I come from a very strong background of respect.
The last job I was working in involved a lot of listening to people and their very real problems. No, not listening to only reply; actually listening to what they were saying to me and sitting there quietly as I digested what they were telling me. Sometimes it was hard to hear, you know? Their problems. But I had to listen because we were there to help in every way that we could.
It was quite an adjustment when I moved my working life to the Internet and from my own home. No longer was I bound by the rules and aims of my organisation -- I could essentially say what I feel and wanted. So I did that. I began talking about my feelings and experiences. Gradually, that moved onto my masculinity, and now I've settled at working with men and women in The Man Cave. My own community.
The internet wasn't without it's own and very real challenges though. Saying what I feel and wanted was great at first, but I eventually realised that there are people out there that vehemently disagreed with me; to the point of abuse. There were some opinions that I thought were the gold standard and held by everyone, but as I branched out more into the world I realised there are lots of opinions and no-one truly agrees with each other. Lot's of back and forth from some groups with no real middle ground. If you're unsure what middle ground is, it's people prepared to look at the other side of the argument and try and understand where these people are coming from.
I'll admit that in the recent years I've been caught up in all this drama; the fiercely trump hating, right wing fighting, all out war on people that would even dare to suggest that others who can't work shouldn't be defended by the state. I know this simply isn't productive. I know for a fact that if you take away a persons ability to survive and offer them no support then they are going to wither. If someone doesn't have the imagination to survive in a radical world that previously supported them, then they just aren't going to magically turn into a stoic survivalist overnight. So I've been fighting the good fight with all my left leaning friends over the years. On my blog, on publications, on twitter, on Facebook; everywhere. There isn't a social place that I frequent that I haven't been fighting for social justice in some form.
Something clicked a couple of months ago though; I sat there on my PC fighting the good fight when I was shocked for a moment and took a cold hard look at myself and what I was doing. The shock came when I was called a racist by someone on a Facebook group. I can't remember where, or what it was about but the notion had particularly shocked me; that as a lifelong defender of racism -- I'm now brandished as one. The woman was not prepared to discuss it with me either; she took great delight in asserting her "awakenedness" over me, to which I found rather insulting because I wanted to learn where these assertions stemmed from. I switched off after that and took to YouTube.
This is where I learned the other side of the story.
I fell straight into conservatism and fell down a deep, deep rabbit hole. Some of it was disgusting trash, others perhaps mildly delusional, but a great percentage of it held huge relevance and these people didn't think much differently from me; only that they thought the left side of Politics were delusional in the same fashion us lefties thought the right were. I couldn't believe what I was assimilating; views held by people I wouldn't have given the light of day last year but here I was, nodding and agreeing with a lot of what they were saying. I was on a Radio show the other week promoting my Man Cave and the host identified as right leaning, but was well up for equal opportunity and a prosperous society -- my core belief system. He too had pigeonholed the left in the same fashion I did with the right. So now I watch all kinds of media on YouTube; left, central, right to the outright crazy ideologies. I'm finding that the more I delve into the other side of the equation the more I'm finding that people identify strongly with ideologies that mirror their experiences in life from the good to the ugly. And we're all guilty of one very crucial wrong.
Tarring everyone with the same brush. Or at least I have been.
I had a long talk with an anti-feminist a few weeks ago, and before reaching out to them; to me these people were guys that hated women, couldn't get laid, hated themselves, were so deeply vested in furthering the toxic masculinity agenda because it benefited them directly.
Turns out he was just a guy that had been treated really unfairly by the women he had met in his life. This was in stark contrast with me; I had labelled myself as feminist because most of the women in my life have been empowering and nurturing. I love women, because most of them that I have met have been really awesome. Really, really awesome.
Was he wrong and I was right?
No. Turns out we were both right. Not all women are awesome, and not all women are horrible. What we did have wrong though is that we had been taking our experiences and applying them to the general population of women, which shouldn't be the case. Women are just as diverse as men. It blew his mind to be talking to someone as far left leaning as me AND have a sensible conversation with him. I think this needs to happen more.
Which brings me to my last point and probably the most important part. If we want to convince someone over to our way of thinking then we must understand them first. Listening, but only to counter their arguments won't help at all. Like that woman in the Facebook group -- she took great pride in calling me a racist and that in her mind she had pegged herself as 'morally' better than me; which in turn her actions had led me down an entire path I didn't think I'd take in a bazillion years; to humanising my enemy. To finally understanding for once and for all that people are people. Her actions did the entire opposite of what the cause she supports says it's trying to achieve.
Think of it this way; are you going to listen to me if I'm shouting Leftard, or Racist at you? Would you have the same respect for me as a writer if I started off by saying your ideology is full of idiots, as are you? Or would you even entertain my ideas if I generalised, stereotyped and pigeonholed people rather than treating you like the beautiful individual that you are? Think of that for a while and come back to me. I find people far more receptive towards me when I come at them from a non-threatening stance. When I entertain their friendship and look past their obvious flaws. Minds can be changed, people want to do good. Sometimes we just need to show them. And if they can't be changed well I'll still recognise their humanity and treat them with respect. Even if that means deleting them from my life.
This is why I no longer sit on a Political side. I refuse to be pigeonholed, generalised or stereotyped any longer. People aren't listening. The only thing people will be met with by me in future is love and consideration. From there we'll work together to make the world a better place. I am finally going to practise what I preach.
I did understand people are people in real life, but the Internet is an entirely different kettle of fish. It's harder to take people seriously when anyone can say what they like here behind the safety of a computer screen, me included.