I feel there is very little we can do individually to change people's minds or turn them away from fascism, or even to get them to stop turning their own brains into soup, but you can still show them there are consequences to their actions.
Telling my own friends / relations what I think of them and cutting ties with them has done nothing to bring them back in line with normal human values, but at least I am not burdened with the guilt of my association, and maybe one day enough people will cut them off that the loneliness gets to them and they begin to re-evaluate their lives.
It is literally the least I can do. Any sadness I felt was heartbreak that they could be so shitty to begin with.
It will have been ten years since I cut off my blood in October; but it's like I say-- none of my contact info has changed. My phone number is still the same. If any of them wanted to hear from me, they could've, any time in the last ten years... And they never have. As it sits right now, I have no reason to care. As it sits right now, the next call I get from them better not be "so and so is sick and needs you to come out"; 'cause I'm finna get real petty if that's the next thing I hear. "So you only wanna hear from me when you need something" type beats. Same as they would've done to me.
Some people just can't be claimed.
Haven't talked to my mom in around 5 years and I was recently told she was lamenting it, because she wanted her living room painted but is too cheap to pay the going rate.
There's a middle path that's being overlooked in this post. We can flexibly move closer/ draw away as people and relationships change, because people and relationships are always changing.This strategy leaves us in a more powerful position. And some changes in opinion/ politics, in my opinion, don't even need to register. I'm not 100% responsible for my dumbass friends. Maybe like 15% responsible.
I'm not saying NEVER cut anyone out, but defaulting to cutting people out results in a lot of dysfunction. The most abusive friend I ever had would just chop people off and smear their reputations over any level of disagreement, and I was complicit in that. Looking back, it was as if they had 0 doubts or flexibility about their beliefs.
Because I'm very agreeable, I was last to be cut out. Then, they were alone. I had to spend a lot of time unlearning the black and white thinking and bad habits I picked up from them. Thought I would share so you don't make the mistakes I did.
This is true. As I've gotten older I've learned to hide my feelings a bit and just like people less. It's useful for managing life and avoiding hard drama.
ive seen many people completely change their views when faced with the possibility of never seeing their kids or grandkids again, like real genuine change not just faking it, like going from homophobic to having many queer friends. social shame and osterization works, extremely well. i know lots of people say it can make things worse but idk, in my life it works really really well. maybe its an either ot thing, like its gonna make it better or worse, maybe methods vary for different people.
I think it's a useful way to tell whether or not people actually care. When it comes down to the wire of "bye bye seeya again never", a person who actually cares but has bad ideas will at least make change-like noises when confronted with never seeing someone again. Actual bastards will fall back on more hateful garbage, I find.
this is a really complex topic that is case-by-case to the extreme. generally necessary for people who are actively abusive as a pattern, definitely. but i've been cut off by people for pretty normal conflicts and it is deeply hurtful and can leave lasting psychological scars. also had people slow-ghost my friendship without explanation. unless someone is really actively harming me and they mean something to me, i do tend toward thinking i owe the people in my life shit. at least some kind of closure or explanation if a friendship or relationship ends. but i tend to try to keep the connect alive to the extent it's possible and extend my love and energy toward them.
also it seems like a lot of self-help pop psychology is normalizing cutting people out in a way that seems to be an uncritical default to atomization and away from communal responsibility. again this is super complicated and really can't be boiled down to a singular rule of thumb.
I do feel this. I've had long term friends just ghost me after a disagreement. It's painful to the point of traumatic.
That said, people I'm about to break up with a friend, family member, or partner, they have a fuck ton of warning it's gonna happen. It's a bit like a job, where people deserve escalated warnings before just getting their keycard locked out. I try to be very explicit too, like "X thing makes me not enjoy hanging out with you and I don't want to be your friend". And said friends and family always have some avenue for apologies, maybe we're not friends on Facebook but they know my email.
For instance, I've given my parents 7 years to apologise. They still have my email, which they only use for birthday wishes. (I've told them to stop). They're just far too self centred to care about feelings outside their own. I'm a happier, more grounded person for having zero hope with them.
I try to be very explicit too, like "X thing makes me not enjoy hanging out with you and I don't want to be your friend". And said friends and family always have some avenue for apologies, maybe we're not friends on Facebook but they know my email.
yeah on its face this seems fair, you're at least giving some kind of explanation which i think is more than many would do. and also leaving yourself open to receiving an apology is more leeway than a lot of situations where there's ghosting/cutting off so it sounds like you're in a healthy place with this kind of stuff.
communal responsibility
I don't think you should be cutting off anyone who actually holds or could reasonably ever hold a legitimate sense of communal responsibility
This, i almost ghosted my best friend 7 years ago because of the refugee crisis in europe birthed a ton of arguments between us and i really started to hate his guts but thankfully he did his due research and now at least acknowledges that most of the world's troubles come from capitalism and the US empire. I don't feel like i need to cut off the people who i still dont agree, i just keep them at a safe distance.
You can't do this if you're financially dependent on them. And with the state of the global economy, yeah...
I'd genuinely rather be homeless than rely on the blood that fucked me up in the first place lmao
Given how badly the homeless are treated in the US, many cannot make the same call.
My mother was the only person that continued to call me by feminine pronouns, friends, family, coworkers, strangers or otherwise. I could forgive initially but it had been years of trying and pleading with no give.
After a while it was blatantly ridiculous, bigoted and beyond "mistakes" because at that point i was burly and bearded, lol. Had to cut ties for my own mental sake and honestly physical safety. it was sad but also a relief.
Yeah I have family like this. I pass completely as a neocons Mormon daughter (look I like cottage core), I remember one time at a family function I kept being referred to as the son of so and so and everyone was so confused and even seemed to be concerned that the guy saying it was going senile or having a stroke or something
I SUMMON THE LEGENDARY MONSTER THE ETERNAL CHAIRMAN MAO IN ATTACK POSITION
Show
Liberalism manifests itself in various ways. To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
I am positive that not everyone who was ever sat down for a struggle session against their will was a dedicated party member. I feel like point five is way more relevant to org maintenance.
If you think whatever country we all live in need struggle sessions, you seriously need to touch grass
idk what you mean by that but I'm pretty sure any successful revolution will necessarily involve dealing with reactionaries one way or another in order to survive, although purely theoretical because it is never gonna happen here I can give you a big long list of undesirables in need of some kinda re-education and it begins with landlords and business owners
Given the current stage of class struggle that a lot of countries we're in, struggle sessions is not anything we even need to think about
Is a family unit or cadre of friends not a proto-org though? It may not be 1:1 exact, but there is still room for application, I feel.
I think there are levels to this shit, i'll absolutely tell them they are full of shit, but let them do it. Obviously if they are materially doing something (or in position of power) - then fuck them.
Like my grandma was anti commie and pro-israel (fucking somehow considering she was antisemitic before), i still was at her hospital bed when she was ill.
And also if you take completely uncompromising position on this - you may end in a cult.
i haven't exactly 'cut them off' but i visit my pat robertson/700 club watching grandma a lot less since i've had (and subsequently lost) a boyfriend. i think she's just honestly stupid more than hateful, surrounded by other people with awful views and alone in her house most of the time watching nothing but emotionally manipulative psychological warfare in the form of Fox News and christian programming. she divorced my grandpa a long time ago and replaced one Old White Man Telling Her What To Think And Do with another whole set of them, on the TV. when we do visit my dad (a well meaning noam chomsky type 'democratic socialist' liberal) tries his best to gently correct her when she starts talking about politics and regurgitating fox news talking points, but the next day shes back on fox news alone at home and nothing sticks.
No, that’s wrong and selfish.
You have a much better chance of leaving a good impression on people when you interact with them more often as opposed to less, and you said yourself leaving doesn’t change their minds but it makes you feel better.
If you cared most about changing minds you’d spend more time with them, not less. Furthermore, spending time shoveling the neighbors walkway, giving drunk friends a ride or helping your parents clean out their basement improves these people’s quality of life.
Counterpoint, some people are fucking awful and don't deserve your pity.
That’s true, but I’m only responding to what the op wrote.
A counter example to what I said is several friends I have who’ve cut off family after being kicked out or cut off for coming out or had conversion therapy pushed on them. Results of cutting off family in those circumstances seem to be overwhelmingly positive, and stem from a perception and understanding of family and that family’s actions that are opposed to the ops post.
What underlies cutting off family in those circumstances is recognition that all parties see the family as a real material benefit and that the families actions are motivated by a warped, distorted sense of “tough love”.
Cutting off works in this case because time takes the toughness out and allows it to become simply love. Friends are not like family in this way. Over time we will get wistful about old friends but may never contact them again, but the familial bond has a longer and stronger connection by both association and the states reification. everybody wants to be a family again. There’s a table to sit down and negotiate at and even the most rabid evangelicals see having no child as more abhorrent than an aberrant one.
Of course, like I said, the op isn’t saying that at all. Their post boils down to:
I feel like we can’t change people’s minds, but can hurt them.
Telling my own friends / relations what I think of them and cutting ties with them has done nothing to change their minds, but it makes me feel better and maybe enough people will hurt them to change their minds.
It is literally the least I can do.
That last part is really accurate and telling. Rather than establishing a clear line to normalize relations and communicate it clearly, the op just stopped. What they describe isn’t a noble, principled stand to protect themselves and create a better future for their friends and family out of love, it’s an act of despair.
While I understand despair, I’m not gonna cheer it on.
I'm going to clarify that my POC wife is absolutely better off knowing that I am not associating with these people, and learning what they had become or covertly always were really like was many things, devastating, humiliating, embarrassing. The least I can do is cut them off and tell them why. What I would like to do is ruin their lives brutally.
Of course, that’s a lot different.
I read your post and only considered it in the context on one person cutting ties with people who they decided couldn’t change.
What worries me about that misinterpreted scenario is that often times despite not wanting to be reliant on those people, they represent a real support network. There are real ways to improve conditions by withholding yourself from relationships you want to keep and improve, that’s how a strike works after all, but I worried in my misunderstanding of your post that someone could do real harm to their ability to weather all kinds of circumstances by cutting people out without a path back in.
Of course that’s not you.
I hope things improve with the assholes in your life.
Counterpoint: Although it's been hard I've lived a far happier life after cutting off my transphobic family
Furthermore, spending time shoveling the neighbors walkway, giving drunk friends a ride or helping your parents clean out their basement improves these people’s quality of life.
Literally what fucking idyllic relationships are you envisioning here that people are going no contact on
Those are my own often fraught relationships with my insane destructive neighbor, self destructive alcoholic friend, and parents.
I chose not to describe abuse because the point of my comment there was that doing those things helps the people around me out.
I cut off my family after a fight. I think about it everyday, still a lot of pain there.
I haven't spoken to my parents in 14 years.
Very rarely think about it these days.
Guys I'm not talking about people who now sadly fall within the new Overton window, if I did this then I literally would not have any acquaintances.
I agree. I cut out most of my family and I'm way better off for it. Politics wasn't the main reason for most of them but I think their shittiness goes hand in hand with their awful politics. Maybe they wouldn't be such foul, abusive shitdemons if they didn't hold such abusive worldviews and hatred in their hearts. If someone is always dragging you down, trying to make you miserable, wanting you to be cruel like them, then fuck them! It's a cold world and life is too short to be wasting time on people like that.
can't abandon family, blood is blood, im not white
if they abandon me when they find out im degen, thats on them
Retaining toxic family members no matter how miserable they make you, your partner and your children is my favourite thing about brown culture 🥰
Abandon your shitty family members, or don't, I don't know your situation, but I do know my partner's, and my god, this brings me to the second type of liberalism
To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination.
So many family members who are just hated by everyone but for some reason tolerated, accommodated just to keep on traumatising people
inb4 my family is not an org
I'm not white either; but I can't keep or claim the abusers that spent 18 years fucking up my mental. Won't keep or claim them. Blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb; and boy, did my mother LOVE using the corrupted version of that phrase to justify family being 'the only thing that mattered'. Nah, not me. Not when holding on bleeds me more than letting go.
