Convictions and Conversations

[Goldengirl]

This topic is spawned by two contradictory discussions that I feel needs to be addressed.

 

As I've mentioned at other times, I'm a member of my college debate team. In a mock debate on campaign finance reform, we repeated the oft-held belief that the party core (which we estimated as about 40% Republicans, 40% Democrats) are set and that elections are decided by the remaining people in the center, who don't hold their political convictions as high. This argument seemed rote to me, just because it seems like common knowledge that politicians can't shake the basically held beliefs of voters. This also gets to the belief that talking about politics and such on the Internet doesn't actually change anyone's points of view, that everyone is just arguing beyond each other like two ships passing in the night.

 

A message I got the other day shook this idea a little bit. It's from an old friend who graduated last year and who was my debate partner for a while. He personally thanked me for educating him about gender and race issues and helping him become critical of his privileged position in society. He joked that even he, as a white, straight male, was shocked by the amount of privilege his classmates are showing in law school. It was really heartwarming for me to see that I had made a difference, even if it was just at the individual level.

 

The tension between these two ideas is fundamental. At the one hand, there's a belief that talk is cheap and that it can only do so much when politics is an issue. On the other, I have a personal example of someone changing fundamental beliefs through the discussions (and debates) that we had. I know that neither is true absolutely. People can change their minds, obviously, but it isn't often that they change their basic tenets of belief. I'm not interested in saying that either is true, nor even of nuancing all the specific situations in which one trumps the other. It's tautological to say that someone is more likely to carefully consider a friend's opinions than a pundit's.

 

Rather, I'm interested in a different approach. How effective is it to try to make social/political/cultural changes from the bottom-up? Is talking sincerely and frankly with people about big topics like race, gender, economics, etc. an effective means of advocacy? Is micropolitical agency any good?

 

I encourage vignettes and experiences more than broad sweeping statements of logic, though I welcome both. I'm more interested in seeing how this has played out in the real world than in theory. That said, I am certainly posing a theoretical question, and theory is needed to organize and contextualize examples into a narrative.

[Nephil Thief]

Personal experiences, hmm.

 

I took a Soc/WS class in my (roughly) third year of college. It grabbed my attention to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, and led to me studying some of the ideas on my own; particularly radical feminist concepts, e.g. that hetero relationships in a patriarchal society pose inherent ethical problems.

 

I've always been a... progressive, I guess? A humanist, sort of? And I've always been kind of disgusted by the way men tend to treat women. (Very, very long story there.) But I didn't realize quite how far it extended, I took certain things for granted; and moreover, I didn't realize how much I was part of it, and how utterly hypocritical and damaging I was.

 

I basically got progressively more depressed until, around the start of the next semester, I became pretty much suicidal and got myself admitted to a mental institution. I wound up getting diagnosed (incorrectly) with a mood disorder, and jettisoned from the place one week later. I spent the next few years largely nonfunctional, doing volunteer work and such in my better moods. Eventually I got a temporary job, then a full-time one, which I'm still (thank whatever) holding on to.

 

These days, I don't know where I am. I'll admit some anger towards the philosophical concepts that did me in, so to speak, but that's useless; once you've seen truth, you can't unsee it. It's not the fault of those advocating those ideas, it's my fault for having been unethical (and, sometimes, still being unethical). I sometimes entertain a glimmer of hope that those ideas are wrong, but I know I'm fooling myself.

 

I'm still basically a wreck, but I think I'm a better person for it. Even if the only people who seem to understand that are a very small minority of personalities I correspond with online. Most people either think I'm being "irrational," displaying symptoms of mental illness, brainwashed, being overly hard on myself, being a drama llama, showing off a martyr complex, etc.

 

... Also people keep telling me not to feel guilty, in spite of everything, because that won't help anyone. Well, yeah, but "don't feel guilty" in the face of being a serial exploiter of other human beings is a pretty tall order, IMO. There are still days when I still feel like the planet would be a better place without me. Not so often now, but yeah.

 

So there is my maybe-too-personal story. Hope it's useful. It would be nice if people could be educated about this stuff without being injured in the process like I was.

[Level 1 Hermit]

I think all forms of advocacy should be used even if it's not effective in changing the person(s) mind(s). At least you got the conversation going and let your ideas spread. Maybe you touch some one who wasn't your intended target. Regardless, as long as you tried and as long as they listen. That's beautiful.

 

... There are still days when I still feel like the planet would be a better place without me. ...

I feel the same. Every day I feel like I can't measure up to every one out there in the world. I'm just a waste of mass and can't face anyone with confidence until I can get myself settled down with a stable income, enough to support me, my family, and my parents.

[Edgwyn]

I'm afraid that I am going to make some of those broad statements. Vignettes tend of focus on individuals, and individuals do change their minds. The percentages that you gave have nothing to do with individuals, they are statistics (and like most statistics, probably more made up than anything). For any group (political party, religious denomination, fan group, etc) there will always be a certain core that will not change their mind no matter what. Some examples are: Marion Berry keeps getting re-elected despite his felony conviction and association with corruption; people (including me) believe in God despite what others consider overwhelming evidence to the contrary; some twi-hards still think Kristen Stewart is a good actor. While Marion Berry is no longer Mayor of DC (he is on the city council instead), while the number of Christians in this country has dropped and while the number of twi-hards has dropped, groups of people hold these beliefs despite individuals making decisions not to support them.

 

Talking to individuals about race/gender/economics is definitely an effective (but slow) way of making change. Arguably it is the only real way to actually institutionalize change. President Truman's executive order desegregating the military was effective in helping push the ensuing civil rights movement, not because it was a top down directed change from the Commander in Chief, but because if forced interaction between racial/ethnic groups at the individual level that in a way that we cannot imagine today did not exist. The actual executive order changed few if any peoples minds about racial superiority. It was the interaction on an individual basis that changed the most minds.

 

For gender, I am not sure that there is going to be an actual big moment to turn to the way that there is with race(reconstruction, the executive order, the civil rights movement). Men have always been around competent women, and many of the arguments about protected class can do as much harm as good (Title IX is an example of a well intentioned but fundamentally wrong law). I suppose that Disco, the repeal of don't ask/don't tell and the approval of "gay marriage" can be seen as milestones for gender/sexuality, however, especially after the Disco era, there was far more interaction between "gay" and "straight" than there ever had been with "black" and "white". I definitely think that more minds have been changed about various gender identity/sexual orientation issues when a person that they are friends with "comes out of the closet" identifies themselves in a new way than with all of the political time and energy devoted to it. In my opinion, the repeal of Congresses "Don't ask, Don't Tell" policy for the military was a non-event due to the fact that a high percentage of the military knew "gay" people in high school and in the military. Professionalism kept it from being an issue as well, but I think that only a minority needed to rely on their professionalism. Again, that re-enforced to me the one on one versus the broad political action.

 

Finally economics. The "average" american tends to become less idealistic as they grow older, which tends to result in more support for the conservative economic spectrum than the liberal economic spectrum. That is one area where I believe that the opinion change does not come through one on one interaction as much as the political/government process. The one on one interaction with someone on welfare ends of competing against the one on one interaction with the tax bill.

[Callie]

Hmm… I grew up in a fundamentalist household. My father thought that the southern baptist church we went to was far too liberal and openly defended the Westboro Baptist Church. He was pretty insistent on turning me into a petty hate machine. His indoctrination rants constituted most of the attention I received as a child, so I took his virulent ideas to heart. If I responded with even a slightly questioning look, he would continue to loudly belabor the point for an hour until I obsequiously caved into his view. I've always had extreme social anxiety, so I never regurgitated anything vocally in real life. The only place I expressed any such bigotry was on these very forums (note that the mods were pretty lax about everything back then, so I never got in trouble). Even then I felt guilty, because deep down I knew that nothing I said was loving or productive. I am still wrought with remorse concerning the actions of my younger self.

 

My father espoused the death penalty by stoning for sodomy, adultery, female preachers, and other bogus offenses against his perception of Christianity. My mother, although fundamentalist, was never that fundamentalist. Yet, she took to heart the patriarchy inherent to fundamentalism. My father yelled at her nearly every night. They would argue about the most absurd things, such as the wattage on a light bulb or usage of a towel. When my mother would not give in to my father's demands, he would yell about how much he hated the devil inside her and how evil she was. I sometimes overheard my father angrily citing scripture so he could pressure my mother into sex, but she actually refused in such instances. My mother afforded him power, but she also made three times as much money as him (except for the period in which she was unemployed -- she was fired for using untested methods on a patient). I don't know the details, but my parents divorced when I was sixteen (They never told me: I found out on Facebook). When my parents were married, my mother would isolate because of my father; now she expresses guilt over the divorce.

 

When I hit pubescence, I started to have inklings of rational thought. This combined with indoctrination caused a great deal of cognitive dissonance. I only had a few friends, but sometimes I'd ditch them to go ponder in the thatched tumbleweed igloo I built behind the school. I eventually told my father off in college, after an I argument I had with him. He insisted that marital rape is not possible, and that I should get a vasectomy so that I "don't make any mistakes with evil American women." I'm atheist and support either nordic-style welfare capitalism or light socialism, so he of course tells my siblings how evil I am. We're estranged and I have no desire to talk to him.

 

I acquired depression in college. I never sought help, because I had taught myself to isolate whenever my parents were arguing. The depression spiraled downward until last semester when I was submitted to a mental hospital. I had locked myself in my room with no light, no food, no hygiene, and a series of suicidal scribbles on post-it notes. I had a noose ready, but I was catatonic when they found me. I'm on antidepressants now and receive counseling; they help a lot, but I'm still often in a depressed state or consumed by existentialist angst. I personally understand Tevildo's plight, because I often feel guilty simply because I'm a cis-gendered, heterosexual, anglo-saxon, middle class male.

 

So I know a thing or two about convictions.

 

As for conversations: I try to change people's viewpoints if I think they act out of prejudice. I am rarely shaken by bigotry, because most bigots are rational in comparison to my father. I often won't get into an argument; I might resort to a satirical remark. I think humor is a great way to highlight prejudices and contradictions.

[Alex]

I personally understand Tevildo's plight, because I often feel guilty simply because I'm a cis-gendered, heterosexual, anglo-saxon, middle class male.

Self-hate is hate, too. The small oligarchal elite is delighted that you guys want to be fake rebels against large and diverse groups of people that have a vague privilege ascribed to them.

[Nephil Thief]

Uhh yeah, I think it's important to step in here and say that the existence of an oligarchy doesn't negate other forms of social privilege.

 

Edit: also not sure where you get the idea about "large and diverse groups." I'm not in the habit of deliberately prejudging people, regardless of privilege.

 

Whatever, I'd better shut up before this veers off topic.