more fertile ground, certainly not Twitter where hate speech is not only tolerated but expected. Where Musk has his remaining staff actively promote the ugly side of the culture wars. Medium was once such a place but is no longer I don't know how you've remained on there talking about gender ideology but it only takes one squeal of "transphobia" to get banned. There are probably better forums but they don't have the readership.
Even then, don't set your hopes too high.
I abhor the language of violence and war but I don't see any potential for reconciliation. The divisions are widening and both sides are overrepresented by their worst.
And, given that we do have a war, one of outlooks more than of weapons but with no shortage of weapons either, it is imperative that we win, that as one person put it, conservatives are crushed like bugs.
Because if they prevail they will kill you for being black, they will kill me for being gay, and they will kill the natural kingdom and in less than a century our world will be the eighth dead planet in the solar system.
And I am willing to compromise a lot to prevent that.
And there you have it.
"The moment he discerned that you weren't of his tribe, he would stop reading, give a little shake of his head, and forget everything he had just read. You would not reach anyone."
No, this isn't true....well, let me be clear and say that of course, some people do exactly as you say. But some don't. Quite regularly I'm told that I've given somebody food for thought. Or that they've seen an issue on a way they hadn't seen it before. I suspect that many more have similar thoughts but don't write a comment telling me so.
And, of course, I'm just one person. There are lots of other people out there doing the same thing in various ways. And lots of others who need to see people speaking up before they find the courage to do the same. Moving the Overton window is a slow, painstaking process. Especially if you're trying to move it to a sensible middle ground instead of just tossing it between extremes. And it takes lots of people, chipping away at the insanity.
All that said, yes, I understand your point. Twitter certainly isn't going to become my primary medium for conversation or persuasion. As I said, I have lots of reasons for increasing my Twitter usage. And given Musk's antics, who knows if Twitter will even be around in a year or two!
"And lots of others who need to see people speaking up before they find the courage to do the same. Moving the Overton window is a slow, painstaking process. Especially if you're trying to move it to a sensible middle ground instead of just tossing it between extremes."
On some further thought I am going to disagree with you here. The big social changes start incremental and then there is a sudden shift in state. This is the nature of chaos theory. Which you can read about on your own time. But the essence is that there are abrupt transitions.
The most recent example that comes to mind is same sex marriage. The numbers shifted around a little, got a little better here and a little worse there, and then suddenly overnight to oppose SSM suddenly seemed absurd. Opposition remained but the majority was ready to see the opposition as nothing but bigotry. Opposition remains and the Catholic nutjobs on the SCOTUS will try to reverse it while Roberts remains tranquilized into detachment. The point is that there was an unexpected and largely unpredictable shift from "weirdos support SSM" to "weirdos oppose SSM."
But this was after a long and fairly steady movement in the right direction. In our contemporary culture wars, do we have that?
No. Things are moving in the wrong direction. Ideas like Christian nationalism that would have gotten an FBI infiltration a generation ago are becoming mainstream. They have the quiet support of many in law enforcement and the military. The flip that seems to be approaching is actual fascism, not the overused hyperbole but the real thing.
There is talk in some state governments of banning not just same-sex but *interracial* marriage. We're going in the wrong direction.
"𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦-𝘴𝘦𝘹 𝘣𝘶𝘵 *𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭* 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘨𝘦."
Do I have vain hope that such talk will bring about a sudden positive shift in resistance to such ideas?
It will be like everything else.
Most people will recoil in horror. Some people will act as if any other position is weakness and capitulation to "PC."
"Quite regularly I'm told that I've given somebody food for thought. Or that they've seen an issue on a way they hadn't seen it before. "
I've gotten the same thing. But I can count the number of minds I've actually changed in 25 years on the fingers of one hand. And all of them were intellectually honest and reflective people. Attributes that define very few indeed.
I hate to sound like I am counseling futility but the only thing that seems to reliably unite opposing sides is a threat from outside both. Remember in the weeks after 9/11 we seemed to drop our tribalism for a while? Well, it was a lot less intense then than now. And that didn't last long.
And any threat powerful enough to overcome the MAGA/Woke division is not likely to be survivable.
"As I said, I have lots of reasons for increasing my Twitter usage."
Maybe you like a challenge, but honestly this is just over the top for me. You know it's a cloaca and you know that the site is deliberately intended for unfinished thoughts.
I could mention a video I saw that this reminds me of but it would groß everyone out.