Yeah, I was talking about in real life, too - I’m a union rep and I’ve been very active in my local area’s activist groups for almost all my adult life, so I know full well that organizing IRL is absolutely everything and the Internet is just a way to communicate as best we can.
What you described is more like community self-defense, which is absolutely vital - and I applaud you for doing it - but I’m sure you recognize that the neo-nazis you ran out of town didn’t change their ways, they just went somewhere else, or went underground.
What I’m really talking about is how you change people, rather than just protecting ourselves from them. Please don’t misunderstand me here: for some people (maybe even many people, these days, sadly) there is a point where words can do no more good and force is necessary to mitigate the harm they cause - I think we agree on that. However, where we may disagree (or maybe we’ve just had a communications breakdown) is that the use of force to protect communities from harmful people/behavior shouldn’t include bullying them, because it’s just counter-productive - it doesn’t help you to protect yourself and it does nothing to change the people you use it against. These people likely already see us as enemies simply because we’re acting in opposition to their world view, and any attempts to shame them will only validate the “us-vs-them” narratives common in communities like these.
This isn’t an abstract conversation, for me. My dad was really abusive and taught me a lot of really terrible lessons, and I basically was a neo-nazi when I was a teen. It has taken me a long time to get to where I am. I would never have been able to break free from the hateful ideology I was brainwashed into believing if it wasn’t for people willing to extend compassion towards me, and demonstrate that not everyone sees the world the way my dad taught me everyone sees it.
People treating me badly, bullying me, shaming me, ostracizing me, all of that just confirmed everything my dad taught me, that there are people who hate me for who I am, and that those people see me as subhuman - and that I should see them as subhuman, too.
I’m not saying that you need to be nice to neo-nazis, far from it - beat them up, push them out of your town, do what you need to do to look after yourself, the people you care about, and your community. But we need to recognize that doing that is only dealing with symptoms of a disease rather than dealing with the actual cause. The only way to actually treat this disease in the long term is compassion for those whose compassion has been cut off. Otherwise, the cycle of violence will just continue forever.
Yeah, I was talking about in real life, too - I’m a union rep and I’ve been very active in my local area’s activist groups for almost all my adult life, so I know full well that organizing IRL is absolutely everything and the Internet is just a way to communicate as best we can.
What you described is more like community self-defense, which is absolutely vital - and I applaud you for doing it - but I’m sure you recognize that the neo-nazis you ran out of town didn’t change their ways, they just went somewhere else, or went underground.
What I’m really talking about is how you change people, rather than just protecting ourselves from them. Please don’t misunderstand me here: for some people (maybe even many people, these days, sadly) there is a point where words can do no more good and force is necessary to mitigate the harm they cause - I think we agree on that. However, where we may disagree (or maybe we’ve just had a communications breakdown) is that the use of force to protect communities from harmful people/behavior shouldn’t include bullying them, because it’s just counter-productive - it doesn’t help you to protect yourself and it does nothing to change the people you use it against. These people likely already see us as enemies simply because we’re acting in opposition to their world view, and any attempts to shame them will only validate the “us-vs-them” narratives common in communities like these.
This isn’t an abstract conversation, for me. My dad was really abusive and taught me a lot of really terrible lessons, and I basically was a neo-nazi when I was a teen. It has taken me a long time to get to where I am. I would never have been able to break free from the hateful ideology I was brainwashed into believing if it wasn’t for people willing to extend compassion towards me, and demonstrate that not everyone sees the world the way my dad taught me everyone sees it.
People treating me badly, bullying me, shaming me, ostracizing me, all of that just confirmed everything my dad taught me, that there are people who hate me for who I am, and that those people see me as subhuman - and that I should see them as subhuman, too.
I’m not saying that you need to be nice to neo-nazis, far from it - beat them up, push them out of your town, do what you need to do to look after yourself, the people you care about, and your community. But we need to recognize that doing that is only dealing with symptoms of a disease rather than dealing with the actual cause. The only way to actually treat this disease in the long term is compassion for those whose compassion has been cut off. Otherwise, the cycle of violence will just continue forever.