The problem in my experience has been that the potential for writing someone off is a two way street.
I’ve had family and friends who I’ve spent legitimately dozens of hours with in what I thought were really good chats, deep conversations, where I wouldn’t be afraid to get into the weeds and lay things out from a class consciousness or even just an “everyone deserves to live/have access to healthcare/etc” framing, and realize far too late into my interactions that very little to none of what I’ve been saying has stuck. That people enjoy talking at me but not with me. My general approach to everything in life is that I’m open to being wrong on any given subject, but that a given refutation has to be proportional to my understanding; it has to actually poke a hole in the underlying reasoning.
There’s a certain pain that comes from discussing a matter such as the death penalty issue with someone, going point by point and getting them on board over the course of an hour long discussion, and then to get the first point thrown in your face again like it’s a gotcha that wasn’t touched on earlier. I came to realize in this specific example that the person I was talking to, and thought I was engaging with, just held different axiomatic beliefs than I do, and regardless of how well I was able to get my point across and have it resonate that it would inevitably bounce off of a core belief they considered integral to their identity.
And so where do I go from there? Try to discuss first principles, and bring up the most maligned academic subject in the United States: philosophy? I honestly think it’s a good place to start but it has to cut through so much bullshit and cultural baggage that has been assigned to it. To me, at its core, philosophy as a topic is fundamentally about the “critical thinking” so many seem to mourn the loss of in our education, without understanding why or what that actually means. The process of knowing what “an argument” is and what makes it valid—what makes it sound—is I think a really important part of engaging in a back and forth between others. To know the animatic beliefs one holds, and to know whether or not two beliefs contradict those axioms to push one towards modifying or outright abandoning one that doesn’t fit to come away with more consistent views in the process.
At this stage my comments here are also probably on the level of “old lady yells at clouds” just the same, but yeah I think one shouldn’t write people off out of hand, but one should also know where their time is best spent. Past a point of being patient and understanding with someone close who refuses to understand, I have to realize if my goal is to further class consciousness that I need to have those conversations with people who will be more receptive. My interactions with a person are at best a fraction of their day; they have their own lives they live, their own groups of people they interact with, and their own media they consume. Unless you can essentially shatter someone’s worldview then they will (largely) patch over holes in it with whatever is convenient. Given how hard the various systems push for reactionary sentiment in the general populace, that’s largely going to be an uphill battle. It’s still worth doing, mind you, but part of the tactics here include the fact that it’s unfortunately impossible to get everyone on board. I’m not that big of a fan of the term lumpenprole myself but the fact stands that our time is ultimately a finite resource.
If someone finds me fun to talk to because of my wacky and queer (but ultimately, to their mind and because of who I am, fundamentally unserious) ideas, then I’m wasting my time.
It can absolutely feel pointless in the moment, and you’re right that it may not be worth further engaging with that person, but these arguments and discussions may eventually stick with someone such that when something finally does shake them free of that axiomatic belief, they’ll remember what you said before. I know I’ve experienced that in my own life.
It’s hard to know how to effectively reach “the masses” (as opposed to individuals). There’s a real need to teach people how to think critically and how to self-reflect, but I don’t know how to instill a desire for that in people who aren’t already inclined in that direction.
Right I mean the whole deal with “planting seeds” is that you never know when or even if they will grow. You do your best and hope your efforts are net positive.
Okay so I am really struggling to see what you are describing as writing people of as “going both ways” but I’m the kind of person who needs the obvious typed out really plainly and clearly…
It sucks that you put a lot of energy into people who aren’t engaging with you on your level. I’ve been there, on both sides. The double empathy problem helped me understand this dynamic better. Is that type of situation what you mean?
If so, that’s not really what I meant by writing people off. I don’t just mean not engaging with them, but also thinking of them as worthless or an impediment to your goals, or even as an enemy.
I don’t think anyone should “waste time” on people who aren’t interested in listening. I think that those who have interest and capacity to engage with folks should understand that a person may be more open to a different approach. They may not want to be directly discussing theories or issues. For example, I’m a really big fan of gardening other practical skills. Sharing knowledge or taking a class on a topic like that is a good way to get to know people and demonstrate the power of community and of workers.
The last thing I want to suggest is that people need to spare libs feelings and not say mean things about them on the internet. That feels like being told it gives veganism a bad name to be too “rigid” (🤮). IRL it will take a variety of strategies to participate in raising class consciousness. Just sharing my thoughts on something I’ve only really seen online tbh but I am sure exists in some places!
I mostly mean two way street in the sense that there are also scenarios where you’ve been written off by someone else, and once that happens there’s very little you can do about it.
I typically don’t discuss theory with other people directly, but usually more practical matters like walkable curious cities/neighborhood, identifying causes of bad behavior instead of policing symptoms (e.g. ppl littering in a space with no trash cans available), explaining why some folks including myself don’t feel safe around police, how it’s not as simple as “hard work pays off”, and similar subjects to my somewhat privileged direct and extended family members. There was a lot of discussion during COVID where I was trying to explain to people that even if masks aren’t 100% effective that you should wear them anyways (that even if it were only 10% effective that it makes a big difference on a population scale), that we genuinely could have made the disease into a non-issue if we took it seriously and viewed stuff like lockdowns and social distancing as a civic duty instead of some weird deep state control conspiracy theory thing. I’m also prone to being a little one-note on pointing out profit movies behind a ton of terrible things that keep happening all over the place.
On another point though, there are legitimately people so radicalized in the opposite direction that they’d kill people like me if they had an excuse and the opportunity to. Others functionally are obstacles because of the job they hold or capitalist propaganda they never questioned. What do I call such people? Even “enemy” is too strong a term for most, the roles such people serve are adversarial nonetheless.
On another point though, there are legitimately people so radicalized in the opposite direction that they’d kill people like me if they had an excuse and the opportunity to. Others functionally are obstacles because of the job they hold or capitalist propaganda they never questioned. What do I call such people? Even “enemy” is too strong a term for most, the roles such people serve are adversarial nonetheless.
I was very specifically talking about people dismissing those who have not read theory on that basis alone, not about people who have demonstrated that they are unsafe.
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The problem in my experience has been that the potential for writing someone off is a two way street.
I’ve had family and friends who I’ve spent legitimately dozens of hours with in what I thought were really good chats, deep conversations, where I wouldn’t be afraid to get into the weeds and lay things out from a class consciousness or even just an “everyone deserves to live/have access to healthcare/etc” framing, and realize far too late into my interactions that very little to none of what I’ve been saying has stuck. That people enjoy talking at me but not with me. My general approach to everything in life is that I’m open to being wrong on any given subject, but that a given refutation has to be proportional to my understanding; it has to actually poke a hole in the underlying reasoning.
There’s a certain pain that comes from discussing a matter such as the death penalty issue with someone, going point by point and getting them on board over the course of an hour long discussion, and then to get the first point thrown in your face again like it’s a gotcha that wasn’t touched on earlier. I came to realize in this specific example that the person I was talking to, and thought I was engaging with, just held different axiomatic beliefs than I do, and regardless of how well I was able to get my point across and have it resonate that it would inevitably bounce off of a core belief they considered integral to their identity.
And so where do I go from there? Try to discuss first principles, and bring up the most maligned academic subject in the United States: philosophy? I honestly think it’s a good place to start but it has to cut through so much bullshit and cultural baggage that has been assigned to it. To me, at its core, philosophy as a topic is fundamentally about the “critical thinking” so many seem to mourn the loss of in our education, without understanding why or what that actually means. The process of knowing what “an argument” is and what makes it valid—what makes it sound—is I think a really important part of engaging in a back and forth between others. To know the animatic beliefs one holds, and to know whether or not two beliefs contradict those axioms to push one towards modifying or outright abandoning one that doesn’t fit to come away with more consistent views in the process.
At this stage my comments here are also probably on the level of “old lady yells at clouds” just the same, but yeah I think one shouldn’t write people off out of hand, but one should also know where their time is best spent. Past a point of being patient and understanding with someone close who refuses to understand, I have to realize if my goal is to further class consciousness that I need to have those conversations with people who will be more receptive. My interactions with a person are at best a fraction of their day; they have their own lives they live, their own groups of people they interact with, and their own media they consume. Unless you can essentially shatter someone’s worldview then they will (largely) patch over holes in it with whatever is convenient. Given how hard the various systems push for reactionary sentiment in the general populace, that’s largely going to be an uphill battle. It’s still worth doing, mind you, but part of the tactics here include the fact that it’s unfortunately impossible to get everyone on board. I’m not that big of a fan of the term lumpenprole myself but the fact stands that our time is ultimately a finite resource.
If someone finds me fun to talk to because of my wacky and queer (but ultimately, to their mind and because of who I am, fundamentally unserious) ideas, then I’m wasting my time.
It can absolutely feel pointless in the moment, and you’re right that it may not be worth further engaging with that person, but these arguments and discussions may eventually stick with someone such that when something finally does shake them free of that axiomatic belief, they’ll remember what you said before. I know I’ve experienced that in my own life.
It’s hard to know how to effectively reach “the masses” (as opposed to individuals). There’s a real need to teach people how to think critically and how to self-reflect, but I don’t know how to instill a desire for that in people who aren’t already inclined in that direction.
Right I mean the whole deal with “planting seeds” is that you never know when or even if they will grow. You do your best and hope your efforts are net positive.
Okay so I am really struggling to see what you are describing as writing people of as “going both ways” but I’m the kind of person who needs the obvious typed out really plainly and clearly…
It sucks that you put a lot of energy into people who aren’t engaging with you on your level. I’ve been there, on both sides. The double empathy problem helped me understand this dynamic better. Is that type of situation what you mean?
If so, that’s not really what I meant by writing people off. I don’t just mean not engaging with them, but also thinking of them as worthless or an impediment to your goals, or even as an enemy.
I don’t think anyone should “waste time” on people who aren’t interested in listening. I think that those who have interest and capacity to engage with folks should understand that a person may be more open to a different approach. They may not want to be directly discussing theories or issues. For example, I’m a really big fan of gardening other practical skills. Sharing knowledge or taking a class on a topic like that is a good way to get to know people and demonstrate the power of community and of workers.
The last thing I want to suggest is that people need to spare libs feelings and not say mean things about them on the internet. That feels like being told it gives veganism a bad name to be too “rigid” (🤮). IRL it will take a variety of strategies to participate in raising class consciousness. Just sharing my thoughts on something I’ve only really seen online tbh but I am sure exists in some places!
I mostly mean two way street in the sense that there are also scenarios where you’ve been written off by someone else, and once that happens there’s very little you can do about it.
I typically don’t discuss theory with other people directly, but usually more practical matters like walkable curious cities/neighborhood, identifying causes of bad behavior instead of policing symptoms (e.g. ppl littering in a space with no trash cans available), explaining why some folks including myself don’t feel safe around police, how it’s not as simple as “hard work pays off”, and similar subjects to my somewhat privileged direct and extended family members. There was a lot of discussion during COVID where I was trying to explain to people that even if masks aren’t 100% effective that you should wear them anyways (that even if it were only 10% effective that it makes a big difference on a population scale), that we genuinely could have made the disease into a non-issue if we took it seriously and viewed stuff like lockdowns and social distancing as a civic duty instead of some weird deep state control conspiracy theory thing. I’m also prone to being a little one-note on pointing out profit movies behind a ton of terrible things that keep happening all over the place.
On another point though, there are legitimately people so radicalized in the opposite direction that they’d kill people like me if they had an excuse and the opportunity to. Others functionally are obstacles because of the job they hold or capitalist propaganda they never questioned. What do I call such people? Even “enemy” is too strong a term for most, the roles such people serve are adversarial nonetheless.
I was very specifically talking about people dismissing those who have not read theory on that basis alone, not about people who have demonstrated that they are unsafe.