While I like the sentiment, it’s not entirely true.
You can’t convince people to change their core beliefs. That’s not how deprogramming works anyway. Cult deprogramming starts by asking them to explain and asking questions that let them unravel the problem themselves. Pointing out people’s internal contradictions tends to reinforce them, but when they run in to their own contradictions those absurd beliefs tend to unravel.
I don’t have any family members like that, but I do have an aunt who for lack of a better term believes in pretty insane tankie shit, no one talks to her though, technically we don’t invite her for christmas, she just kind of shows up and we let her join because she’s already there, if it were up to me I wouldn’t but my mom doesn’t want to do that to her sister (even though they ignore each other the whole time).
My highly religious uncle that looks like a literal gnome is the most entertaining one to be around, but only if one can mange to sneak away to smoke weed first. Otherwise it’s just a lecture about how everything I’m doing with my life goes against god.
My religious family gave up on the “you’re a sinner” lecture after I made it super clear that A) I don’t care and B) I’m not going to argue with them about it. If I got mad or tried to fight about it, they LOVED that shit, but being like, “yup!” and throwing some finger pistols their way and they don’t really have a response besides telling me to not sin. But they can only keep that up so long when you’re like, “oh no doubt, Uncle Fuckface.”
I mean, I also don’t talk to them anymore so that really solved the problem, but the cheerful agreement that I’m for sure going to hell got me through my teenage years/early 20s. Surprise, I didn’t get less queer even after all the lectures!
You’ll never change someone overnight or in one conversation, but every time you say something radically leftist, you’re planting a seed in uncle Jim-Bob that will slowly shift their way of thinking. Deradicalizing conservatives, racists, fascists, etc is hard as fuck. The important thing is that when someone goes to you and intentionally starts questioning their ideals, you’ve been handed the opportunity to change their mind slowly over months/years
Well everyone’s journey is different. I started with just finding out how cool programming is, learned about foss, and then one day said “why doesn’t everything follow foss principles?”
Add comment