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Since my child is currently doing burpees wearing only socks and knickers while yelling 'TIME ME', instead of going to bed, a thread on some thoughts that have been swirling the last few days
In recent days, there have been many one-way calls for camps to better understand each other. I think one of the biggest emerging challenges for progressives is working out who is in our persuadable universe, and who is unreachable/deplorable
In any campaign, you have a universe of persuadables - people you can bring onside with the right message or messenger. And you have unreachables who will never be persuaded, and need to be ignored or neutralized
Take anti-vaxxers. We rightly scorn and reject anti-vax leaders who peddle and profit from dangerous nonsense. But when a parent expresses vaccine hesitancy at a doctor's office, we recognize they're usually persuadable with time, listening and facts
This thoughtful piece by @RDarlo talks about how we identify people who are opposed to foreign aid (often for some not great xenophobic reasons), and how we bring them over using an Adjacent Possibilities approach https://developmentcompass.org/blog/campaigning/the-adverts-you-must-have-seen-them-the-impact-of-pity-based-appeals-on-british-aid-perceptions
Adjacent Possibilities was developed by equal marriage advocates ahead of referendums. It's important to note, it's not neutral listening or endorsing problematic beliefs. It's a principles-based approach to provoke better thought and encourage people to critically analyze
Before I get myself into trouble, I'm not talking about nodding heads to 'working class' men with $100k trucks in diners and are economically anxious. Again, we need to work out who is persuadable and who is not. And not passively listen and understand. But actively persuade
Some groundbreaking research work funded by the UK in South Africa and India examines how communities can prevent violence against women. One of the ways is working with men and boys to challenge social norms around masculinity
"Sustained reduction in VAW will only occur through significant social change, including social norms". That means working with men and boys, even/especially violent ones https://www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/doc_lib/theory_of_change_on_vawg.pdf
Rather than the perpetrator classes courts often order, these programs work with men and boys to unpack what they've learned about power, masculinity and women. They try to balance being accountable to women and girls, which isn't always easy https://www.whatworks.co.za/documents/publications/4-effectiveness-of-interventions-to-prevent-violence-against-women-and-girls/file
After 10 weeks with men and boys, challenging their notions of masculinity, learning about power, and listening then redirecting, women reported violence fell from 64% to 34%, and the percentage of men who said they'd been violent fell from 47% to 5% https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/nov/02/british-government-takes-global-lead-on-violence-against-women-and-girls
I guess I'm saying there's a space between twitter extremes of 'the incurable racist conspiracy theorists maybe have a point if progressives would only listen', and 'write-off huge swaths of people we still have to share a country with'
And in that space is the hard part. How do we work out who we can persuade, and who we ringfence? One often deliberately masquerades as the other. How do we address overall trends at a high level, while not validating the individual behaviours that manifest from it?
And since nobody has flamed me yet, I'm not actually sure any of this applies to the US right now. I genuinely wonder if they need a national truth and reconciliation program, crossed with cult deprogramming, crossed with R2P *shrugging emoji*
