I know a guy who used to be a conservative, until he went to college. It wasn't "woke professors" that change him to a liberal, it was being in an actual city instead of the small town he grew up in.
Meeting more diverse people made him realize he was fed lies about others while growing up.
So yeah, if you ever wondered why the right wants to shut down education and universities, that's one reason.
He also told me he still reads Fox News, but with a critical eye, and so he can easily counter things his conservative friends (and family) tell him.
I remember him telling me that, and occasionally look at Fox News to see how they see things.
Here's an interesting one full of scary buzzwords like "Socialism" and "Communists".
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/far-left-network-helped-put-alex-pretti-harms-way-made-him-martyr
@rasterweb I met people in New Hampshire, 40 minutes away from Boston, proud of the fact that they had never entered the city.
Go figure.
@rasterweb I feel like an extreme outlier on mastodon. grew up in a suburban religious household and went to college at big state school. My roommates told me I wasn't conservative. My Dad in his final years liked Trump, and was a bit of an us vs them, good vs bad person.
I don't think my views have changed much. Liberals don't know what conservatives hear and vs versa. I tried listening to conservative media, but they are so low brow, wow the amount of divisiveness! I had to move to podcasts.
@rasterweb I guess I'm a communist Marxist socialist because I'm on my local "encrypted" ICE Signal group, carry a whistle and know how to use a spreadsheet.
OK then... That's a weird way to redefine words... But fine.
Disagree, liberals do indeed know what conservatives hear and what they say.
Eh, last time I tried to talk to them I was "just showing off how educated and politically correct" I was, so -- I think they hear what liberals say and dismiss it as being liberal rather than acknowledge it
@darwinwoodka @rasterweb I can't speak for you, who I infer is a liberal, or for the conservative you were talking to, but I find most people on both sides are living in some degree of a bubble, and are hearing the boom of an echo chamber.
Your interaction sounds typical. Ad hominem arguments, etc. But I hear it from both sides regularly.
I find a lot of the same words used on both sides are defined differently, and it is very easy for people to be talking straight past each other.
@darwinwoodka @rasterweb I haven't read this, but coincidentally, this just came through my feed:
@darwinwoodka @poleguy @rasterweb
There is this AllSides news site, founded by a rightwinger, a centrist, and a liberal, which explicitly shows how a variety of news sites cover the same topic. But it seems to me that their readership must largely consist of people who aren't happily high on their own confirmation bias loops. (Also, their "left" category includes CNN and The Guardian, which shows the founders' unawareness or uncaring-ness of Overton Window dynamics.) https://www.allsides.com/unbiased-balanced-news
Small city fifty kilometers south of Buenos Aires here. Being an university town is the only thing that keeps us from utter right-wing idiocy. We're also where queers come to get out of their closets. Conservative nightmare.
Public libraries, too. They represent the best of America society.
@rasterweb Only favoriting this because I’m happy for them to realize there is much more to this world than what you’re told 🩷
Otherwise, it’s not a good thing when you have a group of people trying to stop others from learning, no matter what their excuse is 😾
This is much less an environment result and much more a personality result. Openness vs. not.
One sees these personality traits play out in travel-- those who possess openness eschew scripted group travel options, opting for immersion/freedom to explore instead. Those without that characteristic do the exact opposite.
The former group finds travel expansive- intellectually, emotionally, and politically. The latter? They are simply visiting a theme park.
@kitkat_blue I think it's both. If you live in a small town that is pretty conservative, and filled with white people, you may not have much of a chance to meet different types of people.
I do agree with your thoughts on travel, and I love to travel outside the US and experience other places, people, and cultures.
Graduates from those subpar segregationist "Christian" academies will only meet diversity in public schools & college.
Isolation & information silos -- the censorship of knowledge necessary for MAGA to thrive, like cancer.
The cognitive dissonance sets in the minute these people meet immigrants, POC, women, and LGBTQ.
@rasterweb I've always cracked up (and also cried) at the idea that it's the professors who are turning students progressive.
Ummm, I've got a secret to tell you...it's the books and learning, people. Try it sometime.
(Of course, plenty of right wingers know that, but it's a lot easier to convince people that woke professors are bad than to convince people that ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY AND LEARNING is bad.)
@rasterweb
Let's apply the 4 pillars of cult control to MAGA in rural America
BEHAVIOR: Church & social circles dictate the norm. Non-conformity leads to social shunning.
INFORMATION: A sealed bubble. Fox News & local radio filter reality; external facts are labeled as "lies."
THOUGHT: Dogma over logic. God, Country, and "Leader" merge. Doubt is framed as betrayal.
EMOTION: Fear of the "other" vs. the pride of the "moral elite."
Manipulation isn't about intelligence—it's about isolation. ◤
The more I travel the more I like people, especially those different than me.
@rasterweb a "MAGA for Mamdani" supporter was interviewed for this episode, from #MorePerfectUnion, and he said his awakening to the values of socialism was a visit to Japan, and needing to get healthcare while there, and discovering how well it worked for him, the human who needed healthcare and got it.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
- #MarkTwain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It
@morgan I saw that video last week! It makes you confused but also hopeful?
I remember back in November AOC doing a livestream and finding out people voted for her but also voted for Trump... One guy said "You both stand up for people and say what you think!" and, uh, well...
@rasterweb ideology will be our undoing. Finding common ground among the thick overgrowth of ideology will lead us to the path through.
Really tortured metaphor there
Nothing is ever "real" to them until it is personal. See also "the only moral abortion is my abortion"
Ten or so years ago, I heard a kid speak at an awards ceremony. He was being awarded for his contribution to the community, in this case, as a trail builder / maintainer. He used this phrase as the keynote of his speech.
"There is no they. They is us."
He talked about how trail users would complain that "They should..." when it was apparent to him that there is no they, they is us. We should.
@darwinwoodka please don't take this as anything other than me trying to find a way forward.
There is no them. They is us.
Well I do think it's hard for me to find solidarity with people who don't believe my kids should exist or love who they love.
@ericmacknight @morgan @rasterweb
I had the big Pogo book and both my kids read it
@rasterweb Right is wrong, left is correct.
Right wing simply favours the lucky few too much.
Left wing has flaws but serves the needy far more.
I had a similar experience in 1976, only it wasn't 'going to the big city'. It was, 'joining the Air Force'.
I was thrust into a multi-racial and multi-cultural environment and being the kind of person I am I turned to curiosity instead of hatred.
Really? All it took was finding out the Blacks and Chicanos I was living with were more like me than they were different. But the real driver was listening to their stories and learning what it was like on their side of the color line.
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