I’m dubious about the idea of trying to shame neo-nazis by accusing them of being involuntarily celibate losers who can’t get a...
I’m dubious about the idea of trying to shame neo-nazis by accusing them of being involuntarily celibate losers who can’t get a date, one reason being that the tactic fails to work on anyone who can get a date.
Now, you might say this tactic is still useful anyway on others, and for reinforcing the social perception of neo-nazis as losers that no one should date, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But it still seems to be focusing the attack on a fairly non-central part of the question at hand. The reason to oppose neo-nazi ideology is because it’s terrible, not because its proponents struggle on the dating market.
The point of such dehumanization (and the parallel tactic of rightists calling any SJW ugly and unf***able) is not a calculated strategy of trying to discourage political opinions with the threat “if you hold this opinion you will be insulted,” but rather it serves the much more important function of shoring up the insulter’s own identity.
When political opinion becomes such a key part of someone’s overall identity, people like to link how all their decisions make them universally better off. Did you know that people who go to church are happier in old age, and people with pets live longer, and people who eat your favorite food have reduced risk of cancer? So on top of that, people who have your political beliefs are more likely to be attractive to members of their desired sex. See, every decision you’ve made is part of a virtuous cycle treadmill that leads one into a better life.
The other part of this is that opposing political beliefs are not merely seen as “a thing a person has or believes” but dark magic. To believe in Wrong Thought is usually seen as a way of cheating giving you access to shortcuts that Good and Honest People don’t use. So racism is seen as a “card” one can play in elections that unfairly makes your candidate do better, or social justice ideology is an unfair tribalism that circumvents logic.
We like to accuse unattractive people of being desperate so they must turn to dark magic to get what they want (like PUA), unlike good and wholesome people who use only legitimate methods, and so have no problem maintaining the “correct” ideology. So by that logic, neonazi’s must need their corrupt belief system, and if they were really attractive they wouldn’t have to cheat with such immoral methods.
As someone who (broadly speaking) identifies with the political left, most of my disagreements with the left have to do with tactics, not ideology. Dehumanization has never been an effective tactic, and it never will be. One can’t shame people into changing their beliefs. If anything, it makes them double down on their position.
Yeah, like, I’m definitely sympathetic to wanting to just primal-scream at the people who put Trump into power until they get blasted away like chocolate under a flamethrower. I get that. I feel it too!
But maybe because of previous dealing with ADHD, I have this little voice in my head that goes “Do you want to do what feels good, or do you want to do what gets you what you want?” Because I need to ask myself that specific goddamn question about 30 times a day.
And what I want is for Trump out of power. I want a democratically-elected government that takes care of people, that causes more help than harm. I want a society where people’s life outcomes aren’t determined by their race, sex, gender, orientation, or class. I want people to feel safe and be well-off enough they can afford to help others. I want an environment that’s minimally fucked-up, and I want an ethical, transparent system of governance over the whole thing.
And the way I get what I want is by bringing over people to our side. We lost in Brexit, we lost in Trump, we lost in Duterte, and we’re probably gonna lose in Marine Le Pen. We’re repeating the same tactics and getting progressively more furious that the same tactics are bringing the same results. And we have a decent body of evidence that challenging people on their beliefs makes them grip those beliefs tighter. By contrast, the best practices on convincing people involves a lot of stuff on providing empathy, giving people a safe space to engage, and reinforcing norms of fairness. I’m not trying to de-escalate because I have some secret desire to treat conservatives/Trump voters kindly and my in-groups nastily, I’m trying to de-escalate because that’s what science says convinces people to change their minds. One of the points of being a liberal is recognizing when reality and your ideology conflict, and accepting that reality gets the win in that arena. My ideology says these people are either stupid or malicious and should be screamed at until they stop or die or something. Reality says that such a tactic generally just makes people become entrenched in their wrongness. And so every time I have that urge (and boy is it common, Trump is really awful at everything excepting conning people, where he seems like a malevolent genius) I ask myself:
“Do I want to do what feels good, or do I want to do what gets me what I want?”
Maybe I shouldn’t be asking just myself.
No the trick is you’re screaming at them for the benefit of the third-party audience, cause if you do it charismatically enough you can assemble a strong coalition to punish them for the trespass of not recognizing your superiority.