Something I see a lot in the Fediverse and left wing spheres is people rejecting, or making enemies of imperfect allies. The video I shared paints a great picture of what it’s like.
Here is some examples I’ve seen, and what reactions they’ve been met with.
“I ditched Gmail for Proton” is met with “That’s terrible the CEO is a Trump boot licker”
“Posts on r/BuyCanadian” is met with “Why are you still using Reddit, it’s American?”
“I’m pro trans but, there are some things I’m not 100% onboard with” is met with “Harsh criticism & Ban”
“I sold my diesel SUV for an electric KIA” is met with “You shouldn’t support China or drive a SUV, buy European instead”
“I switched to Brave instead of Chrome” is met with “Brave sucks its American and still part of chromium”
etc.
I so often see people harshly criticize and alienate people that are mostly on their side, and might in the near future be fully on their side.
Instead I’d like to see responses like
“Hey fantastic that you switched to Proton away from Gmail, consider moving to Migadu as they’re an even better solution”
“Awesome that you’re buying Canadian, while you’re at it consider checking out Lemmy or PieFed”
“Great job switching to Electric, next time consider buying a smaller European car there are many great reasons why they are better”
“Great that you’re pro-trance, what’s stopping your from being onboard with XYZ? Maybe I can change your mind?”
“Nice Brave is already a lot better than Chrome, even better would be LibreWolf, also make sure to try out Kagi or Qwant instead of google”
You don’t change someone’s mind by criticizing them, you need to have a discussion and bring them over, tone matters. How do we stop these criticisms and alienating imperfect allies?
People also care about different things. Say someone cuts out beef because of environmental impact and starts hunting boar instead. Someone else screams at them for animal rights issues that they just don’t give a shit about.
just don’t fall for enemies disguised as good allies.
Most people’s goals in commenting is not to change the minds of others. It is usually about alliance building. Essentially breaking people up into groups, looking for others that fit into the group you are in, excluding those why aren’t. Polarization really. When lemmy was new, lemmy was the group. So people less often tried to alienate others in order to carve out thier niche. But as it has grown, it has driven people toward fracturing to form groups from the group. This is just how humans evolved to be.
I thought about what to comment there instead of just saying how cute this ‘remember the person’ post looks in the hostile modern internet, and then I recalled a couple of interactions where digital people in my app took their time and energy to explain me something. That’s not reddit/twitter-rare, but it would be nice if it would happen even more often. And, taken out from this one moment’s emotional state, I feel kinda bad later for a couple of interactions I had on this platform when I jumped onto assumptions or was in a combatative mood for nothing.
Worse by rejecting an imperfect ally you often get an ally that is even worse for your goals.
YIMBY rejecting possible right wing allies in turn have to find common ground with left wing NIMBY and that often means more zoning that makes building impossible. There are many other examples where reaching across the “aisles” would better meet your goals.
I always come back to the voting system criticism that I started in Reddit. Unfortunately, the voting system was brought to Lemmy, but it’s less “damaging” the way it’s used around here. Moreover, in Lemmy you can hide the voting system, which is the way I use this platform, with a positive effect in my social anxiety.
I believe the voting system is planned, primarily, as an “emotional pit”. With this term I mean it’s like having a sentiments pool of the community members points of view on some issue. A highly voted comment is ideology and enotionally-charged in a given way, and it’s usually read within the context that was provided by the emotional discharge of massively liking or not a comment. Try always to read a comment without the votes context in search of a different meaning of the author than what the community reads. This is also affected by the cultural framework of the participants in a community. Most prominent among these factors is the English language, which is not spoken daily by many users of Lemmy, frequently sending a tone that may sound harsh, flamboyant, ignorant, sloppy, etc. to native speakers.
So, going back to OP’s discussion, yes, I believe the voting system exacerbates the differences between the members of a community and casuals looking for knowledge about some issue. Communities are not random and neutral, they have defined affinities that frequently imply others which may remain hidden. When someone unrelated to a community comes with new knowledge for them to share to a seemingly familiar group of people, they are welcomed by the “champions” of the community in case. These '“champions” are just people immerse daily in a specific mindset and discourse, who also receive an overwhelming emotional support through votes, so their confidence is very high. Add to this that sometimes they even have the right to ban you if you don’t follow their rules and you get a lot of attitudes like the ones you describe.
Anyway, the use I do of the voting system is something that, I believe, levels the ground of discussions. I can’t see votes, I hide which instances are users coming from, and I only vote positive and reserve negative votes to, basically, comments and posts that go against human rights.
I’m as tolerant as the next man but don’t use Reddit you disgusting animals.
I believe it’s partially due to superiority complex.
” You think you’re good? Well, I’m here to inform you that I’m better!”
It’s tough because “the left” isn’t a monolith. There are people who are socially left but economically centrist. Similarly, there are people who are economically left but socially more conservative. Support for an economic system does not necessarily determine support for any one of various social causes.
I would argue that most “leftists” in the West are socially progressive liberals, who are perhaps critical of some aspects of neoliberal capitalism, but aren’t necessarily strongly committed to abolishing capitalism in favor of socialism or communism. In that regard, they are not economically left, or only slightly economically left. A lot of Western leftists are far more focused on addressing social justice issues within capitalism rather than completely changing the system.
There just isn’t one, singular “left.” I think there is a very vocal social justice movement in the West and that is what most of us think of when we think of the left, but that group does not have exclusive ownership of all leftist thoughts and ideas, even if they might think they do and even if they try to police the views of other leftists who might but necessarily agree with them on every issue.
Welcome to the past three hundred years of labor movements, friend. It sucks in here, but it sure is better than the alternative.
I’ll say that your proposed alternatives have all the soul crushing artificiality of a customer service call center. I would much rather say nothing at all. I’m not anybody’s parent or marketing representative.
I can tell you what I do for each of those things if you want to hear it, but I won’t pitch somebody else’s product at you and I sure as hell won’t take your pitch unless I asked for it. I find people who try to sell you stuff on the street obnoxious and I’m not gonna do that same thing online.
I’m not sure if you get the point I’m trying to make.
Aka. We should stop rejecting/alienating imperfect allies.
Saying nothing is fine
Yes, saying nothing is fine. But at the same time, the above poster is pointing out the other big problem with the left, which is that when they realize that people aren’t responding to their negativity/ivory tower/gatekeeping, they say that they need to implement some kind of “strategy” to convince people. But… they talk about using these strategies in public forums, and then are very hamfisted about implementing them, which just makes the whole come off as manipulative.
If the left wants to convince others to join them, the “strategy” shouldn’t be to change their verbiage. It should be to recognize their flaws and to individually work on being better people.
😄pro-trance is a funny typo
unnce-unnce-unnce-unnce
BBWOOOWWWWwwwWWWwwwWWWwwwWWWwwwooooWWWW
Oops sorry, I might be a bit lysdectic 😅 my spelling and typos are horrible
Minor nitpick: Kia is South Korean, not Chinese. Also for your examples this is certainly true, but one should also make sure to not broaden the tent so much that it becomes impossible to have a coherent program. Something like “I support insert good leftwing idea but I also support Israel/deporting immigrants/etc” should be met with a good faith attempt to change the other person’s position and, if that fails, rejection. Some lines can’t be crossed without fatally compromising whatever you’re supposed to be fighting for.
Thanks for the correction & I 100% agree with you
“I sold my diesel SUV for an electric KIA” is met with “You shouldn’t support China or drive a SUV, buy European instead”
“Great job switching to Electric, next time consider buying a smaller European car there are many great reasons why they are better”
Kia is South Korean, you racist. 😡
Is it aimed at OP or at a hypothetical person OP invented?
It is aimed at hypothetical OP🤪
Guess they’d learn something today, hypothetically speaking.
I’ve knew for years where KIA cars are from, but only know I’ve googled whose company Saab is (Sweden) - your post kinda made me curious where these two cars I’ve seen in my life were from. If OP isn’t a car person or/and select brands are underrepresented in their area, they could’ve just as well suggested european Fjord 150 over Loisiana’s Renault car or something akin to that.
european Fjord 150
Damn, Ford’s got a cousin?
Scandi winter could’ve been a good application of the horsepower and size that is usually used to block 2-6 disabled people’s parking spots at once.
As big Voltaire said: “perfect is the enemy of good”.
There’s dozens of reasons why the average person can’t commit to being the best; most altruistic person in the world. I think even making the minor changes and starting the ball rolling should be seen as a positive though rather than gatekeeping the route to fully embracing a concept - whether it’s greener travel; fairer social policies; or sustainable living.
I’ve had a bit of stick recently for saying I’m trying to reduce my meat intake - purely from an environmental point of view. It’s frustrating when you’re looked down upon for not taking the opportunity to go full vegan - it’s not a goal that I’m against but fuck me, one step at a time!
Same again with purchasing an EV - yes there’s issues with the procurement and disposal of rare metals and the increased use of rubbers and micro plastics due to the weight, but motherfucker I don’t care about that at present - I’m just happy that my emissions are coming down and I’m saving a bit of cash.
Politically, I’ve historically voted Lib Dem but get grief for being a yellow Tory. I’m like bitch I can’t stand the Tories - but there’s no Green candidate in my area, and I just want to start pushing the stats towards the left to make it more appealing for parties to field more social or left-leaning candidates.
The all or nothing approach does my tits in as well but hey ho, you can only do the best with what you’ve got.
FWIW not everyone can thrive on 100% plant-based diet due to genetic differences.
Politically, I’ve historically voted Lib Dem but get grief for being a yellow Tory. I’m like bitch I can’t stand the Tories - but there’s no Green candidate in my area, and I just want to start pushing the stats towards the left to make it more appealing for parties to field more social or left-leaning candidates.
I’m lucky enough to have a better option in my part of the UK, but for so long as we have FPTP then I am completely with you that tactical voting for the least bad viable option is the best strategy on election day. I’ve said to friends that I would even vote Tory… if that was the only opposition to Reform in my constituency. Less bad is always still less bad, even if it remains terrible in its own right
even vote Tory… if that was the only opposition to Reform
Fucking hell that’s some real Alfred Hitchcock shit that. You should write horror novels!
Ultimately though I would agree, it’s whatever helps you to sleep at night with your decision, with the obvious alternative of drawing a comedy penis on the ballot paper for the pure satisfaction of knowing that a civil servant counting on the night gets to admire your artwork.
OMG a YouTube link, disgusting. You should never use YouTube, don’t you know they are a big tech American firm supporting the Trump regime
- Someone Probably
It’s exhausting, I already know all these things, I’m trying my best :(