Friend Infected With Right Wing Brain Worms - What to Do?

They love to claim they’re misunderstood and that the harassment/threats by comicsgaters are due to either a few bad apples or outright exaggerations and lies by the sinister SJWs. It can’t *possibly* be a logical outgrowth of the Comicsgaters’ rhetoric, no sir.

But but.. "Everyone should be welcome to make great comics!" is entirely what they're whinging about happening, right?

Read between the lines and what they’re really saying is, “sure, everyone should be free to make whatever comics they want, but leave that PC social justice shit out of my Spidey-Man wahhhhh”

They’re mad at Mom for making them share their toys with baby sis.

I think the only appropriate response is for creators to diversify representation in comics to the extent that there are no straight white male characters left at all.

(PS, from what I've been able to glean, the comicsgaters' rallying cry seems to be 'actually, it's about declining comic book sales.')

I think theres a question of what we react to and how we react. In the case of the comic guys last statement it appears that he is saying something ostensibly ok on the surface, "There is no place for harassment, racism, misogyny, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia or sexism in comics." but that latebloomer knows that really he is meaning something different that doesnt tally with the actual words.

this is common in my experience, and gets to the heart of a lot of the disconnect. In reverse I know, with my cousin, if I say anything that is say, two sentences long - he will interrupt after the first, "But thats not xyz". He's already decided what I'm going to say before I've spoken and is reacting to that. Its part of what makes the conversations draining, a sense of talking past each other, but it has made me more cognisant of trying to respond to whats actually said, not what i think/know is 'underneath', and just in general speaking less

but that latebloomer everybody in the fucking universe

Its not quite related but I couldn't find the appropriate thread, about the woman who pretends she has never heard of The Beatles, but is culturally aware or herself in relation to everything else. I'm not sure how seriously it was to be taken as a thing but I actually found it really useful!

The Beatles are a great example of something that a) I don't have any real interest in or particular opinion of, and b) that lots of other people really do, some of who may well categorize you based on your opinion to questions like "are they the best band of all time?". Which is a question I have no answer to

The only way not to take part in 'the beatles exercise' is to have never heard of them. I didn't really think about it until my cousin said something about burkas/niqabs. I can see this being one of those right wing brainworms / talking points. I said I'd no idea what he was talking about. Putting forward a counter-argument was just going to validate the whole thing, the brainworms are designed to work against resistance/opposition/reaction, not against neutrality/ignorance/apathy.

He's already decided what I'm going to say before I've spoken and is reacting to that.

I have often experienced this. If you do not make the argument they expect you to make, for which they have a ready-made answer, they still pretend you made that argument and deliver the same ready-made answer. It is fruitless to point out that you did not say what they pretend you said, and you do not need to answer their pat rejoinder, because it did not address your point.

Another approach I have frequently noted is that no matter what nuance or qualification you make in your statements about the world, they will be treated as if they were an extremely bald and simplistic. Then they proceed to demolish their version of your argument on the grounds that it is not accurate to the real world. Pointing out that their simplistic version of what you said is what is inaccurate, while what you did say is perfectly valid, does not penetrate their consciousness.

Lastly, they tend to think in dualities and constantly create false dichotomies, so to their minds, if any part of your worldview (which they have stripped down and warped to suit their prejudices) is false, it proves that the opposite is true.

It becomes maddening after a while. And it gets neither of you anywhere.

I guess its the faux-naif approach - I'm not saying its a good thing overall, but it DOES work with friends/relatives with brainworms as it takes the wind out of their sails. They have often turned up ready for battle, talking points honed and sharpened. Its powered by reaction, but not just words but feelings of irritation or annoyance. I noticed if i show any signs of annoyance this is perceived as good, that he must be on the right track. The value in his points is measured by the reaction if causes. If i counter anything about burkas it reinforces that he is in the right, and he takes energy from that.

I know from this thread and other like it, that many people avoid family members because they can't escape these kinds of conversations and end up in fights. I don't know why but certainly in my cousins case I feel he is looking for this to happen, because of the validation it provides. The existential fight between leave and remain, city and united, ronaldo and messi.

This misnomer that any of these things are about what is being said, when it is about who you are or identify as. He needs my reaction and he can't have it

do these conversations ever change any of your own opinions/thoughts?

I doubt it, because even when their interlocutor says something that appears reasonable, they're still wise enough to decipher what it really means.

I am not getting the impression, from the thread title on down, that reasonable is on the menu - this isn’t “Liberty vs Safety: debate”

I always find it quite liberating when ppl abandon the basic good faith of proper conversation, you can really let rip

^ New board description.

do these conversations ever change any of your own opinions/thoughts?

― lee guacamole (darraghmac),

Sadly never, but this is because they aren't conversations!! They are statements masquerading as conversations. They don't have the ebb and flow of conversations, which is why I don't like having them. I think in general its very difficult for anyone to have their opinions on anything changed in an exchange that doesn't have the give and take of a conversation

It makes me think a bit of those videos on youtube where someone DESTROYS someone else but whenever I have seen one its someone talking very fast and loud. I can see how it works when the person who's opinion is supposed to be changed is the viewer, but its strange in a one-to-one conversation when there is no audience to win over. But with my cousin it feels like there is an implicit or imagined audience that is being won over.

The thing is, I'm an indecisive person, I can have my mind changed fairly easily! but not like this!

it is making me think of a bad interaction with my brother recently. I probably could have dealt with it better, but he started talking in comments section quotes or something, and the type of shit that enrages me. And I pointed out to him that he is not quite the rugged individualist he thinks he is, especially when the main reason he's never ended up at a foodbank is the financial assistance he gets from his step-dad. I completely deflated him with that burn, but he'll just dig in deeper now!

regarding avoiding the "beatles exercise" i think there are other ways of doing it. i'm more than usually obsessed with them but if someone asks me if they're "the best band ever" i will actively call out that question as meaningless. constantly resorting to metadiscussion has its pitfalls, but i don't think it's inherently worse than the faux-naif approach.

i'm generally a big advocate of, in discussions, listening to what other people say, because it's frequently the only way to get those people to listen to themselves.

i am also a big fan of avoidance as a potentially useful metaconversational gambit.

i am also a big fan of avoidance as a potentially useful metaconversational gambit.

Like when you see someone coming toward you with an "I have something to say" look on their face and you very quickly walk to the other side of the room?

well, meta-relational, not really specific to a conversation. i'll talk to you but you have to make the invisible audience you're declaiming to go home first, that kind of thing.

on consideration this seems like it could be related to the effect of online discourse. anything one posts online does, of course, have an invisible audience.

Another approach I have frequently noted is that no matter what nuance or qualification you make in your statements about the world, they will be treated as if they were an extremely bald and simplistic. Then they proceed to demolish their version of your argument on the grounds that it is not accurate to the real world.

a fantastic (well, not "fantastic") example of this is playing out right now after the DeSantis comments, where commenters are spewing all kinds of disingenuous shit like "you can't say 'dog whistle,' because you already said 'dog' was racist when Trump said it about Omarosa"

(that is, sadly, a real thing I read)

ime faux-naif leads to more talking as if it’s a subject they feel well versed in, they may attempt to assume the mentor role, or if they know your general position on things may think you’re not well educated on the subject and see it as a path to conversion to their larger philosophy.

i like it only as a precursor to disengage with someone who I don’t have a close relationship with, or is in a position to do me harm if i really lay into them (i.e., boss at team happy hour).

Faux-naif isn't quite the right term, the beatles example becomes one because they were a giant thing, and its not so much about the viewpoint as the subject matter. At the end of the day I don't want to talk about burkas or John McCain with my cousin, or with anyone else - and find my anxiety levels in such interactions are directly related to how much of the speaking I am doing.

I always find it quite liberating when ppl abandon the basic good faith of proper conversation, you can really let rip

there's a lot of wisdom in this!

I don't "debate" (ugh) people unless there's a good faith assurance on both sides that we are open to changing our minds. This is almost never the case so I almost never engage in political discussions with conservatives.

But, as a hunch, I'd be tempted to say that you're always better off arguing over first-principles rather than "facts."

Tucker Stone had a strong editorial on ComicsGate the other day:

Elsewhere, the developments in the ongoing social media annoyance/terrorism campaign grouped under the term #comicsgate continues to showcase more of what seems like a near infinite supply of the same brand of knuckle-dragging stupidity that goes along with any campaign whose only real message is one of whining complaint. Be it a harassment campaign circling around Darwyn Cooke's widow, multiple con-artist-led crowdfunding campaigns for comics no one will ever enjoy, an endless cycle of arguments that demand one immerse themselves in never-ending strings of social media updates, unreadable blog posts & supremely boring youtube videos involving people who are indistinguishable from an eye-rolling 9-year-old simply so you can understand what in the fuck they're all talking about and, most recently, a guy sending a picture of his asshole to another guy he dislikes online.

...there isn't much to say about the people involved in this particular subset of "the culture". Like the gamergaters that seem to have served as their inspiration, comicsgate is the last cry of a dying breed. They've already been replaced by the millions--not hundreds of thousands, millions--of children who have been reared on Raina, Yang & Kibuishi, by the tweens and teens who bleed Viz. They're going to be offensive, hateful, and annoying while they sink, but even the most lazy of searches of their hashtags sees each of their attempts at insurrection drowned out by a chorus of people who, while they occasionally seem to only marginally care about comics and art, at least recognize that racism and homophobia behaviors to be shamed. This has been coming for a while, this reckoning--and it will probably be a little bit louder, and a lot bit stupider, while people like Ethan Van Sciver and Richard Meyer bleed it for whatever money it has left.

For what it's worth? More power to them. The sooner those guys burn out the financial core of this dipshit movement, the better. None of this has resulted in better comics, better writing about comics, or any good jokes. It's just eaten up lives, time and talent that could've been spent doing absolutely anything else, while ensuring that a large portion of interesting people spent way too much time online being batted around by a firehose of annoyance. And no, just to be clear, I don't mean the recent string of second-tier superhero freelancers, end-of-career bloggers and Image pitchmen who have made copy and pasting empty platitudes their latest attempt to brand themselves in a more appealing fashion so they won't be swept out of the door with the creeps when all those aforementioned millions who are growing up on comics, manga & middle-grade fiction that actually treats them like human beings with lives of value start deciding what the next wave of art is supposed to look like. The interesting people are the critics who didn't try, the artists who walked away, and the collaborations between groups that couldn't happen because of the constant poisoning of the well that comes from being a part of an industry that waits until the last minute, every fucking time, to get off its ass and make a moral choice to tell these losers to go a long time ago.

On one level I feel bad for my friend because this bubble of support is eventually gonna dissipate and he’s going to be left out in the cold with his participation in this bullshit tainting him forever.

Don't feel bad for him. This is the ideology he supposedly subscribes to, to the detriment of others. Meritocracy, free market, alpha white maleness, right? I don't get hanging on to people who are just lost by choice. If he was an addict or had recognized health issues, I could see putting in effort. Being around to hear or debate this bullshit is enabling. Say your thing and get out.

xxp good piece. too bad he has a name that suggests he'd be some kind of Fox News talking head

OMG, Kyle Baker is amazing.

So excited to be part of the new #comicsgate line of books. pic.twitter.com/o4Z1gxfHtw

— Quality Jollity (@KyleJBaker) September 4, 2018

going back and forth on whether I should add my right-wing trump loving family back on FB and then just refute every single idiotic meme they post with actual facts or whether that is not worth my time.

Don’t

it is not worth your time

thanks, that's what I was thinking. the majority of them have moved well beyond rationality into unhinged territory; also, I never have to actually be around them so it shouldn't matter to me as much as it does.

yeah, you have no real obligation to offer the milk of human kindness to cousins you don't ever see imho

involving yourself emotionally to the point of wanting to refute idiotic memes in this construction being a form of kindness.

Do not try to argue rationally with people who insist upon irrationality. It is a losing battle. I think shunning might be the best/only option at this point.

FB is a uniquely terrible platform for political convos, much less for trying to directly change someone’s mind

FB, twitter, instagram...that's where the idiot trolls are kings and you will never win.

all too true

why do people still use fb

Cousin-related guilt I assume

FB is a uniquely terrible platform

I've had zero second thoughts about hiding friends or family members who post obnoxious political stuff. I don't need to take up any extra space in my head contemplating their awful POVs.

fb grand except for ppl who think its for learning/instruction which is a terrible terrible terrible concept to have about fb or anything else rly

Dmac TT is mostly OTM, aside than the fact that ultimately this was what finally forced Jol out

Refuting anything said just reinforces the point. What greater seal of approval can there be than have one of the enemy turn up and refute it for you? Any kind of learning/instruction has to have their guard down and wanting to listen (and yours too). This does happen! it can even (possibly) happen on fb.

With my hardcore RW cousin, I never refute anything, I may ask questions but I never offer my own opinion unless asked. If asked a leading question I say "no idea, never heard of it". If asked an open honest question I give an open honest answer. This very rarely happens

One thing that has happened with my cousin is, deep levels of misreading - the sense that there is another conversation underneath the actual conversation that is taking place. I don't even think its wilful, and I aim for clarity in saying anything - but even in the simplest of exchanges something is misunderstood somewhere. And this extends well outside of anything political. e.g something as simple as "Will you get the train when you go?", leads to something like "what makes you think I'm going tomorrow?". And i'm flummoxed, how did "tomorrow" get in there? It feels like there are lots of unsaid levels to a conversation, its just more obvious in political stuff but happens outside of it too

all agreed, anvil in on a four year contract pls

I think whats happening is there is this "idea", but then only a part of it is communicated, and thats what I then respond to, but there's more to it than what I'm responding to so miscommunication is there right at the very beginning.

I also notice a deep reluctance to writing anything down, like in making a decision about something I suggest well ok write down the pros and cons and lets see what we've got. He is very reluctant to do anything like this, and the decision ends up being made more on a kind of instinct, and only at that point will the reasons come out - like after the fact. The answer must come first, and only then do the questions get a look in. Which leads to a strange sense of outcome being pre-ordained, almost as though questioning or analyzing the options is somehow upsetting the natural order. Thats why i think 'refuting with facts' is kind of a mugs game - at least with my cousin. actual 'politics' is tangential, its much deeper than that