How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

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Consider this a companion thread for the debate tactics one, but focused more on real life.

I'm going to make a series of observations based on my own perceptions and experiences, detailing the ways that I think many advocates and advocacy groups fail in their purpose. Most of it is going to focus on counter-productive behaviors that I've noticed, especially the many ways that these groups often alienate people that would normally agree with them and support their cause. Think of this as Dox's what not to do thread.
Everything here is strictly my opinion, so just imagine that every statement is qualified with an IMHO or YMMV.

I'm also going to try a format that I've been messing around with lately, where instead of lengthy, multiple point posts, I'm going to try and break each concept out into a separate post. No, it's not a scheme to boost my post count, I just want to make it easier for people to respond to specific points, and to reduce the ridiculous quote pyramids that result from people quoting a lengthy post to add a one sentence reply.

Last edited by Dox47 on 05 May 2013, 12:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

So, #1:

Letting the truth get in the way of what your want. I put this one first for a reason, because it's the mistake that I probably see the most often, and the one that I think is the most destructive. I'll give an example. Take a poor white person who's struggling to get along, and tell them that they not only have it easy compared to whatever minority group you're representing, but that they're actively contributing to oppression by virtue of their white privilege, even though they're not consciously doing so. Do you think that person is going to be particularly receptive to your message, even if it happens to be true? (I'm not going to argue whether it's true either way) How about a man being told he's a part of "rape culture" or "the patriarchy" and complicit in the oppression of women, again, absent any conscious action on his part? Think he's going to leap up and support feminism if approached that way? I sure wouldn't, and I happen to agree with most of the stated goals of feminism. There is a reason that the word Feminazi found such wide and instantaneous acceptance, as most everyone has been exposed someone who's taken it too far and alienated far more people than they've educated.

Even better, if anyone of a gender, race, class, etc that you consider to be privileged ever complains about being discriminated against, loudly mock and denigrate them, "poor little white boy" perhaps summing it up most succinctly; that'll really win people over to your point of view...

"But Dox", you say, "group X really does contribute to oppression merely by accepting the status quo", to which I answer "so what?". Is your goal simply to loudly air your grievances about justifiably infuriating inequities, or do you actually want to sway opinion and foment change? If it's the former, go ahead and stick to "the truth" at all costs, even as it erodes your support by alienating the very people that you need to persuade in order to make progress towards you ideal society; if it's that latter, perhaps you should consider a more nuanced approach, more honey and less vinegar. Most people are in favor of equality, most people are in favor of fairness, but getting in people's faces and painting them personally as the oppressors of society is a certain path to defensiveness and having your message shut out by cognitive dissonance.

Keep in mind that I'm not arguing for civility here, f*ck civility, but for effectiveness over point scoring.

#2 Assuming bad faith.

I personally encountered this one recently, and let me tell you, it's one of the quickest ways out there to piss someone off and completely close them down from wanting anything to do with you. Also, it opens you up to a verbal beat down.

Basically, to assume bad faith is to accuse someone who disagrees with you of having an ulterior motive for a belief rather than having honestly come by it. I run into it when conservatives accuse libertarians of only supporting drug legalization so they personally can smoke pot rather than for believing it's a destructive failure, when liberals accuse pro business people of supporting the policies they do for reasons of personal profit rather than honest belief in the rightness of the policy, or when partisans of either stripe posit that the only reason you're criticizing their "side" is because you must belong to the other one, rather than having an honest personal opinion. Other good examples would be "conservatives only hate Obama because he's black and they're racists", "liberals support welfare programs in order to make minorities dependent upon them and thus capture their votes", and "capitalists just want to exploit the workers for profit".
Basically, it's a real dick move with no upside and a lot of downsides, especially, as with most things, if you choose to double down on it when called out.

Take some prominent political donors as great examples; Mike Bloomberg, the Koch brothers, and George Soros. I'll leave the ethics of billionaires attempting to influence the political system for another thread, what I'm interested in here is motive, more specifically, presumed motive.
I'll take Bloomberg first, as I really do loath the man and think he's be significantly improved by assassination. I may have a problem with virtually everything he does right down to the way he thinks, what I don't do is claim that he's doing anything for reasons that he doesn't personally believe are the right thing to do. Unfortunately, he thinks the right thing to do is to meddle in other state's affairs, pursue unconstitutional policies against NYC area minorities, and try to legislate personal behavior from on high, but I don't actually think his intentions are malevolent, just wrong.
The Kochs are most likely to be hit with the charge of trying to further enrich themselves through their political activism, but even the most cursory research will show that they've been politically active in the most Quixotic faction since the 1970s, and that they've actually given much more money to charity than they've ever put into politics. The personal enrichment meme also fails to account for their support for marijuana legalization and $20,000,000 donation to the Bush era ACLU to fight the PATRIOT act; what's their angle there? Soros is kinda more of the same, he has a different vision of what the right thing to do is than I do, but I'll not begrudge him his right to that opinion, nor his efforts to make the world a better place, even if I feel that they're misguided and might choose to agitate against them.

See, I assume good faith, and it doesn't hurt me one bit to do it, quite the contrary.

Notice too, that good intentions alone don't mean good outcomes, and while I'm perfectly willing to credit most anyone with honest motives, I'm not letting that be an excuse for bad actions. In other words, it's perfectly okay to rip into the wisdom or intelligence of someone's opinion, idea, or proposal, but attacking their motives is a much more dangerous path; best to have really good evidence before attempting it. I'm not saying that everyone always argues in good faith, but in general, it's best to assume that they do, if for no other reason than not unnecessarily making enemies for your cause.

Add to that, then, the notion that the people who voted for Obama only want things given to them by the government.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Exactly. Unless someone says outright "I voted for Obama for the handouts", you've got no way to prove their true reason, and there are few things more insulting than having someone try to tell you why you did something. Hence my frequent sarcastic response to people who do this: "oh, so you're psychic now?".

I might broadly argue that certain welfare programs are problematic because they needlessly foster dependency rather than independence, but I won't accuse those supporting them of crassly trying to buy votes. Unless of course they admit that they are in fact trying to buy votes; I've heard stranger admissions from politicians before.

some of the things you say remind me of things i have heard anne coulture say.mosly true i would say.

Really? I can hardly think of a more toxic or alienating arguer than her, though I will admit that she's occasionally quite funny, in a demented sort of way.

My God! You and I agree on something!

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I suspect that there's more overlap than you might think; you have to remember that I'm usually only speaking up when I disagree, I don't usually make a point of noting my concurrence with something unless the statement was very well put or otherwise noteworthy. That, and I think you're often ill served by the Democratic party you put so much faith in, and I don't like seeing people get used.

I'll still put more faith in the Dems, for all their faults, than I ever will in the Repubs who seem to take delight in working against those in need.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I definitely agree. The problem is I think right-wing neoliberal economic policy will only continue to shrink the middle class while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that this will lead to increasing crime, demonstrations, and social unrest, and this in turn will lead to more extreme policing measures and restrictions on freedom. I realize libertarians and conservatives don't want this outcome, I just haven't seen convincing logical support for the argument that economic liberalization helps everyone.

Who is producing what jobs there are? It is capitalists. The politicians can have their programs only by looting the producers.

ruveyn

Did I say that you should support the Republicans? You know I don't, right? You know that there are more than two choices, right?

Oh, and you're doing exactly what I was talking about, assuming bad faith on the part of the Republicans. They subscribe to the "teach a man to fish" school rather than the "give a man a fish" school of compassion, that's a difference of opinion, not a moral outrage.

Last edited by Dox47 on 05 May 2013, 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The problem here is the word 'seem'. I think there is a real psychological difference between conservatives and liberals, to some extent at least, and that liberals are more concerned with warm, fuzzy emotions and that conservatives are more concerned with cold, hard facts. That makes conservatives seem cold-hearted to liberals, and liberals seem empty-headed to conservatives.

Sticking with the theme of the thread, I have no problem with this statement, even though I might feel differently policy wise. From my perspective, any number of progressive policies give way too much power to the state and inch us ever closer to an authoritarian dystopia, but I'm not going to accuse progressives of wanting that outcome, I'm just going to accuse them of being wrong; I think the distinction is supremely important. It's when the part I emphasized gets lost that I go from disagreement to exasperation, as the idea that anyone is actually trying to destroy society IMHO fits the bill of an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof, which is most often not forthcoming. Without support, the accusation becomes an ad hominem, and a particularly galling one at that.

However, if the guy making the argument that you think will lead to societal unrest is wearing grotesque clown makeup and a dirty purple suit, you're probably safe in assuming that he does mean for that to happen, but that's a pretty rare situation.

I didn't say you were a Republican; rather I was only stating why I am a Democrat.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer