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Convincing
Jul. 18th, 2020 10:37 pmThere are two ways to get someone to do something they don't want to do: forcing and convincing. Laws are forcing; protests are kind of a combination of the two.
Mask mandates would be forcing. But since we don't have mask mandates in the places with the worst outbreaks and no one's mass protesting the lack of mask mandates, that leaves us with convincing. Which, yes, *does* require people to go talk to a lot of insecure white men buried in toxic masculinity and find out what their motives are and try to soothe their feelings. You can think whatever you want about that insecurity, but the fact remains that if you can't force them-- and yelling at them on Twitter does not constitute forcing-- you *have* to convince them, or deal with an unfettered pandemic. Therefore the correct response when someone posts an article in which they went to talk to a bunch of anti-maskers and discuss what tactics worked to get them to agree to wear a mask at least in the most high-risk situations is not a whole bunch of yelling about how you shouldn't have to coddle the feelings of white men.
Because no, you shouldn't have to coddle the feelings of people who don't want to listen to science. But your choices here are coddle their feelings somewhat and get them to wear masks at least in the highest-risk situations, or have them not wear masks at all and feel good because you got to yell and be morally pure on Twitter. At some point you have to stop and think about "is this action going to achieve my desired result". No one's saying you have to go talk to the anti-science people-- but when someone *is* doing so, try to refrain from attacking them for it.
At some point I really want to sit down and dig deep into the many meanings of the phrase "respectability politics", because the original meaning was very assimilationist and people opposing it were opposing assimilation, but it seems to have mutated into something with which to attack anything that acknowledges that the majority group has power and will necessarily need to be involved in social change attempts, especially if it goes so far as to acknowledge that it is *necessary* to involve and get the support of people who are not 100% Ideologically Committed To The Cause.
Mask mandates would be forcing. But since we don't have mask mandates in the places with the worst outbreaks and no one's mass protesting the lack of mask mandates, that leaves us with convincing. Which, yes, *does* require people to go talk to a lot of insecure white men buried in toxic masculinity and find out what their motives are and try to soothe their feelings. You can think whatever you want about that insecurity, but the fact remains that if you can't force them-- and yelling at them on Twitter does not constitute forcing-- you *have* to convince them, or deal with an unfettered pandemic. Therefore the correct response when someone posts an article in which they went to talk to a bunch of anti-maskers and discuss what tactics worked to get them to agree to wear a mask at least in the most high-risk situations is not a whole bunch of yelling about how you shouldn't have to coddle the feelings of white men.
Because no, you shouldn't have to coddle the feelings of people who don't want to listen to science. But your choices here are coddle their feelings somewhat and get them to wear masks at least in the highest-risk situations, or have them not wear masks at all and feel good because you got to yell and be morally pure on Twitter. At some point you have to stop and think about "is this action going to achieve my desired result". No one's saying you have to go talk to the anti-science people-- but when someone *is* doing so, try to refrain from attacking them for it.
At some point I really want to sit down and dig deep into the many meanings of the phrase "respectability politics", because the original meaning was very assimilationist and people opposing it were opposing assimilation, but it seems to have mutated into something with which to attack anything that acknowledges that the majority group has power and will necessarily need to be involved in social change attempts, especially if it goes so far as to acknowledge that it is *necessary* to involve and get the support of people who are not 100% Ideologically Committed To The Cause.
