I genuinely really struggle with this. Not in a “this is wrong” way, I agree with the screenshot, but if someone who is obviously bad appears to be nice, smiley, friendly, down to earth all of a sudden, I’ll find it really hard to stay mad at them. Definitely a weakness of mine.
One of the greatest emotional advances I made in my life was realizing that I had control over who I gave my empathy to. I was being heavily manipulated by many people in my life prior to that and it applies to fascists, too. Fascists get the, “they’re such normal people if you follow them around for a day” treatment by default. And that is a political choice, one we can reject.
I think I have the opposite problem. I want to be in a place where I have empathy for everyone. I feel like it is important to be able to fully math out why some people deserve the choppy. Cause like. Try to picture the full scope and beauty of a human life and then they fuck it up by being a nazi chop chop
I used to be a people pleaser, but as I started understanding and trying to get rid of my internalized bigotry and toxic attitudes, I basically managed to channel the misplaced empathy from people taking advantage of me to marginalized people
Of course there were shitloads of other factors to growing a spine, but when it finally came to cutting off people, I didn’t feel any guilt because it was easy to see how misplaced the empathy had been
it’s not even necessarily a tactic. Some fascists just like to pet their dogs and kiss their babies and say howdy neighbor. Then you ask them about marginalized people or economics and the jaws of hell open up.
I think many people who are abusive or subversive in some nefarious way are not doing some with 100% intentionality or consciousness. But when it comes to their views of how the general public would react to their innermost demons, they are correct and have adjusted accordingly. This is part of where the conservative persecution complex comes from. They rightfully feel judged for their beliefs. Similarly, a lot of abuse is compounded by the fact that the abuser knows their dynamic would be harshly judged if people saw it for what it was.
I genuinely really struggle with this. Not in a “this is wrong” way, I agree with the screenshot, but if someone who is obviously bad appears to be nice, smiley, friendly, down to earth all of a sudden, I’ll find it really hard to stay mad at them. Definitely a weakness of mine.
It is called empathy. It means you are a good person.
One of the greatest emotional advances I made in my life was realizing that I had control over who I gave my empathy to. I was being heavily manipulated by many people in my life prior to that and it applies to fascists, too. Fascists get the, “they’re such normal people if you follow them around for a day” treatment by default. And that is a political choice, one we can reject.
I think I have the opposite problem. I want to be in a place where I have empathy for everyone. I feel like it is important to be able to fully math out why some people deserve the choppy. Cause like. Try to picture the full scope and beauty of a human life and then they fuck it up by being a nazi chop chop
I used to be a people pleaser, but as I started understanding and trying to get rid of my internalized bigotry and toxic attitudes, I basically managed to channel the misplaced empathy from people taking advantage of me to marginalized people
Of course there were shitloads of other factors to growing a spine, but when it finally came to cutting off people, I didn’t feel any guilt because it was easy to see how misplaced the empathy had been
it’s a tactic they’re using against you, disarming you. it’s so they can hurt you later.
it’s not even necessarily a tactic. Some fascists just like to pet their dogs and kiss their babies and say howdy neighbor. Then you ask them about marginalized people or economics and the jaws of hell open up.
I think many people who are abusive or subversive in some nefarious way are not doing some with 100% intentionality or consciousness. But when it comes to their views of how the general public would react to their innermost demons, they are correct and have adjusted accordingly. This is part of where the conservative persecution complex comes from. They rightfully feel judged for their beliefs. Similarly, a lot of abuse is compounded by the fact that the abuser knows their dynamic would be harshly judged if people saw it for what it was.