(no subject)
Jan. 22nd, 2023 08:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelavi was debating to do the snowflake challenge or not this year (did it last year), and probably will do a few out of order selectively. these were fun to read as they're little prompts built to get people to talk about topics they usually don't.
theme no3 is "scream into the void". probably will be the most irl-eugh of the bunch. this isn't fandom related (i forget whether this series is truly fandom related or not), but hoo boy:
one of the spiciest opinions I'll allow myself to share online is how few people engage in real deradicalization despite ahhhh, virtue signaling all the activist identity stuff everywhere.
to me, logically, if folks actually intend the goal of activism™, part of it is engaging with the opposition (i refuse to call any faction 'the enemy' considering this blatant extreme black/white othering mentality is a huge chunk of the problem, especially these days). engaging sincerely, gaining *dialogue*, and eventually helping others see a more moderate viewpoint that, ideally, has freedoms for everyone fairly.
thing is, it has to be real trust.
not the kind of fake coercive trust where it's the condescending 'i'll change you to be better :)' mentality that some women especially have towards lost causes of spouses who gotta have that change happen from within. people can smell that kind of condescension and coerciveness from miles away. these people who need to be reached out to ain't fools.
real dereadicalization is *hard*, man.
i'm talking like, ex-gang, ex-KKK or neonazi, ex-qanon kind of genuine, get your hands dirty and rubbing shoulders with types that might be uncomfortable for the twittersphere to even imagine talking to. and that's part of the problem too, isn't it? that extremists are so isolated that only a fraction of people are even willing to talk with them on a surface level, let alone having the kind of trust necessary for these deep conversations with all the vulnerability. vulnerability means give and take, it means fucking sitting down and listening honestly and openly with your shoulders down but without your brain or heart falling out. it's a learned balance.
(i also have a real problem with the idea of 'some ideas are so radioactive that even reading/talking about them is a death sentence.' to me, then that speaks to me of the weakness of your own ethical and moral fabric more than theirs, no? it's like building up an immune system - the more your value code recognizes extremist values and knows the general pitfalls, the better inoculation against them it is.)
real dereadicalization also is fucking messy. it doesn't happen all at once like the movies with a flip of a switch and a clean redemption. at *best* it's two steps forward, one step back. You're going to hear some shit that makes your heart and soul wince and shrivel up, and you're definitely going to hear some shit that would make the sayer the 'person of the internet' of the day in a bad way. but you're also going to see pretty quick that extremist ideologies are, so very often, an excuse for papering over giant emotional black holes of grief and misplaced anger that the real work can begin with. it is quite literally textbook that extremist groups misdirect and redirect the loneliness and rage of people who want to find purpose for malicious reasons, and then isolate them from potential friends or allies.
This isn't something just anyone can do. and it is. fucking. emotionally exhausting work, speaking from personal experience. there will be missteps. there will be compromises, you will hear things that will challenge your entire worldview. the kind of people that target others simply for associatin' with the wrong folk without understanding the whole story will absolutely have their guns out for you. and there are some people that you will also just not be able to get through, and you have to accept that as well. there i go for the grace of god kind of thing, you know?
but man, it is simultaneously, some of the most essential work i can imagine. it's one of the few actions in my life that - should I pass away unexpectedly, is one of the reasons why there's not really anything i'd regret.
ripples, man. be the ripples that echo on in other people's lives and uplift others. nothing else really matters.
theme no3 is "scream into the void". probably will be the most irl-eugh of the bunch. this isn't fandom related (i forget whether this series is truly fandom related or not), but hoo boy:
one of the spiciest opinions I'll allow myself to share online is how few people engage in real deradicalization despite ahhhh, virtue signaling all the activist identity stuff everywhere.
to me, logically, if folks actually intend the goal of activism™, part of it is engaging with the opposition (i refuse to call any faction 'the enemy' considering this blatant extreme black/white othering mentality is a huge chunk of the problem, especially these days). engaging sincerely, gaining *dialogue*, and eventually helping others see a more moderate viewpoint that, ideally, has freedoms for everyone fairly.
thing is, it has to be real trust.
not the kind of fake coercive trust where it's the condescending 'i'll change you to be better :)' mentality that some women especially have towards lost causes of spouses who gotta have that change happen from within. people can smell that kind of condescension and coerciveness from miles away. these people who need to be reached out to ain't fools.
real dereadicalization is *hard*, man.
i'm talking like, ex-gang, ex-KKK or neonazi, ex-qanon kind of genuine, get your hands dirty and rubbing shoulders with types that might be uncomfortable for the twittersphere to even imagine talking to. and that's part of the problem too, isn't it? that extremists are so isolated that only a fraction of people are even willing to talk with them on a surface level, let alone having the kind of trust necessary for these deep conversations with all the vulnerability. vulnerability means give and take, it means fucking sitting down and listening honestly and openly with your shoulders down but without your brain or heart falling out. it's a learned balance.
(i also have a real problem with the idea of 'some ideas are so radioactive that even reading/talking about them is a death sentence.' to me, then that speaks to me of the weakness of your own ethical and moral fabric more than theirs, no? it's like building up an immune system - the more your value code recognizes extremist values and knows the general pitfalls, the better inoculation against them it is.)
real dereadicalization also is fucking messy. it doesn't happen all at once like the movies with a flip of a switch and a clean redemption. at *best* it's two steps forward, one step back. You're going to hear some shit that makes your heart and soul wince and shrivel up, and you're definitely going to hear some shit that would make the sayer the 'person of the internet' of the day in a bad way. but you're also going to see pretty quick that extremist ideologies are, so very often, an excuse for papering over giant emotional black holes of grief and misplaced anger that the real work can begin with. it is quite literally textbook that extremist groups misdirect and redirect the loneliness and rage of people who want to find purpose for malicious reasons, and then isolate them from potential friends or allies.
This isn't something just anyone can do. and it is. fucking. emotionally exhausting work, speaking from personal experience. there will be missteps. there will be compromises, you will hear things that will challenge your entire worldview. the kind of people that target others simply for associatin' with the wrong folk without understanding the whole story will absolutely have their guns out for you. and there are some people that you will also just not be able to get through, and you have to accept that as well. there i go for the grace of god kind of thing, you know?
but man, it is simultaneously, some of the most essential work i can imagine. it's one of the few actions in my life that - should I pass away unexpectedly, is one of the reasons why there's not really anything i'd regret.
ripples, man. be the ripples that echo on in other people's lives and uplift others. nothing else really matters.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-25 04:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-27 10:39 pm (UTC)it honestly shows in how well dreamwidth is designed, that there's such a refined set of privacy controls so that there's a little more breathing room for nuanced conversations that can't be brigaded from other unmentionable forums and such. gives me hope that with twitter going down, more platforms with that awareness will take its place.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-25 07:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-27 12:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-01-28 02:46 am (UTC)One time in a large Discord server I lurk in I actually stumbled onto a conversion about a milder version of this (wrt run-of-the-mill ignorant people); one person was posted that they (POC) knew someone who was casually racist to them, but after awhile said racist person admitted they didn't know why they disliked them in the first place. But one person responded saying marginalized people shouldn't be obligated to hang around with people who hate them, on the off-chance they will change. I was tempted to respond to this convo, but I didn't really know how to approach it because really do get where both are coming from, it's a difficult subject. I remember when I was a rude teenage asshole, one of the things that got me out of it was having someone stick around and challenge me instead of dropping me entirely. I know deradicalization orgs exist (in UK, I think? Not sure about anywhere else) and I really do wish this was something more people had the fortitude to do.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-03-20 08:52 pm (UTC)Oh I remember that documentary, "White Right: Meeting the Enemy" - wasn't that by the super talented arabian director lady? She felt fearless there, meeting all of these nutters on their own turf, and straight up giving a few of them an existential crisis from what I heard, with a few of them softening their stance afterwards and even de-radicalizing entirely.
Those same orgs definitely exist over here across the pond, and I hope they're finding more and more ways to reach their target groups. As you said it's a messy as hell process, but it's so worth it.