[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblog from user anti-sexist-enban that shows the hashtags "#oh my gods exactly #I am not saying women & gender minorities are to *blame* for so many cis men being radicalized #but I *am* trying to point out what we can do to *benefit* our cause -- what helps with deradicalization #antisexism"]
I saved this awhile ago because it's a real touchy topic, but it needs to be discussed because there's a strong temptation to lean so far into righteous activism that you ignore human psychology, and that's one of the fastest ways to kneecap your own movement and ideas.
First: What's below is so valid. 100% and completely.
[Image ID: Screenshot of a post from user queendread that says "The fact that oppressed people can't make a single angry statement about their oppressors without being asked to clarify they didn't mean *literally everyone in that group* just in case they hurt someone's feelings blows my f cking mind.
Sorry if I hurt your feelings by pointing out that you're part of a group that benefits from the dehumanisation of others.
I guess I was just too busy being *actively dehunanised* to care."]
However, the rise of the internet has changed how these kind of statements (broad generalizations about groups of people who have traditionally or currently hold power) will be processed and perceived. It's valid and harmless to say shit like "All men are trash" to your girl friends on a night out while talking about someone's latest asshole ex. Everyone party to the conversation knows what you mean and empathizes with the experience you're conveying with that simplified statement.
The effect those kind of statements have when they are posted online or are widely taken up as slogans are much different, and in my opinion, do more harm than good.
First issue: They become divorced from context. In the in-person example, everyone knows that what you mean by "all men are trash" is "Goddammit dating is hard, and so many men are ultimately terrible partners." Just posted as a general statement, not everyone who views it will have that context. It could be misinterpreted as genuine misanthropy. For every hundred people who say "all men are trash," 99 are women frustrated with various common male behavior, but 1 is an extremist who really means "men's only use should be as sperm donors" (this is meant to be illustrative about extremist opinions in larger movements, not a real statistic).
Second issue: Misinterpretation of popularity. When big accounts post stuff like this, and it gets thousands of likes and shares, there's a strong tendency of the people who are targeted by the statement to perceive every single one of those interactions as a literal endorsement of the statement. Like I think when men see "All men are trash" with 50K retweets on Twitter, the subconscious interpretation they immediately land on is "50K women hate me personally without even knowing me," and I would guess a very small percentage are introspective enough to make the jump from that initial thought to understanding that what that really means, "At least 50K women have had such negative interactions with men that they find this statement relatable. Holy shit that means every woman I know has probably experienced something awful at the hands of men. I should really be more cognizant of women's issues."
Key thing here: A lack of introspectiveness is not a fatal flaw that makes someone an unsalvageable tool of the patriarchy lol. It's an empathetic skill that has to be learned, so to discount all the people who do need a little bit of hand holding in order to make that interpretative leap is really just taking the easy way out in activism and feeding into ideological polarization, i.e. "If you're a man, and you read this, and your first thought is 'not all men,' then you're the trash they're talking about." <- Nah. Way too harsh, unrealistic, and unproductive. When someone criticizes a group you're part of, the first thing you're going to think of is your role in that group. It's natural.
Third issue: Receiving a criticism without receiving instructions on how to do better is ~INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING~. You know who I know that shares "all men are trash"? Only women and a handful of gay men. You know who shares "Remember. Bro code DOES NOT include covering for a rapist."? ALL my homies, male and female. Because it's a lot easier to say yes to a call to action and spread it than it is to receive a general criticism and then try to come up with what to do about it yourself.
Fourth issue: Negative bias. You know how you should always take the proportion of negative reviews on a business with a grain of sand because angry people are way more likely to post a negative review than satisfied people are to post a good review? Kind of same deal. People think of their own bad experiences with men and share "all men are trash." But on a good day, when a man has been kind and supportive, does anyone ever post "Thankful for the men who work on themselves and genuinely want to support women."? If they do, they do it far less often. This means that the target group, here men, are way more likely to get bathed in vague negative criticism when they're online (and online makes up a significant portion of people's lives now) than they are to get a balanced perspective or actionable instructions on how to be better. Which brings me too...
Fifth issue: Social media's biased algorithms amplify statements like that beyond their natural context and reach. So whereas the average dude would not hear "all men are trash" in person unless they'd personally just done something heinous or had the context of a group of girls discussing men who have wronged them, the likelihood that they'll wake up for the day and open social media, get inundated by "all men are trash" type posts, and then repeat every time they get online is much higher.
Once, I even got fed up with it and posted something like "Hey. Not all men are trash. I have a lot of great male friends. If you genuinely believe all men are trash, maybe look at how you're choosing your company." And my DM's got flooded with men I know just saying thank you because they felt seen for a second, and half of them inadvertantly poured their hearts out about how it really did hurt/upset them to see those statements constantly, but they were aware that for a whole host of reasons, they weren't allowed to express that (including that they were very consciously aware that their feelings of dejection didn't compare to women's negative experiences with men).
My point in drawing attention to these dynamics is because we're seeing some of the consequences of them play out in real time. The constant feeling of being categorically hated, even if it's not associated with tangible oppression, combined with feeling like you can never express those feelings without negative backlash, creates a well of pent up emotion, that in turn, makes people feeling that way incredibly vulnerable to manipulation by people offering them validation.
That is part of what has happened with conservatives in America. This is not solely the fault of the left, but because so many people who care about leftist issues get too heated in arguments and call anyone discussing conservative views stupid, conservatives have started to feel categorically hated, and Trump + Elon and the gang have been offering them validation. Again, not to say that this is all the left's fault (because it's not like there aren't the same type of people on the right), but here's what I've seen at play here:
People who care about leftist issues are often very intense and resort to being snarky if not outright insulting in arguments. It's not everyone, but it's enough that most conservative people have experienced at least one personal interaction like this. Additionally, people who want to support leftist issues but don't really have the background to explain them try to make up for it in hardline intensity. Ex: During the first round of covid vaccinations, I saw pretty much anyone expressing any concerns about the vaccine automatically branded as a backward, dumb, antivaxxer in the comments. My conservative friends who trust me had to resort to going to my DMs to say things like,
"Hey, I really just have some questions about the safety of the vaccine because it was produced so quickly, but if I question anything about the vaccine, people immediately shut me down. Can we talk about this?"
And you know what? Fair. Fair to feel upset and automatically suspicious of people who won't let you ask any questions. Fair to not trust that people who are actively disrespecting you somehow have your best interests in mind.
Because I do have the background, I'd then quickly explain that 1) The tech to make the vaccine had existed for years, so it was not new, untested technology. 2) The vaccine components actually rapidly degrade in your body, so I actually trust the mRNA vaccines MORE than traditional vaccines. 3) The reason it was able to be developed so quickly is because it became a national priority. They'd just witnessed what can happen when the government fully funds and prioritizes science.
And guess what? That got them asking things like "Why can't the government do that for cancer research?" And I'd be like "GREAT QUESTION! I think we should *both* go to the federal government and ask them that (because they absolutely could make that a national health priority)!"
Suddenly we have common ground.
What they don't tell you about civil discourse is that it's not about maintaining some Victorian idea of manners or playing nice with oppressors; it's about discussing ideas in a way that falls in line with human psychology - with the circumstances under which people (in general) will and won't accept new/differing perspectives.
Circling back to current events, because most conservatives have had at least one highly negative interaction like this and frequently see tweets/posts bashing conservatives on the internet, they're vulnerable to additional rage bait - content designed to feed into their existing feeling of being insulted and silenced - and sympathy from people manipulating them for their own gain (Trump).
That is a significant part of why we're here right now. Because guess what? We went over the history of the Nazi party in school, but they never explained, in-depth, what the psychological manipulation they used looked like.
