[btilly]

There is a lot of evidence that engaging emotionally with literature will shift people's values. In a way that engaging with intellectual ideas does not.

These are not just literary classics, they carry a specific culture forward. People whose values are threatened by that culture need to not engage with them. They do so by finding things to be offended by in the books. In many cases the offence is perfectly genuine. It is caused by cognitive dissonance, and not cynical manipulation.

That doesn't make it less frustrating. But understanding why people have trouble with these works helps build empathy for them. And empathy is necessary to present your points in a way that is persuasive to their views. Yelling in anger at them is easy. Actually changing their minds is far harder. And it does require trying to understand.

[nancyminusone]

I don't think changing their minds is a requirement. They are allowed to not like something, but they shouldn't be able to ban it.

[ranger207]

Well, it's both. You need to ban book bans so that you can have the conversation in the first place, but you also need to change people's mind so that book bans never come up in the first place. It's a guardrail, and ideally we're not leaning on the guardrail

[layer8]

You have to change their minds about what legitimates a ban, and about these specific things they don’t like not having the necessary legitimation. And that’s not an easy change, it needs to be grounded emotionally.

[SilverElfin]

They aren’t banning anything. You can still freely buy any of those books. They’re just changing what content public libraries spend money on. Not really much different from states deciding school curriculum.

[kashunstva]

> You can still freely buy any of those books.

And if you can’t afford to buy them, then what?

Public libraries exist to serve a public good and are not just quaint anachronistic equivalents of amazon.com

[mlinhares]

Sorry for the vocabulary here but this is bullshit. The people submitting the banned books here have stated multiple times they have never read most/all the books they have asked for banning and are being driven by lists built by political entities like Moms for America.

There is no genuine offense here, they don't even know what the books are about other than someone saying "its LGBT". It is just cynical manipulation and hate.

[btilly]

Yes. All that they know about these books is propaganda leading to outrage, and a protection that keeps their world-view from being exposed to contrary ideas.

As I said, their identity is such that they need to avoid engaging with these works to maintain it.

That doesn't mean that their outrage isn't genuine.

[nerdjon]

While I can understand the side that you are coming from. One of the biggest failures I have seen from my friends is demonizing anyone that may have voted for tump and these people, and refusing to have a conversation. Immediately labeling them as racist for example (which I don't think is necessarily untrue for many of them, but when we know there are black people that voted for Trump that argument as a blanket statement gets harder to make).

I strongly believe that for many people just doing this is causing them to dig into their heels and instead of examining themselves they are pushed to being on the defensive trying to say they are not racist, homophobic, sexist, whatever. Which is not getting us anywhere and is just making both sides angrier.

There are the extremes, people that have the power that are pushing things like this. But then there are the manipulated. Those that are being told lies and being encouraged to vote a certain why because they simply are only seeing part of the picture. Maybe they don't have exposure to the world. Whatever.

While I do respect someone's right to protect their own mental health and not want to engage in a conversation with many of these people, these conversations do need to happen. I truly believe that the majority of people are nowhere near as vile as those in power right now are. So we need to understand why they are enabling them.

That being said...

It is a very fine line. Too much empathy can lead to them thinking that this is ok, there does need to be some force in a push back against what is happening right now. Pushing back on the misinformation that is causing many people to hold these views.

So yes we can try to understand where these views are coming from without giving them weight as being valid.

[amanaplanacanal]

I can totally understand that they are being manipulated. I still have no interest in trying to de-program them. Cut them off, and let them live with their choices. They'll either figure it out eventually, or they won't.

People who are trying to harm my friends and family don't deserve any of my time and effort.

[nerdjon]

I completely respect a personal choice of doing that, I mean I don't particularly want to engage with many of them either. Especially not when I can expect that I am going to likely be called a particular F word (I am a gay man).

My biggest issue is not the lack of contact, it is the demonizing. Using blanket terms like "if you voted for trump your racist, homophobic, sexist, etc" when I just simply don't think that is a valid blanket statement and is really just a "feel good" statement for us to justify not hearing why they might have done something.

I do think that we are actively pushing them to be more extreme with blanket statements like this and it isn't not actually helping.

We can keep calling them names all we want but the fact is they are still voters that are enabling what we all have to deal with. Either we acknowledge that or we just keep repeating the same pattern we have been repeating since at least the 70's. A little bit of progress followed by a regression.

[ranger207]

It's a prisoner's dilemma, or tragedy of the commons, or whatever-scenario-where-the-best-plan-is-coordinated-action-but-it's-difficult-for-individuals-to-do-so. Yeah a gay man shouldn't have to go to court to defend his marriage, but society's made up of individuals and their actions, and somebody's got to perform that action

[btilly]

They might not deserve it, but they will take rather more of your time and effort if you don't try to exert it until after ICE is breaking down doors and disappearing your friends and family without due process.

[FireBeyond]

I agree. I had this argument here previously, that I supposedly "owe" it to "the other side" to listen to their arguments (in this case on abortion).

No, I don't. Not when the other side just openly uses lies (that they know to be lies) like "post-birth abortion" to argue their cause.

They're not discussing things in even a modicum of good faith. Saying that I have some moral imperative to engage with them as if they are is horseshit.

[nobody9999]

>No, I don't. Not when the other side just openly uses lies (that they know to be lies) like "post-birth abortion" to argue their cause.

Absolutely. Although I'd point out that in many states that overwhelmingly voted for Trump, those on the "other side" (you know, our fellow Americans), often by large majorities, rejected abortion bans in their states after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

So it's not really as cut and dried as you make it out to be. Yes, there are absolutely those who despise the idea of the agency of women, and there are absolutely those who exploit that for monetary and political gain.

But a majority of Americans don't and even many of those who aren't on board could be persuaded to a live and let live position.

Politics is, after all, "the art of the possible." If we just demonize and "other" anyone who doesn't specifically agree with us, then nothing is possible -- only dysfunction and hate. That's not a world I want to live in.

[tremon]

[flagged]

[rmah]

To me, it's disheartening to see this sort of knee-jerk reaction to the grandparent posting (and to see that post be down-voted). What btilly wrote is not a defense, it's reasonable and, more importantly, practical advice in combating tyranny. Moreover, IMO, if you actually want to reduce or put an end to tyranny, you need to understand the root causes for the desires of your opponents. That's empathy. Empathy is not agreement, it's not sympathy, it is understanding. Screaming at others that they're bad people will not change anything. If anything, IMO, it causes them to dig their heels and makes change harder.

[bilbo0s]

[flagged]

[1659447091]

>> you need to understand the root causes for the desires of your opponents. That's empathy.

> Um, what we used to call that in the Marines, was "intel". Not "empathy". And that designation of the information you outlined made us surprisingly effective at combating opponents.

This is the important part. Understanding "the root causes for the desires of your opponents" is not empathy. It's understanding something.

Empathy is a relating to anothers plight. If you only understand it then there is nothing to cause pause before using that understanding to your advantage. It's a core part manipulation and deception. If the only thing that happened with that understanding is seeing what you can get from it or that there is nothing you want there or have use for, then that doesn't really help bring two sides together.

Having the ability to relate to this understanding of another is when empathy happens. It's the empathy that gives one pause long enough to see there are other options that are not zero-sum.

> No need to have empathy for anyone who doesn't have empathy for others.

Disagree. Just because someone else can not relate -- now -- does not mean they can not later. I personally don't care for tit-for-tat games, thats simply a race to the bottom. Boundaries are the things missing here; one can have empathy for another that does not have it for them, that doesn't mean you also have to have a bleeding heart for them and let them walk all over you.

[Anonbrit]

You can have radical empathy with somebody while standing against and fighting every single thing they stand for. Indeed empathy /helps/ you fight better, because you can begin to fight root causes rather than fighting symptoms, and help people heal rather than just shouting them down.

You as an individual are not required to do this if you don't want to, but if a movement wants to be successful then a degree of empathy with those who are resisting the movement is likely necessary for success.

To have empathy with a view is not condoning it

[tremon]

Indeed. But demanding empathy as the only valid a counter-strategy is, which is what the GP was doing. Appeasement doesn't work if your opponent isn't following the rulebook.

From my point of view, you don't reason with immature children, you give them a time-out. You don't hand them weapons of mass destruction.

[LexiMax]

The sort of understanding the GP is promoting doesn't have to be used empathetically.

It can also be used on bad faith actors by giving you better avenues of winning over the audience - which is the only real point of continuing a conversation with one.

[wizzwizz4]

Correct: but giving them a thousand timeouts doesn't help, if you still need to give the thousand-and-first. It mitigates the immediate problem, but it also ties up your resources. Eliminating the problem at its root, if that's possible, is a more effective strategy: if we can take away the ability for the real bad actors to get loyal followers, by learning how to change those followers' minds, they won't have anywhere near as much power.

[kelseyfrog]

Exactly. The distal cause is that the Compromise of 1877 halted an unfinished Reconstruction. What I'm calling for is simple - the natural and final conclusion of Reconstruction. It might be 148 years late, but it's the antidote to the disease.

[vpribish]

damn. fucking. straight. pussyfooting with racist traitors has kept us paying for the original sin of slavery into another goddamn century.

popular vote for president

nonpartisan redistricting of every state

ranked-choice-voting everywhere

limits on corporate money in politics

end the filibuster

strictly define supreme court size, terms, and appointment rules

age limits for congress

finish reconstruction

mess with texas

there is a lot of technical debt in this project

[btilly]

We live in a democracy. In a democracy, you don't get to deny people the vote simply because you view them as children. And, sadly, these "children" have around half the votes.

If you are personally not capable of attempting empathy, that's fair. As I said, it is frustrating and hard. But a political culture where nobody attempts empathy is what has allowed grifters playing up the resulting culture war to gain political power, and put themselves in a position to aim for a dictatorship. If everyone keeps doing the same old, same old, the totalitarian outcome is guaranteed.

I'll make this concrete. Right now, many in Trump's base are dissatisfied with the handling of the Epstein affair. As much as you may disagree with a random Republican, the odds are that your differences are not as important right now than winding up united against the idea of an authoritarian pedophile running the country. But if the only emotion that they get is anger about all of the areas where there is disagreement, they won't have anywhere to go but back to Trump.

Is that outcome really what you think is best?

[accrual]

> a degree of empathy with those who are resisting the movement is likely necessary for success

A great salesperson I learned from would often say something like "don't fight the resistance, join the resistance" with the implication that one must see through the other party's eyes before you can have a chance to really affect them. One must make them feel heard and understood rather than fought against.

[lern_too_spel]

We live in a democracy. If the majority does something stupid, you have to convince them to stop doing that stupid thing. This means understanding how they came to do the stupid thing to begin with.

[vpribish]

he's proposing that outrage is not the best way to oppose them - that we can be more clever and effective by knowing the enemy

[tremon]

But the GP didn't even identify the enemy correctly, so all that effort would be wasted. The people they're describing are mere tools, only required because of the existing democratic processes in the country. The enemy are the (insert your favourite label here) at the top of the media and political landscape pulling the strings. And I guarantee you, they aren't quite so bothered by the imagery in those books as they are bothered by freedom of thought in general. They are bothered by people that dare to speak truth to power. They are not bothered by appeasement strategies such as we people trying to understand the other people they've pitted against us.

[btilly]

No, I've identified the enemy perfectly well.

The actual enemy only has power because useful fools are willing to follow them. Treating those useful fools as enemies is a key part of the dynamic that grants the actual enemy power.

I am advocating learning how to talk with those useful fools, and assist them in finding paths away from being the power base for the actual enemy.

[tremon]

I understand where you're coming from. But I also think that you're wasting a lot of effort in talking to those useful fools while they're still drinking from the social media and faux news firehose. And that's by design -- you are meant to expend your energy on that asymmetric (and in my view unwinnable) battle, so that you leave the actual policymakers alone.

(sidenote: I said "tools", as in they're disposable means to an end. I'm not sure if you called them fools because you misread my comment or you switched to that term to try and placate me).

edit: actually, I think that my sidenote goes to the core of our disagreement. In your view, there are 77M battles to fight and if you manage to win just a few percent of those to your side, things can be stopped. In my view, 95% of those voters no longer matter. The party is now in power and has full control over all branches of government and media. There is no way they will relinquish power over such a minor technical detail as an election. They only need a few million jackboots to maintain the status quo, the rest is disposable.

[nobody9999]

>Did the people pursuing these bans consider having empathy with the people who value these books, and try to understand why they value them?

>Stop defending tyranny.

I think you miss GP's point. It's not that they support such book bans or the ideology that encourages that and other anti-democratic (small 'd') nastiness. Rather it's the old saw that 'you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar (balsamic vinegar excepted).'

While there are many who are callous, cruel pieces of shit, there are more who live (without their knowledge or consent -- cf. rural broadcast media landscape, online bubbles, etc.) in an "information" environment that promotes such stuff as "godly" and "American" and "freedom", when that's not even close to the truth.

Which is clear from the book bans, the ridiculous "anchor babies" trope, the Democrats are all communists and on and on and on.

Yes, folks who actively foment this stuff and cynically (or even genuinely) fight to reduce liberty need to be resisted. Strongly and loudly.

But if you adopt those folks' "othering" tactics, you devalue everyone who doesn't specifically agree with you and everything you believe as evil and unredeemable, you remove a key opportunity for education, positive experience and persuasion.

Will that work for everyone? Absolutely not. But we don't need everyone, just the ones who are honest and fair-minded. And those can certainly be those who disagree with you.

If you exclude the radical reactionaries, bigots and cynical scum who seek to profit from promoting such ideas, the majority of all of us agree about much more than we disagree.

Perhaps that's something we all should ruminate on.