We have a new model in which we no longer have parties of government of right and left but rather a civic democratic party and an authoritarian populist party. There’s a good chance they’ll be contesting elections for a while, even as the authoritarian populist party is trying in various ways to end them or radically change how free they are.
Not nature, no. It’s a nurture vs nature thing. I have gotten through to some on occasion, and to do so, you have to try to understand the nurture elements they are responding to, how they got that way. It’s not their genetics, or their race, or their gender, or their socioeconomic status. It can be any of those. It’s not nature though, it’s environmental, usually stemming from abuse without being provided a way to understand it imo.
Additionally, I would point to Indian Independence and the work of Mahatma Gandhi to put forward an example of a very rare case where pacifism defeated conservatism.
It’s rare though, and it is good to know how to defend yourself. Even just in general.
I respect the place of kindness your position comes from. I would like to offer counterpoints, if I may.
Ghandi was murdered by conservatives. Pacifism did not appear to cure conservatism at all in his case. Quite the opposite, in my opinion.
Also, there are decades of studies documenting biological differences between conservatives and normal people. But, to be fair, I am not assigning blame for their condition. I am simply warning of its dangerous resistance to treatment and the deadly consequences of not treating it.
Respectfully, this is dehumanizing language. I think we know where that mentality leads, as once we lose all respect for a certain group of people, we become more willing to use warfare against them. Which is exactly what they want, since liberals and conservatives both are capable of transforming into the other, and warfare doesn’t tend to make more of us.
Nobody is just a robot executing their programming or something.
Nearly every act of bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, antisemitism and racism ever committed in the U.S. has been committed by conservatives. I don’t think I am the one guilty of dehumanizing people. I think I am affording them considerably more respect than they deserve.
Is it different somehow when you dehumanize the dehumanizers? I personally will not employ those methods, though I do understand the anger.
As has been pointed out to me, I think we are finding ourselves in a paradox of intolerance, wherein to resist intolerance, one must be intolerant of the intolerant.
I’m well familiar with that argument. I simply believe its sometimes counterproductive. It can create more, not less, of them. Does intolerance have a long pattern of successful results? Their intolerance, even in places like Russia, has failed to stamp out the LGBT community there. Fear is simply not as strong a motivator as some would like to believe, people do not have to do what it takes to survive. They also experience things like pride, which conservatism even encourages to a large degree.
While strategic intolerance is important, we certainly shouldn’t throw intolerance away and do 100% tolerance, I think we need a broader set of methods. That’s all. It’s that whole diversity thing, utilizing a broad array of methods and styles in the hopes of achieving broader success.
Fair points.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_political_orientation