[Imc-bigmuddy] Communication vs "Reasoning" with fascists

[Treesong]

Hello,

First, in response to Eric's response, I'd like to say that I am very 
much in favor of communicating with conservatives, reactionaries, and 
fascists of all sorts. But there is a difference between communicating 
and reasoning.

95% of the time, I don't think that it does any good to try to explain 
rationally to a fascist why they should support freedom, diversity, 
etc. What it DOES take is communication -- something that falls under 
the whole "personal and political healing" approach that I've chosen to 
take in life. If we try to TELL fascists what they SHOULD be thinking 
and doing, they will just react defensively. They won't even hear our 
words, so it doesn't matter whether our words are rational or not. All 
that they here is "I am going to tell you what to do, just like 
everyone else is trying to do." This reinforces their belief that the 
world is a battleground and they need a certain degree of control to be 
safe.

In my opinion, what we need to do is sit with them as human beings and 
stay with our hearts even as they describe all manner of inhumane 
policies to us. Rather than reacting to their harmful policies 
immediately, search for the humanity that they themselves have 
forgotten. What fear could be so horrible that it would motivate an 
otherwise decent human being to throw their support behind the regime 
of a fanatical war criminal? Only when we pause for a moment like this 
to listen rather than preach can we come to empathize with such people -
- and only by understanding their thoughts, their feelings, their 
motivations, etc., can we hope to transform their genuine fear of being 
dominated into a genuine commitment to make the world safe for one and 
all.

In other words, we have to do a lot more listening before we can even 
begin to suggest to a fascist why they might not want to be such a 
fascist. Through communication -- through active listening, through 
coming to understand their fears, through taking 
social/economic/political action to address those fears -- we really 
can convince a good number of fascists to realize the error of their 
ways and support more humane forms of social order. But sitting there 
on our high and mighty radical horse and telling them that they're a 
bunch of fucking fascists who need to stop doing what they're doing -- 
that'll just drive them further into their beliefs, regardless of what 
is or isn't rational in the situation.

Let me share a personal example of this that's hard for me to share 
because it's about ME.

For those of you who don't know this, I was an adamant pro-lifer in 
high school and early college. I wasn't a religious fundamentalist -- I 
was somewhat of an agnostic becoming an atheist at that point in my 
life. And yet, because of the great value I held for life, I felt 
driven -- no, CALLED -- to convince others that abortion was murder and 
that except in cases of threat to the health of the mother, it needed 
to be outlawed.

So, I spent years in online chatrooms arguing in favor of this fairly 
reactionary pro-life position. ESPECIALLY because the rest of my 
platform was very progressive, I would get several people at once 
debating me until the wee hours of the morning. None of it worked -- I 
simply "knew" that I was right, and that they were wrong, and that the 
unborn needed for me to be their champion. But now, even though my 
views on the sanctity of life [including the embryo/fetus/etc.] haven't 
changed, I am adamantly pro-choice.

What happened?

It wasn't some particularly clever argument. It wasn't 
anything "rational" that changed my mind. It was an argument I'd heard 
a billion times before -- a woman shouldn't have to explain the 
circumstances of her pregnancy in order to get an abortion because 
that's very personal and often volatile information. That argument had 
never worked before. But this time, a woman had a heart to heart 
conversation with me about the very tragic, very personal, and very 
tender experiences she'd had related to abortion. She listened to my 
sincere respect for all life, she recognized that I was on the verge 
of "getting it," and rather than calling me an asshole and leaving it 
at that, she spoke to me as one human being speaking to another. In 
retrospect, it must have been incredibly hard for her to do so -- but 
it changed my entire perspective on abortion, to the point where I am 
now adamantly pro-choice.

So, there's one example of the sort of work I'm talking about it. We 
can't *reason* with *fascists*... but we can *talk* with *human 
beings*. For a moment, forget about the horrors that created by their 
political beliefs; recognize the terrors that exist in their own minds 
and hearts; speak to them from a place of humanity, where you too have 
your own terrors, but we can all work together to put an end to inner 
and outer terror.

I know, that sounds like a crazy thing to say sometimes. When someone 
is up there demanding that gay marriage be outlawed, or abortion be 
outlawed, or children be blown to pieces in a war of aggression, then 
it's easy to adopt an equally defensive posture, shut down your heart, 
and attack the attacker. When we feel UNDER ATTACK -- when we feel 
surrounded quite literally by FASCISTS -- it's very easy to feel 
tempted to fall into the mindset that we are surrounded by EVILDOERS 
who must be stopped at all costs. Once you've done that, though, you 
may as well pick up a weapon and shoot at them, because you've already 
denied their humanity -- and your own. Your political ideas may still 
be infinitely better than the fascist's, but your heart is about the 
same as theirs. "I am surrounded by evildoers -- I must fight for power 
and defeat the evildoers in order to make the world safe." Is this 
mentality really the foundation of the sort of world that we want to 
create?

Anyway, I've carried on for far too long again. But my basic point is 
that yes, we can and must communicate with fascists. But the TYPE of 
communication must be very specific -- not debates, at least not at 
first, but rather a heartfelt dialog to understand what they fear so 
much and lay their fears to rest. That will take tremendous effort, 
patience, and understanding on our part. And at times, we may have to 
lay ourselves on the line, knowing full well that they don't quite "get 
it" yet and are still going to strike us down. But such an approach is, 
as far as I can tell, the only option that will avoid the sort of 
bloodshed that I mentioned in my previous post.

Love and Healing,

Treesong