Leave the Non-Combatants Out of It
It's in both sides self-interest to develop Rules of Engagement, act civilly, and be mindful of their audiences
Picking up where I left off with Hidden Tribes in my article on populism,
and adding Zachary Elwood’s The importance of criticizing one’s own group in reducing political polarization, and EE Schattschneider’s (1960) masterpiece ‘The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America’, summarized by Adam Brown here, I’d like to put forward an argument for civility towards one’s opponents and the willingness to challenge one’s allies.
This article will be written primarily addressing and critiquing the Right, but the message works both ways:
I’d like to begin this post by addressing the MAGAs - Pedes, if fired upon directly by your ideological opponents, you have my permission to shit post, mine salt, try to own the libs, and if successful, drink their tears. If they call you racist, call them groomers, because all is fair in love and culture war.
Advocates for social justice - Feel free to do the same when you encounter anyone aggressively engaging you or advocating for harm against oppressed social identity groups. If a Rightwinger, or a group of Rightwingers, opens fire, you’re also morally justified in returning it.
But if you’re on either far side of the ideological spectrum, you have every reason to develop a code of ethics regarding non-combatants, which is by the far the largest group of people.
MAGAs - if you want to try and red pill a normie and they’re open to that conversation, fine. But you’re not doing yourself any favors opening fire indiscriminately. If you hate forced (or at least coerced) vaccinations for covid, it’s fine to take on the institutions pushing for that - employers, WHO, WEF, local, state, and federal governments, etc. But most nurses and healthcare workers don’t want to be involved in this battle, and many of the people who are pushing you are doing so only because they’re afraid of the professional costs of not doing so. You can judge them, but you harm yourself by attacking them.
Same thing with educators. I wrote my dissertation arguing why you Conservatives need to be included and treated better in education. The faculty are Leftwing, and the administration even more so, but the activist Left is vastly outnumbered in these populations by Traditional Liberals who are going along with policies out of self-preservation. You can judge that, but it’s foolish to attack these civilians, and as Intellectual Dark Web champion Gad Saad, aka The Gadfather, put it bluntly, “Academia Selects for Careerist Cowardice.”
If an individual teacher says that they want to transition K-5 children and asks those children to keep that secret from their parents, that’s fair game to engage (See here for more details). But not all teachers are doing this, nor do all support it.
The psychology behind the idea that run of the mill educators and nurses are legitimate targets because of their association with institutions is rooted in cognitive biases, which you and everyone else, have.
Particularly:
Confirmation Bias - the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs.
Group Attribution Error - The group attribution error refers to people's tendency to use a group's decision to attribute correspondent attitudes to its members, even when information is available that indicates that all members do not support the decision.
Fundamental Attribution Error - The fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or over-attribution effect) is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional, or personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations.
2/3 of the people in this country are not your ideological foes, and even some of the people who oppose you on some policies, agree with you on others. Those are the people who are going to decide elections, and because people are largely irrational, a lot of why they vote for or against your cause will come down to the amount of positive and negative experiences they’ve had with you and your opponents.
To go back to Zachary Elwood’s article, when people on your side are actively being overly aggressive and making your side look foolish or malevolent, you should consider seeing if it’s possible to get them to reconsider the gains they’re making by firing up their base vs. the costs of alienating Moderates.
Where they can’t be reached and won’t change, then have the courage to step into the vacuum and represent the more intellectual, nuanced politics you’d like to see more of. You’re in the fight too, and if you represent yourself well that will have an impact.
The Elite Cue Hypothesis states that people take up positions, attitudes, and behaviors that they see in the leaders they respect and admire. So by conducting yourself to a high standard, even when provoked, you’ll set the tone for others to follow.
Because this is primarily addressed to Conservatives, I’ll use this famous example of self-control in the face of intimidation that launched Jordan Peterson into the stratosphere:
The more you, or the other side, can learn how to do this, the more people you’ll pull to your cause, or at the very least, not drive them into the arms of their opponents. Goof off with your friends, cheer on your side, get into it with the other side when provoked, but think about how your behavior is being perceived by those watching those engagements - their judgement on how you represent your side will determine their future political behavior. In Schattschneider’s terms, you always want to expand the scope of the conflict to create as many allies as possible.
And this need for civility and decorum is especially true for friendships and family. Whether you advocate for freedom or equality, a world where people choose to agree with you is better than one where they are forced or coerced into agreeing with you. If you have people who are close to you who are on the other team, demonstrate grace and humility by conducting yourself as a host or a guest when you’re together. Put the relationship ahead of the conflict because, win or lose, that person is going to be in your life long after the political battles are won or lost.
The argument has been made here, here, and here that civility masks social forces like White Supremacy, but think about how many people have been driven out of the Left because of its endless hostility towards allies who aren’t pure enough. Not to mention, civility was the foundation of one of the most successful campaigns against racism, where Daryl Davis convinced 200 White supremacists to leave organizations like the KKK, by being a man of virtue and civility who focused on our shared humanity to deradicalize people.
[Update - Right after publishing this I found out that Daryl Davis and the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism is coming to Denver right before the Heterodox Academy summit in June, so I’m going to get a chance to try and go meet him. :)]
Even if you hate or fear MAGA or Wokeness, you should still always strive to conduct yourself with virtue and grace. This will not only help us all return to civility and reduce the chances of hot civil war, but you’ll make success for your side more likely by expanding your circle of allies.