One of the challenges of lobbying against reactionaries

One can use the following as a sarcastic “joke” - but one with a certain amount of validity.

To understand anti-progressive (reactionary) people (such as transphobes), one of the biggest challenges is reaching far enough back into the Middle Ages to understand what they consider to be “thinking”.

The validity is that these people do indeed have, on the basis of my experience, major character flaws, such as those I list at https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2023/09/aspects-of-character-content-warning.html (samples below).

The reason that this is significant is that, in reality, the heart and head of most humans (especially the social dinosaur stale old pale men who angrily and hypocritically denounce emotions in the workplace) is linked, and it is impossible to deal with one without also dealing with the other. 

Appeals to reason can be rendered ineffective by the listener’s personal history (such as the uncle in my adoptive family who was a life long racist because of his experiences in World War (part) Two - no matter how much the nations involved, and many other veterans, had resolved their differences);   emotionally effective pleas can miss the target, or be undone by random thoughts that seem, to the listener-thinker, to be logical or inconsistent (these, in turn, often have a foundation in emotions). The harm done by some CBT is also an example of what can go wrong. 

In my opinion, the only ethical way to address this is: 

• argue for what is wanted from the point of view of human rights principles; 
• share the experiences of yourself and witnesses/testifiers by all means, but be aware that reactions of those being lobbied - often emotional or based on emotion, and often not recognised as such by the person concerned - may lead to them being resistant, in which case the head is the way to the heart - e.g., by statistical data or other evidence that the listener would consider “objective”.
  Some of the techniques taught to “Yes” campaigners (Affirm, Answer, Redirect (to Value, Villain, Victory, Vision)) are potentially helpful here, but giving people TIME to come to terms with what you have presented is often vital as well;
• in the public arena, it can be difficult to call out emotions no matter how apparent they are (because of the risk of provoking an even stronger emotional backlash), but when the opportunity is there to call out emotions, that should be done - in as non-confrontational way as possible, which requires careful an thorough attention to self care, especially recovery afterwards, as is possible.
  

One of the other posts I am currently working on is the need to address “unconscious” bias in public officials - and the difficulty of doing so, so more on this yet to come. 

And now, that excerpted list of flaws: 

• christo-fascism; 
  
• "histrionic personality disorder"; 
• Immature Soul / Young Soul; 
• Internalised sexism / victim blaming;
• neoliberalism; 
• the Newtonian (non-physical) world view;
• sheeple; 
• sock puppet (pejorative term); 
• spiritual bypassing;
• amathia; 
• (the) aspiration paradox; 
  
• attraction to elitism; 
• civility trap;
  
• cynicism;
• the means shape the end - i.e., the end does NOT justify the means;
• FBU - flummoxed by (the) unfamiliar;
• FoC - fear of complexity;
• intellectual cowardice; 
• LBI (left brain interpreter); 
• lip service; 
• moral licencing; 
• PFD - Paranoid Fear of Difference; 
  
• Toxic positivity; 
• virtue signalling; 
  
• Tall  Poppy  Syndrome;
  

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

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Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk.