The response of the judiciary to the anti-trans laws is heartening. But the anti-trans mania is only the latest in the continuing search of way-too-many people for someone "safe" to hate. In my lifetime we went through the "okay-ness" to hate other races, other religions, feminists, gays who weren't trans. Public opinion moved towards excoriating that okay-ness and people became cautious about expressing whatever hatred they still felt.
Anti-trans feeling in general is being boosted by so many lies. An in-law who I see rarely --and is generally a reasonable person-- was troubled because she believed that parents were forcing 10-year-olds into irrevocable surgery for some "political" purpose. And her own granddaughter is now insisting that sie is a grandson--but sie is an adult. It took a long while for me and her cis grandson to even dent this belief.
The scary thing is that such Okay-ness is coming back. But even if it doesn't, what will be the NEXT round of groups it is OK to hate? Looks like college professors are on the short list. Any one who doubts your particular God, too.
We have a lot of work to do. I too am optimistic that MOST people don't buy into this "gotta hate" mentality; public opinion seems in general against it. But the hated-du-jour is so blasted over all media, even if only by stories that flat out don't agree about the new round of haters, that the battle to get this country just calmed down is daunting.
Part of the reason for the shifting target of "who to hate" is that as more people get to know LG and even B people, they find it harder to hate them, so the goalposts shift to smaller minorities that those people don't know: T and I and beyond. Celebrities are easy to attack: they're public figures that the rubes "don't know" so there's nothing personal in being able to hate them. The more visible the minorities are, the more likely the haters know at least one of them personally, and the harder it becomes to hate a "friend". That's why it's so important for the hatemongers to erase these people and make them afraid, make them hide -- so the rubes are less likely to know them, and more likely to be able to hate them.
It's really not about the minorities anyway. It's about getting the rubes so fired up they'll support the haters in more things without even thinking about it. It's why the rhetoric has to be so inflammatory.
All we can collectively do is be more visible -- everyone who might become a target -- we are the majority, after all.
I agree completely that it is "getting the rubes fired up." The question is why they find it something to get fired up about.
I also agree that actually getting to know persons of a group "other to you" has a lot to do with diminishing prejudice. There has been a lot of research on this.
One of my more pie in the sky ideas is a form of "national service" that requires every 18 year old to live for 6 months or a year with some family that is as "other" to that kid's circumstances as is possible.
Actually, a form of national service that allows a multitude of options beyond the military could have a similar effect. I was vociferously against the draft in Vietnam because it allowed no alternatives to going out to get slaughtered, apart from a narrow exception for conscientious objectors. I knew one who managed to get that status--he worked for a non-profit I was connected with--and though I did not need him to change my views about the draft, he was fascinating to discuss issues with.
But there are SO MANY things a year of national service could accomplish, from Job Corps to tutoring in failing schools to getting practical experience with internships for non-profits to planting trees or cleaning up trash and graffiti in poorer sections of cities.
> The question is why they find it something to get fired up about.
Because they need to get folks fired up about _something_ in order to get folks' attention and get folks to follow them. It isn't about trans people, just as it wasn't about LGB people, or even about abortion, to be honest. They just need folks angry to get votes and to get blind support for whatever fascist policies they want to get in place: they want _control_ and firing up the rubes is how they get it.
true, but why do the rubes develop such hatred? If there was suddenly a campaign against, say, milk, would the right become anti-cow?
The thing I actually see on the horizon is anti-vax sentiment, due a revival now that Covid is mostly an endemic, not pandemic, problem. Measles is rebounding, soon will it be diphtheria, chicken pox, mumps, even polio or smallpox? I was a kid before there were vaccines for all of those except diphtheria and smallpox, and yes, kids disappeared from my classes and never came back--and they hadn't moved. Polio, in particular.
Whatever "the left" support -- such as "equality" -- that's what the outraged right is going to be against. There's no logic to it.
Anti-vax sentiment used to be mostly a far-left fringe belief -- until the pandemic hit. Then it became a target for the right to get people onboard with because "the left are mandating vaccines". Truth doesn't matter. As you say, if "the left" started to push pro-milk campaigns, the right would find ways to get people fired up against milk.
I have family members who had decades-long careers in the medical field -- but got taken in by the right's anti-vax nonsense and refused to get vaccinated... and lost their jobs because of it... and then became even more angry against "woke companies forcing their beliefs down people's throats" (even tho' their employers were pretty darned conservative in the first place).
Why are the right against education teaching those difficult truths of our history? Because uninformed people are easier to manipulate. So they ban books and they threaten teachers and they lean on "parental concerns" -- it's all about isolating people from "others" so they can reinforce the hatred.
The response of the judiciary to the anti-trans laws is heartening. But the anti-trans mania is only the latest in the continuing search of way-too-many people for someone "safe" to hate. In my lifetime we went through the "okay-ness" to hate other races, other religions, feminists, gays who weren't trans. Public opinion moved towards excoriating that okay-ness and people became cautious about expressing whatever hatred they still felt.
Anti-trans feeling in general is being boosted by so many lies. An in-law who I see rarely --and is generally a reasonable person-- was troubled because she believed that parents were forcing 10-year-olds into irrevocable surgery for some "political" purpose. And her own granddaughter is now insisting that sie is a grandson--but sie is an adult. It took a long while for me and her cis grandson to even dent this belief.
The scary thing is that such Okay-ness is coming back. But even if it doesn't, what will be the NEXT round of groups it is OK to hate? Looks like college professors are on the short list. Any one who doubts your particular God, too.
We have a lot of work to do. I too am optimistic that MOST people don't buy into this "gotta hate" mentality; public opinion seems in general against it. But the hated-du-jour is so blasted over all media, even if only by stories that flat out don't agree about the new round of haters, that the battle to get this country just calmed down is daunting.
Part of the reason for the shifting target of "who to hate" is that as more people get to know LG and even B people, they find it harder to hate them, so the goalposts shift to smaller minorities that those people don't know: T and I and beyond. Celebrities are easy to attack: they're public figures that the rubes "don't know" so there's nothing personal in being able to hate them. The more visible the minorities are, the more likely the haters know at least one of them personally, and the harder it becomes to hate a "friend". That's why it's so important for the hatemongers to erase these people and make them afraid, make them hide -- so the rubes are less likely to know them, and more likely to be able to hate them.
It's really not about the minorities anyway. It's about getting the rubes so fired up they'll support the haters in more things without even thinking about it. It's why the rhetoric has to be so inflammatory.
All we can collectively do is be more visible -- everyone who might become a target -- we are the majority, after all.
I agree completely that it is "getting the rubes fired up." The question is why they find it something to get fired up about.
I also agree that actually getting to know persons of a group "other to you" has a lot to do with diminishing prejudice. There has been a lot of research on this.
One of my more pie in the sky ideas is a form of "national service" that requires every 18 year old to live for 6 months or a year with some family that is as "other" to that kid's circumstances as is possible.
Actually, a form of national service that allows a multitude of options beyond the military could have a similar effect. I was vociferously against the draft in Vietnam because it allowed no alternatives to going out to get slaughtered, apart from a narrow exception for conscientious objectors. I knew one who managed to get that status--he worked for a non-profit I was connected with--and though I did not need him to change my views about the draft, he was fascinating to discuss issues with.
But there are SO MANY things a year of national service could accomplish, from Job Corps to tutoring in failing schools to getting practical experience with internships for non-profits to planting trees or cleaning up trash and graffiti in poorer sections of cities.
> The question is why they find it something to get fired up about.
Because they need to get folks fired up about _something_ in order to get folks' attention and get folks to follow them. It isn't about trans people, just as it wasn't about LGB people, or even about abortion, to be honest. They just need folks angry to get votes and to get blind support for whatever fascist policies they want to get in place: they want _control_ and firing up the rubes is how they get it.
(sheesh, I never used to be this cynical...)
true, but why do the rubes develop such hatred? If there was suddenly a campaign against, say, milk, would the right become anti-cow?
The thing I actually see on the horizon is anti-vax sentiment, due a revival now that Covid is mostly an endemic, not pandemic, problem. Measles is rebounding, soon will it be diphtheria, chicken pox, mumps, even polio or smallpox? I was a kid before there were vaccines for all of those except diphtheria and smallpox, and yes, kids disappeared from my classes and never came back--and they hadn't moved. Polio, in particular.
Whatever "the left" support -- such as "equality" -- that's what the outraged right is going to be against. There's no logic to it.
Anti-vax sentiment used to be mostly a far-left fringe belief -- until the pandemic hit. Then it became a target for the right to get people onboard with because "the left are mandating vaccines". Truth doesn't matter. As you say, if "the left" started to push pro-milk campaigns, the right would find ways to get people fired up against milk.
I have family members who had decades-long careers in the medical field -- but got taken in by the right's anti-vax nonsense and refused to get vaccinated... and lost their jobs because of it... and then became even more angry against "woke companies forcing their beliefs down people's throats" (even tho' their employers were pretty darned conservative in the first place).
Why are the right against education teaching those difficult truths of our history? Because uninformed people are easier to manipulate. So they ban books and they threaten teachers and they lean on "parental concerns" -- it's all about isolating people from "others" so they can reinforce the hatred.
Thank you for your optimism--this country needs a lot more of that.
Thank you. Optimism is hope.
Hope is a good thing, especially in times like these.