@nazgul I don't think I agree. Even if the people are complicit in the lies, that's a cultural vector that can be impacted by changing the culture.

I mean, I'm not sure what other alternative there is, but the fact that these things come and go in waves shows that it's not a constant and can be affected by the surrounding culture.

The problem is that changing culture through education takes a generation, at best. You need short term mitigations, too.

@MudMan I’d like to believe that. I really did think that, if you could educate people well enough, it could be solved. I’m no longer sure for a couple reasons.

I think the waves are an indication not of changed values, but of times when the social structure was firm enough that people largely kept their mouth shut when they knew they couldn’t get away with it. It’s not that a new generation grew up thinking these things. It’s that once people in power made it clear it was okay to say and do this stuff, and you wouldn’t be punished, they came out of the woodwork. We can see that just in the wide variety of ages at Jan6.

There’s also no question that social media has had a huge impact in making people think they are a larger movement than they really are.

I *do* think that removing exposure to others with those views, providing exposure to multiple viewpoints and multiple cultures, early liberal education, and creating a society where there are safety nets to reduce fear, could all help. But the first three of those sound a lot like propaganda and forced community service and/or migration. We become what we are fighting. I’m already uncomfortable enough that what I’m proposing sounds an awful lot like “we need to force them back into the closet”, and that a conservative would use the exact same wording to describe how to deal with someone like me.

@mrpinkly @nazgul @MudMan That was more Johnson than Lincoln. The first had extensive follow-up planned, the second let things slide until Grant inherited a position he had no experience with or aptitude for.

@kerileighmerritt did an excellent book, masterless men, about how the billionaires took over the South again after the civil war.

@mrpinkly @landley @MudMan @kerileighmerritt

I think in more recent years societies have found a better way to deal with revolutionary-level conflicts without creating martyrs or tearing society apart, which is the truth and and reconciliation approach.

You can avoid punishment, but to do so you need stand up in court and public, and admit and take responsibility, in detail, all the things you did. Think "Jan 6th committee" but with the perpetrators forced to participate or go to jail or worse.

Victims get closure. The crime is admitted. What was done to them is made clear to everyone. And you avoid the level of punishment which could reignite the conflict.