[ SECRET POST #2895 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2895 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 062 secrets from Secret Submission Post #414.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Rhetoric in activism

[dreemyweird]

I'm not American, and I come from a very different political context, but sometimes you just can't help having the "who the fuck are you voting for?!" attitude. When you see the majority in your country keep electing a guy whose administration promotes state censorship and who has an unfortunate habit of having his political opponents murdered, you do kind of get angry.

(I also laugh at the Bush jokes, but that may be because I'm in a different sociopolitical context and just haven't got sick of them).

Re: Rhetoric in activism

[(Anonymous)]

WRT the Bush jokes, it probably also contributes that I live in an EXTREMELY liberal part of the US, so I heard them constantly. That probably didn't help.

WRT getting angry at people - it's not the anger. The anger I can understand. It's the condescension that pisses me off.

Re: Rhetoric in activism

[dreemyweird]

I'm not sure how one is much better than the other? For me it's a very easy step from "why are you voting for this awful guy" to "you must be really stupid to be voting for him".

I hate and am adamantly against assigning any non-statistically-proven characteristics to large groups of people, so I won't go "lmao they're all stupid and have no taste", but I may scowl with derision at particular individuals.

Re: Rhetoric in activism

[(Anonymous)]

The reason contempt bothers me, particularly, is because it seems... like, the way in which it's dismissive bothers me. On a humorous level, it's a complete defense against even trying to understand people who disagree with you or understand them as human beings - it just writes them off with a zinger about how they're worse than you. And on a non-humorous level, when you get stuff like "What's Wrong With Kansas", again, it elides the actual human factors that make people do what they do and treats them as these alien decision-making robots that we're looking down on. It just doesn't sit well with me.

Whereas anger, for all that it's negative, at least deals with people as human beings - if I'm angry at the bastards who vote for the other bastard, at least I'm implicitly accepting them as my equal. Which I think is important and right.

Re: Rhetoric in activism

[dreemyweird]

I see where you're coming from. And I do agree that it's important to perceive those who disagree with you as human beings. As a history fan and someone who comes from a country whose history has always been pretty troubled, I also am perfectly aware that people always have psychological reasons for their apparently "dumb" voting decisions.

But I don't think I have to respect all of them or consider all of them my equals in terms of political choices. Because often their thinking IS bizarre and their decisions ARE stupid ("I vote for XYZ because he offers stability!" when really what XYZ offers is censorship and political repressions). Some are actually selfish, hateful people who want [insert random minority] gone or silenced and who KNOW that the candidate they're voting for also dislikes the minority in question.

See, I get side eyeing people for despising a huge social group and dehumanizing them based on how they vote. But I can't get behind treating everyone's voting decisions as equally valid and deserving of respect.

Maybe the difference is between mocking a demographic as people and mocking them as people who vote, which is, well, a sensible distinction to make.

Re: Rhetoric in activism

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think we're actually that far apart, I think we're just thinking of different things when we talk about 'respect' and 'contempt' (or, more likely than anything else, I'm not explaining what I mean very well). I don't think anything that you're talking about falls under what I mean by contempt. I mean more in kind of a... smug, dismissive sort of way, not just not respecting them or disliking them. Even making jokes about politics isn't inherently wrong. It's what kind of joke you make.

Bleh. I'm not explaining this well at all. But I do think, in terms of understand that people are people, and have reasons for what they do, you're definitely not doing what I'm talking about.

Re: Rhetoric in activism

[dreemyweird]

Okay, yeah, I think I know what you mean. I can sympathize with that, though I guess I haven't encountered much of the actual smugness (but maybe my circle of acquaintance is one of the saner places).

Being dismissive of social groups makes me pretty angry, too, because mentally I always go, "wtf, do you not realize that they are all individuals?"