Times where someone / something genuinely changed your mind about a Political / Ethical / Social Issue

Thanks, Boxedjoy, that's a really wonderful reply - I really appreciate the thought and consideration you put into it, and it's very helpful for me to read your nuanced understanding of a complicated and non-simple change.

To my recollection I've never believed anything patently false and then been truthpilled by a person rather than the arrival of further information

I guess I wasn't specific enough in my original question - but I wanted to leave it wide-open enough for people to talk about both kinds of scenarios?

Because, basesd on a lot of stuff I've read by Whitney Phillips et. al. even when people *DO* leave genuine brainwormed, cult-like organisations, it is seldom the kind of instant truthpill, factbomb approach that does it, it's a long, slow realisation that stuff doesn't add up, followed by an unravelling and a disillusionment, rather than a sudden insight.

But the other stuff - the "you grew up your whole life being taught something that was just not true, missing or incomplete, and you believed it because you never really encountered information that contradicted it" - is more amenable to the sensation of sudden, ice-shelf-collapsing insight?

...

But the more I read this thread, the more I'm realising - it seems like (apart from the few people who have described sudden changes of heart) people don't notice themselves changing? That I read ILX threads from 15, 20 years ago, and I'm shocked by some of the attitudes on display. But things did change, because on threads from today, those same words, attitudes, actions are simply no longer acceptable. But I'm starting to get the feeling that most people, when pressed on what happened, why it changed, would not be *able* to give a coherent answer is why, or how, or what happened to make it different?

(I often read, in blogs and on twitter, about this strange phenomenon underlying insititutional racism, whereby racism just... "happens" without any white people noticing any actual racists. But also the reverse seems true, that labour gets erased, that anti-racism also just kind of "happens" without any white people noticing any anti-racists. Culture or cultural change as something that is just kind of *done*, without noticing who is doing the changing. In fact, I'm doing it myself, but saying "Reading on blogs" instead of naming the blogs, or "people on twitter" without saying who they are. Curious.)

I had a longish post that I deleted, but if I were to sum it up in a sentence I would say that change has definitely been slow and gradual for me, and the single biggest factor affecting my thinking has been being married to a non-white person for more than 25 years and just observing what they go through. (Just to pick one tiny example, I am the Designated Speaker-to-Authority Figures in our house, because having a white male voice on the phone gets better and faster results. I'm sure others can speak to similar dynamics.) That, and living in a town where I am a minority (I'm the only white person in my building, the only native-born US citizen, the only person for whom English is a first language) and just...living life.

Thanks, Boxedjoy, that's a really wonderful reply - I really appreciate the thought and consideration you put into it, and it's very helpful for me to read your nuanced understanding of a complicated and non-simple change.

I've gone in the opposite direction, I was pretty much a Unionist when I lived in Scotland, living in England has made me, not so much a believer in Scottish independence, as completely opposed to the Union, which seems a completely worthless and dishonest enterprise.

A lot of that was through interaction with English people and realizing they were so clueless and indifferent.

That and nothing having to look at "Scorrish" Nationalists on the news everyday.

not having to look

I'd never claim to be Mr woke but I think a long exposure to a range of voices here and on the slightly less horrible corners of social media has been something of a very slow awakening.

I'd always considered myself to be Not Racist and Not Sexist and Not Phobic of anything LGBTQI. Some of my best etc etc.
However, I grew up in the wild and white West of Scotland where racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and abliest jokes and views are aired readily and frequently and are rarely challenged. I grew up in a world where people are nominally socialist but read and repeat right wing tabloid garbage.
I therefore arrived at adulthood as something of a mixed bag, mostly left leaning and right thinking but riddled with prejudice and bias built up through years of exposure.

Exposure to better behaviour and thinking online has, I think, helped me to change my thinking, behaviour and language accordingly. More importantly, it's helped me articulate these issues with my children in ways my parents would never have attempted (or even wanted to).

An illustrative example is in my attitude to trans women. When I was a lad they were called "trannies", they were very rare, they were seen as freaks and deviants, and they were there to be mocked.
I grew up and learned not to judge (bleurgh).
I still didn't exactly go out of my way to learn anything or to support them in any way.
I was exposed to some trans activism and while I broadly supported their aims I figured there were a lot of people on the Left wasting time arguing over pronouns while the Right was bulldozing the world.
I eventually learned how absolutely cruel it was to deny someone his/her/their right to be he/she/them.
I found myself teaching colleagues (fucking cavemen, frankly... "but what do I call It?" seriously!) about how they should treat and address a trans woman we occasionally worked with by leaning on things I'd read here and elsewhere online.

I still have a way to go on trans issues (e.g. I still _sometimes_ find myself thinking some of those worried about self identity wrt "female spaces" might _sometimes_ have a point. Also less importantly I think the impact on female/women's sports is uncertain and needs some thinking) so I'll keep reading and listening.

Similarly I'm sure my attitudes on all those other biases have matured.

So I don't think I've outright had my mind changed so much as allowed it to be molded into a slightly better shape.

Sorry, I should qualify that bit on self identity. I worry about the risk of it being done in bad faith by a predatory man, not by a trans woman.

(still got lots to learn)

I was raised Catholic but like many people I rejected the faith in my adolescence, and by the end of university was one of those people who says things like "religion is a virus". But in my early twenties I began to notice that the people I admired the most were religiously active people. I don't say believers, because belief suggests that what's central are the propositions of a religious, what the god is like, what its rules are; and many of those things didn't matter very much to me, or even seemed preposterous. But the ways these people lived their lives, against money and the accumulation of wealth, caring for others directly (i.e. not just by sending checks), indeed devoting their lives to care: I came to admire them and to want to live like them. And so I became a practicing Christian again, first as a Protestant then finally again as a Catholic.

I want to stress that it wasn't what others said that changed my mind, but what others did.

The only time I can consciously remember this happening to me as a result of my personal lived experience is with guns. I was fairly pro gun, comfortable with them, had used and owned them, then an experience involving guns caused me to critically reexamine my assumptions about them and ideas about safety, power, fear, defense, etc, until i realized that very little of what I thought about guns and our relationship to them held water. But even in that case it wasn't an overnight thing, my experience was a catalyst that caused me to start rethinking my ideas, it was probably a couple years before I realized that I had made a 180 degree turn on the issue.

Less dramatically, I can name a number of times this has happened to me with regard to various environmental or related science issues, which I guess makes sense because those are issues where its often possible for even an idiot layperson like myself to just sit down and try to educate yourself on the actual relevant science and get a sense of whether my original assumptions were accurate or whether i was talking out of my ass.

for example, a lot of people dont realize that the earth is actually not a globe but a flat disc

I want to stress that it wasn't what others said that changed my mind, but what others did.

Euler I am sort of in the middle of that transition myself, not quite as far along as you but getting there. True as well in my case that its very largely a result of other people modeling behavior & ideas rather than people presenting persuasive arguments to me.

I'm glad to hear it, One Eye Open!

Oh that's actually a very good one; I was EXTREMELY anti-religion until I got to college. I realized the church choir paid its singers and auditioned for entirely mercenary reasons, then fell in love with the breadth and scope of sacred choral music, which made me seek out other church choirs when I graduated, which put me in the orbit of a bunch of really great, liberal/progressive religious people that turned my view of how people interact with their faith on its head. I wouldn't claim to be a Christian but I have a lot more respect for those I've met and sung with/for, and I know there are many more out there like them, which gives me some amount of hope that I never previously had.

This is a great thread idea, Branwell, it's been nice this past hour to recherché my changing views over the past 30-or-so years and take stock in them.

I had a highly resonant conversation with an activist friend some five years ago. It went like this:

Me: "How many times a month do people point out that something that you've said or done is racist?"
Them: "Oh, like once a week?"

This friend's engagement with activism, and commitment to allyship, has left them more susceptible to be on the receiving end of correctives. They had to work to allow their views to be malleable, and divorce their "hurt feelings" from necessary criticisms and corrective engagement. I think about this a lot!

As for "when my mind has changed", I have many instances where my mind has changed in a way that some would consider to be anti-progressive; that is, I have only become further entrenched in my (basically) pragmatic views, that conflict can be resolved with resolution (not revolution), that equity can be achieved with discussion and amendment (not violence), that bad takes can be best addressed with engagement (not public humiliation). These attitudes, at times, run counter to certain accepted progressivist views.

Here are some instances where my mind has been changed in ways that would be, I suppose, deemed "progressive", that spring to mind, in reverse chronological order:

1. I was recently informed of the non-viability of the word "savages" and no longer use it or its variants

2. It was recently proposed to me that the best way to resolve TERF/trans conflict is the normalization of, and education of, penises as being "normal" on women. I've never felt anything weird about "a woman's penis" personally; the "eureka" was really that other people should be invited to have the same attitude, rather than allowing any concessions whatsoever toward obsolete and incorrect essentialism

3. Several years ago, but rather late in life, I was informed as to the motivation behind Imperialist escalation of conflict in oil-rich nations, and why a country such as USA would profit from escalating (or initiating) such conflict

4. When I was in my 20s, I had an apathetic attitude toward Indigenous people in Canada and their struggles. Because I was in close proximity to so many New Canadians, many of whom had immigrated (or their parents had immigrated) to Canada to escape situations of extreme conflict, I did not understand why Indigenous people did not share a New Canadian's pragmatic attitude toward existing and thriving in this country, and its colonialist structures. My attitude has changed to a point where I find my previous apathy to be execrable and shameful

5. I would retrospectively describe my politics as a teenager as being "extremely socially left" but being essentially economically conservative. In my 20s I became aware that "economic conservatism" is effectively a method of maintaining the same power imbalances that oppress people socially

6. As recently as five years ago, I had a fundamentally reformist attitude toward the police in North America-- I believed that the police force could be reformed with disarmament, and diversification of their activities (don't send a cop to deal with somebody who is suicidal, i.e.). I now have a hardline abolitionist attitude toward the police, and see no use for their continued existence, on the whole

Here are some instances where my mind has become further convinced of views that would be, in certain circumstances, considered "non-progressive", that spring to mind:

1. I maintain that the left is divided by semantics and hubris, and that the functional differences between, say, in Canada, the Liberal party and the NDP, while not superficial, are surmountable, and that the most effective amendments to critical social and economic issues will be achieved by unity of these factions-- essentially, the progressive vote is divided and this should not be the case

2. I maintain that conflict between most factions on the left can be simplified to disagreements between "abolitionism" and "reform", and that the sooner we can agree upon which is the most effective stance to take on any given issue, the faster we'll achieve change

3. I maintain my aforementioned attitude that pragmatism is the most effective path toward achieving equity; this, despite the fact that "the pragmatic left" has become somewhat of an insult in certain avenues of contemporary discourse

4. I maintain that pacifism and non-violent response are necessary at all times; in the face of people who would provide me with impassioned (and convincing) discourse otherwise, I remain resolutely pacifistic, and committed to resolution instead of escalation

5. I maintain that any healthy society is grounded on an amicable and symbiotic relationship with one's government, and do not agree with any "smash the state" rhetoric; I believe that the state should be in service of the marginalized and under-privileged, and dismantling the state in the name of "revolution" only endangers the people who the state should be protecting

6. I do not share any idea that we will ever achieve an equitable society, and believe that society will constantly be in a state of upheaval; finding ways of making this change continuous and constructive is of critical importance

7. I continue to believe that The Enemy should be engaged with in conversation, not in battle

This is a subject I think about a *lot*, since I am someone who has done the ideological 180 in life, and it weirds me out to consider how it might not have happened if x, y, and z conditions hadn't been met. To be fair, when I was religious and conservative, I was still a literal child, and ignorant of so many things in the world. But I did have a real, self-consistent (or so it seemed to me at the time) worldview, so I wasn't simply parroting what I was told. I like to think this gives me an advantage when arguing with the brain-wormed, but sadly it doesn't really.

Along with virtually everyone else in this thread, my change of mind was more of a slow burn than a sudden enlightenment. I do think a key factor was being a teenager during the start of the war on terror. It became very clear then that the GOP's claims to be pro-liberty and gov't accountability were a crock of shit. Seeing the racism and xenophobia on the right go from latent to blatant at the time was also an eye-opener.

What is particularly interesting to me is this: while my beliefs about the problems of the world and how to solve them have shifted drastically leftward since then, my core *values* (influenced a huge deal by Christianity, though I do not consider myself a Christian any longer) don't seem to have changed much at all. They just express themselves differently.

Being an adult now with a modicum of self-awareness, I can observe the process of my mind changing to an extent. For example, I've come around from being a skeptic of police abolition to a supporter, but it wasn't any one particular person or argument that "made me" change my mind. However, the groundwork was already set because I was I already against police brutality and for accountability measures. If I was a gung-ho Blue Lives guy that change would probably not have been possible.

I think the most important factor is having a sense of epistemic humility. Like Branwell said upthread, simply knowing and accepting that you only hold a small piece of the puzzle is crucial. It often seems to me that most people in the world do not practice this, and they might not even know how, and that makes me feel very pessimistic about the future.

^ great post

The War On Terror had a wild effect on me. The Toronto Sun (a conservative rag) ran front page photos of two of Hussein's recently-killed sons bloodied and dismembered, with the caption "WE GOT 'EM!" I saw it and vomited in the gutter, and have resolutely anti-punitive views that are (broadly) universal-- even as these views are challenged by my own recurrent fantasies of seeing 45 and his family publicly disemboweled, I would certainly protest such an outcome were it tabled

Thanks, fgti! I feel similarly about, eg guillotine memes. The idea of retributive justice in general makes me really uncomfortable, even just "as a joke." It feels like a doorway to some really dark places.

this is just a side point to the larger points y'all are making, but one of the nice things about police abolition also inevitably bleeding into prison abolition is that it makes you rethink retributive and punitive justice entirely

having a sense of epistemic humility. Like Branwell said upthread, simply knowing and accepting that you only hold a small piece of the puzzle is crucial.

this is massively otm. i try to constantly check myself with this. in my life experience the biggest sign of intelligence (or maybe to put it better, that i'm talking to someone who i can learn a lot from) is ability to actually admit that you dont know something, or dont know enough about it to have an opinion.

Would like to point out that guillotines are to be used reluctantly, as a last resort, and not for retributive purposes

yuh

same could be said of ICBMs

Some really interesting and thought-inspiring answers on this thread today...

(But I'm also really struggling with my own self-imposed rule of 'do not argue with the opinions expressed on the thread' and wondering if I should take this to a different thread, because I am forever left feeling like I genuinely do have a different piece of the puzzle and there's got to be a way to fit them together.)

I did not understand why Indigenous people did not share a New Canadian's pragmatic attitude toward existing and thriving in this country, and its colonialist structures. My attitude has changed to a point where I find my previous apathy to be execrable and shameful

Wonderfully expressed, fgti, and I’m in exactly the same camp. I still have TONS to learn wrt indigenous issues but I’ve committed to doing the work, & am grateful to work in a company that has an Indigenous network in which I can participate.

Guillotines are a cure for billionairism, not a punishment.