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How my friends changed my mind

I really love Chuck Wendig's rant about community and taxes, but it was disheartening to know that his Good Words –like so many folks' insights on social media– would either fall on deaf ears or just preach to the echo-chamber.

We've all been there, posting our frustration with the current state of the world and pointlessly arguing with strangers online who don't share our views, but I get the sense that most of us are drawing back into our shells in light of the general hopelessness that comes with this style of online "discourse". No one's mind ever changes, and every argument feels more like a honing of talking points for the next argument instead of an open discussion. I think about this a lot, about how to communicate the good of systemic empathy and community to people who might not agree with me, and the best strategy I've come up with has grown from my own personal experiences with people who have changed my deeply engrained views of the world. Here we go.

While I've leaned left most of my life out of some innate sense of pacifism, I've harbored some shitty politics or social values in the past as most American men have in their lives, some of them shamefully bad. But I was lucky enough to fall into a couple of social circles who opened my eyes to a lot of ideas, vantage points, and types of empathy that I hadn't considered. But what allowed them to access my opinion-changing mechanism instead of simply ignoring them or writing them off? It was simply that they were cool people, people who I ultimately ended up admiring and whose books I wanted to take pages from. People who were calm, caring, selfless, smart, positive, community driven, and most of all, thoughtful (it didn't hurt that a lot of them were creative, too). It's almost like their boundless empathy made them more comfortable with themselves and alleviated many of their general insecurities that so many of us have. They seemed strong, and who wouldn't want that? But the best part is, I almost never got into arguments with them about serious social or political matters because I was just generally listening to things they had to say. I respected them, and by proxy, I started reflecting on my own beliefs, values, and ideas. The times they did call me out on poor ideas, they were gentle about it, and didn't embarrass me or shun me.

It took years for me to overturn most of the ideas and values in my head and reflect on why they might be ugly or poor, and it was awful to realize how wrong I had been about so many of them. Worse, it was downright painful to realize that I had acted on so many of these poor ideas and had been a part of problems that hurt and oppress people. Getting "woke" can be fucking harrowing and I totally understand why so many are resistant to reflect upon their behaviors and realize, "Wow. I've unknowingly been kind of a shitty person for a long while now." No one wants to realize that, and it takes a certain strength to recognize and admit when you're wrong. It's depressing and no one should have to do it alone.

In conclusion, I think the best a lot of culturally-frustrated folks can do is just be the best person they can be around as many folks as they can, because you never know whose mind you're going to change just by being great and kind. Showing thoughtful empathy, gently calling out friends with poor ideas, standing up for other's rights when necessary, and trying to be positive, even when it feels hopeless, can and does make a difference. Also, voting. Voting helps a lot, too.

Granted this is just my subjective experience, but its gotta count for something. Please call me out if something about all this sounds wrong. I totally welcome criticism.