| For those who think the parent comment was conflating extreme right and average right, I just want to add some clarification as to why deplatforming still affects large swathes of the population and not just extreme segments. I’m a strong social and fiscal conservative who never voted for nor liked Trump. I’m religious and that informs my opinions on a lot of social issues. I would be in strange company on Parler, but this still bothers me. My family are all strong Trump supporters to the point that leaves me shaking my head. Working in technology, I also have a lot of progressive friends and coworkers. As a racial minority, I think I can say this. There’s a real analogue to the general sentiment that LGBT, POC, or female Americans experience and worry about social or professional consequences to voicing their experiences and opinions and the general sentiment conservatives experience from voicing theirs. Before you castigate me and say it’s false equivalence, take the good advice of the anti-racism movement and “just listen” to why I feel that way. This is my personal experience as a POC and as a religious conservative working in tech. Even as a more moderate conservative (e.g., I believe climate change is anthropogenic and the state needs to correct for market failures), I genuinely feel like my voice is being suppressed—that is, my opinions are becoming less tolerable by the mainstream. For example, I have very traditional views about LGBT issues and abortion, but those views are becoming labeled as violent (I don’t believe in any kind of violence, BTW, but just believing that doesn’t accord with mainstream beliefs is considered hurtful and violent), in spite of how I support legislation and personally demonstrate fairness and tolerance for my LGBT friends and am sympathetic to women’s health issues. There are a lot of people on the right who would do well to listen to BLM and those who feel like their voices are being suppressed. There are a lot of people on the left who would do well to listen to conservatives who feel like their voices are being suppressed. Let’s just have more humility about these things. If you feel like you’re in a morally/intellectually/factually superior position, quit treating people who aren’t as enlightened as the enemy. Treat them with some decency and compassion and listen so you might persuade them instead of berating them about their wrongness. I think it’s hubris to be so confident in our own positions as to preclude accepting people’s lived experiences (like mine) as meaningful anecdata. As I continue to feel the shift to fewer and fewer outlets for my voice, I genuinely worry. I blame the extremists on the right, absolutely, but I also blame extremists on the left. At the core I blame the tendency to not listen. |
I think the problem comes in when your neighbour has views and beliefs that are not based in reality and just can't see the other side. I don't have a problem with "preppers", as I can see that it's entirely possible that society might collapse and it's good to be prepared.
On the other hand, how do you deal with those that believe that the Earth is flat? Even when they discover that the facts don't align with their beliefs, they still can't accept it. If you can't agree on literal "facts" then it's hard to find any common ground on which to stand.