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Gorilladrums

@ Gorilladrums @lemmy.world

Posts
5
Comments
322
Joined
3 yr. ago

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  • Again, you're arguing against ghosts here. I'm not against protests or people campaigning to get their rights. I'm pointing out that optics matter a lot in social movements, and it's their responsibility to adapt optics fit for the society they're in. If people can't understand or accept your optics then your movement is not going to get any support.

    I don't think you understand the basic fact that no civil rights movement in any democratic society has ever achieved results without the support of the public. Do you seriously think people rioting and being offensive is all it takes to achieve any results? Hell no. The public is THE greatest pressure any movement can apply towards the government, and that pressure is what enacts change.

    You seem to think very highly of BLM, but the reality is that it's not a successful movement. It fizzled out and didn't achieve anything substantial. The movement, like you, is stubbornly resistant to adapting and changing. This rigidity caused it to fall behind and stagnate as it was never able to overcome the criticisms against it. There's a reason why BLM's support has completely tanked since it's peak during the pandemic.

    According to Pew, the movement went from having 67% support (31% oppose) in 2020 to 51% support (46% oppose) in 2023. That's less than what it was back in 2017 (55% support, 34% oppose). If the trend continued since then, and it likely did, then that means the majority of people now oppose the movement. This isn't just a white people thing, this decline in support is true for all demographics. Yet the majority of Americans consistently support racial justice and equality. This discrepancy means that the movement is not aligned with the public even though the public supports the community and cause, and that entirely falls on the optics of the movement.

    If BLM refuses to adapt, it will continue fade into history like it is now and it will replaced by a new movement that is willing to evolve and optimize optics.

    Also, the link you posted is invalid so I can't see it.

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  • But again, that's just circular reasoning. What you're saying here doesn't invalidate the points I've made earlier.

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  • Good thing I didn't say Russia then. I said I wanted to see the Kremlin in its current state crash and burn, and I stand by that.

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  • The idea is adapt and optimize to get the best results, not to prevent all criticism, that's just impossible.

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  • I suspect that all these slogans originated in more radical far left circles where extremism and purity testing are more rampant. Meaning that the face value meaning of the slogans is the intent. As the slogans became more mainstream, the moderate left tried to damage control by introducing alternate meanings to appeal to the public. However, that hasn't really worked out because the average person doesn't care about the extra nuance. They'll just see the slogan and take the face value meaning as the intention. At face value, a lot of these terms are just bad and people rightfully oppose them. Having someone try to explain to them something along the lines of "ackhsually the slogan doesn't actually mean what it says" doesn't sound very convincing. Bad optics is a really a big problem on the left, and the crazy thing is that there's a good chunk of the left that sees no issue with it.

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  • Your analysis is simply wrong. Nobody find finds the Black Lives Matter slogan offensive. It's criticized because it's it's too vague, not because it's provocative. The reason why conservatives latched on to the slogan specifically is precisely because the underlying point is valid and true. Regardless of how you personally see it, there are a lot of people out there who came to different conclusions as to what this slogan means. Many saw it to mean that black lives matter more or that other lives matter less. This different interpretation led a lot of people who would otherwise agree with the core cause to disassociate with the movement. This difference in support is key to any social movement as it defines a movement gaining enough support to achieve real change vs not. Optics matter.

    You brought up the point that movements need to be offensive to get anywhere, but that's not true. Social movements like this don't need a "shock" factor in their optics. The videos of police brutality and the disproportionate statistics do that for the movement. They're literally why the movement exists in the first place. The civil rights movement already demonstrates that this strategy is not effective or necessary. The same goes for the suffragette movement actually, and the LGBT movement as well.

    This idea that social movements can get anywhere by simply demanding stuff is nonsense. All social movements require the support of the public to achieve anything. The suffragette movement campaigned to gain the favor of men, the civil rights did the same with white people, and so did the LGBT movement with straight people. Without the support of these demographics, their rights would've never been voted into place. All these movements were deliberate about their messaging, slogans, and optics. They didn't try to shock people with their slogans, they wanted to convince people that they deserved their rights and they did so that appealed to everyone.

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  • I mean your line of thought is fine if you accept the premise that feminism is a movement focused primarily on the advancement of women in a society regardless of the status of men, even if the goal is equality. However, the thing that's being criticized here is the people who claim that feminism is synonymous with egalitarianism. As in feminism is also a movement for the advancement of men. However, this is an inconsistent position because the language and messaging used by the movement contradicts this notion.

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  • I feel like you're misinterpreting my point. I'm saying that optics matter in social movements. You can't expect society to go out of its to understand the nuances behind your slogans and terms, you have to do the work to find slogans that conveys your messages in ways that society understands and accepts. This is a vital part of activism, and small changes can yield in big results. If the goal is to advance the cause then this should be a no brainer move.

    You make the argument that a change in optics implies erasing the original message or adopting or that anybody criticizing bad optics is engaging in bad faith. However both of these things are not true. Let's take the Black Lives Matter slogan that you brought up as an exmaple. You seem to believe that there's a dichotomy in slogans to choose from, either it's "Black Lives Matter" or "All Lives Matter". However, this dichotomy is false. There's obviously many more options.

    One of the primary criticisms of the BLM slogan is that it's too vague on it's meaning. A lot of people, regardless of your opinions on their motivations, believe that this slogan implies that other people's lives matter less or that black lives matter more. To you it may seem obvious what it means, but the people who bring up this criticism do have a valid point as evidence by all the opposition to it. If your movement is getting nonstop criticism about the language it uses, then that's a strong indicator that there's an inconsistency in the movement's optics.

    Therefore it would be wise to examine where those might be and make adjustments. In this case, the BLM movement doesn't need to adopt the All Lives Matter slogan because that's also flawed for all the reasons you've brought up, but they could do something simple like "Black Lives Matter Too". That's all it takes to clarify the meaning and kill the criticisms about intent behind the term. Will this stop racists from being racist? No, but it does give solidify the movement's position. The truth is that there a lot of people who associate or disassociate with movements over things like this, and their support could be the difference between real change and no change. The idea here isn't to win over the racists, but the people who are hesitant to support a movement even if they agree with the cause.

    It's something that's simple yet effective. If a movements cares more about the preservation of bad optics over the advancement of its cause, then where does its values lie? Keep in mind, movements that are too stubborn and rigid to adapt will be fizzle out and be left behind in favor of ones that do.

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  • But this could be said about anything. Dickheads exist in literally every group and they participate in all levels of society like everybody else. There are dickhead misogynists and dickhead feminists. The existence of dickheads in of itself doesn't mean anything.

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  • The criticisms remain valid regardless of your opinion on the people who say them. Ultimately optics do matter in any social movement, and quite a lot. If feminism wants to be perceived as an egalitarian movement, then it has to brand itself as such. It's slogans, terminology, mentality, and the behavior of its supporters have to adjust to reflect a true adaptation of this principle. Otherwise, it'll remain a movement that will be perceived as one that is solely focused on the advancement of women in a society irrespective of the status of men.

    The current position is just inconsistent from an optics perspective. Either feminism is synonymous with egalitarianism and it adapts to reflect that or it remains as it is and gets viewed as a separate movement. I'm of the opinion that the direction the movement should take should depend on the society its in, but I digress. The point is you can't have it both ways. As long as that inconsistency exists, it will always be pointed and criticized by people.

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  • But isn't this mentality just flawed in general? Comment sections aren’t representative of society since they tend to attract the loudest, angriest voices. They're usually not a balanced sample of public opinion. Using them as proof creates a circular argument where hostility toward feminism is treated as both the cause and the evidence of its necessity. It also mistakes correlation for causation and can shut down nuanced discussion by treating all criticism as misogyny.

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  • Movements have to adapt to the societies they're in. The term feminism made sense 100 years ago because women barely had rights. However, it makes way less today because there's way more equality going on. Sure, you can point to something like Afghanistan today where the sense would make sense, and you would be right. However, the same is less true in a place like Sweden or America where gendered issues are less one sided than they used to be and the issues are more nuanced. You can't use outdated standards and expect not to receive criticism for it. Optics do matter, and if they don't accurately reflect the landscape then they'll end up doing more harm than good.

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  • It's the responsibility of the movement to be aware of the cultural connotations of the terms and slogans they choose to advertise themselves with. Movements have to adapt to fit their societies, expecting things to go the other way around is just entitlement and arrogance.

    Can you imagine how differently the movement would gone if they simply adjusted the slogan from "Black Lives Matter" to "Black Lives Matter Too". The fact that something this simple didn't happen is a failure on the movement itself. Optics matter.

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  • Fun fact: Hawaiian Pizza has nothing to do with Hawaii. It was created by a Greek guy in Ontario after he was inspired by the Chinese-Canadian dishes that he worked on making. He chose the name Hawaiian because he got his canned pineapples from the Hawaiian Pineapple Company. The dish itself is a Canadian abomination.

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  • You're not being honest here

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  • The craziest part here is that the primary goal of these movements isn't to actually achieve their objectives, but to virtue signal. If all it took to get a huge chunk of the population on your side was to change your messaging a bit, then any reasonable movement would jump at such a low hanging fruit of an opportunity to advance their cause... but they don't. These movements would really rather sacrifice optics and stall their movements than accept some criticism and adapt.

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  • Oh no, won't anyone think of the poor Kremlin!!! They can get fucked. I want to see the Kremlin in its current form crash and burn.

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  • Do people actually believe something like this?

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  • It's a valid point though. A simple change in terminology and messaging is literally all it would take for these types of criticisms to go away.