How would you approach persuading a far extreme liberal toward center? What would you set as a realistic goal for a productive discourse? Would it be better attempt to do so in person rather than online?
Accept them. Understand them and what they say and why. Have fun and tell a joke they’ll like. Let go of trying to change them and let it happen naturally over time.
Might be a good idea to define what you consider an “extreme liberal”. Nowadays, an extreme liberal can often times be used as a label for people advocating for human rights and calling out the bad faith actors while a moderate is someone who says “Hold on, let’s hear out why these people are ethnically cleansing a population. Maybe they make good points”.
In other threads on this platform I’ve been called an “Extreme liberal” for wanting free lunch for schoolchildren. So, I think the title is just kind of applied to “anyone who disagrees with me”
Maybe try advocating for free lunch for white kids only in the future? Makes you seem more reasonable.
/s
Well, that obviously calls for deprogramming. All the commercials this month inform me you are a radical socialist trying to feed children who don’t deserve it. I think the correct answer is to throw them in labor camps instead so they can earn bread and water. Serves them right for being born poor.
How are you defining “far extreme liberal”?
Anyone who isn’t in a cult worshipping one of the most overtly corrupt con men the world has ever seen.
Someone who cares about others. It’s a terrible affliction to go through life like that.
I think privatising social security is a terrible idea and medicare for all is a good idea. So I’m basically a communist.
/s
deprogram an extreme liberal
Read Das Kapital to them
towards center
They’re already in the “center”
I think giving an example of an extreme liberal would help answer the question. Did you have some public figure in mind? If not, what are some examples of their beliefs that you’re wanting to push them to the center on?
When I encounter an extreme right or left person, I back away slowly and avoid eye contact.
“Deprogramming” makes sense in the sense for the far right because there is a lot of misinformation and fake news and outrage bait and all that kind of stuff. Getting people out of those trappings is good because it allows them to see how things really are, rather than what people want them to think.
That isn’t really a problem with the left. I mean, I’m sure you could find some extreme subreddit somewhere where people want to bring out the guillotine to kill all capitalists or cut everyone’s genitals off in the name of gender equality… But ultimately they’re much rarer than the equivalent alt right spaces.
Extreme conservatives are very common and an existential threat to many groups. Extreme liberals are a mild curiosity that need to go out and touch grass.
That should hopefully explain the votes, saying that you need to deprogram “extreme liberals” brings up questions about what you actually mean by “extreme liberal” given that it really isn’t that big an issue in society.
… Or maybe all this is just my biases.
It’s just your biases.
That isn’t really a problem with the left
Of course it is. Since the terms left and right were invented (during the French revolution), left-wing extremism has been as much a problem as the right-wing variety. The ideology of equality and fraternity is a story of bloody revolutions, purges, famines, even genocides. Depending on definitions, the body count of left-wingery is arguably even higher than that of fascism.
Of course, what Americans call an “extreme liberal” (i.e. a woke progressive rather than a liberal) is not typically a murderous Stalinist. But the habit of fetishizing abstract ideas, and seeing everything in terms of group power struggles, and the obsession with ideological purity - I hardly need to cite examples, at least from abroad we can see that these things are alive and well in America and having bad outcomes.
Not as bad as the opposite extreme though, on that I will agree.
You can be woke, progressive, and liberal. You’re talking nonsense.
Your tone here is not assisting constructive debate.
Do you Stalin think was an extreme liberal?
Of course not. An extreme liberal would be a neoliberal or ultraliberal, so basically the opposite of Stalin.
This is just America’s weird misuse of the word liberal to mean “progressive” or “socialist” or something.
Neoliberals aren’t liberal though, similar to how neoconservatives aren’t conservative; neoliberalism is an explicitly postliberal ideology that rejects the tenets of Enlightenment liberalism.
Arguably true. But personally I prefer it when words mean something over time. The fundamental concept in liberalism, since the beginning, is a concern for individual rights. That was the revolutionary idea. Looked at this way, the word ultraliberal means exactly what it looks like: an obsession with individual rights taken too far.
The neoliberal etymology is murkier because it’s really an economic term.
In any case the vernacular American usage is of liberal to mean “left-wing” is just wrong, or at least unhelpful. I wish you guys would drop it and find a more appropriate word! Progressive being the obvious candidate.
OP asked the same question about extreme conservatives yesterday but it’s not the same question, and doesn’t have the same answers. Much of the right has gone further right, then looks at the left and says “they are farther away than they used to be”
Didn’t you post a somewhat opposite yesterday using “Republican”?
Those two terms aren’t even close to equivalent in this context.
You need to define what you mean, a LOT. At least start with equivalent labels.
I bet this is going to be some sort of gotcha about how people didn’t feel the need to “deprogram an extremist liberal”, so obviously everyone is out to get the poor poor conservatives who just want to be vile in peace
The title may be edited, idk, but the other post you’re referring to says “conservative” today
Edit:Looking at the profile, the wording of both posts are identical, except “conservative” is swapped for “liberal”
Firstly, I would say, hey, I respect that you don’t think people should die hungry in the streets. Yup, that’s about it.
Hey I notice you have empathy for others. What can we do to get rid of that?
I’m curious as to why someone would want to “deprogram” progresivism. Seems like it would be for the worse.
Eugenics and prohibition were both progressive social movements.
Progressive doesn’t necessarily mean good.
Interesting point.
Haven’t you heard about how the immigrants are shutting down the labor unions and making it rain when you have plans?!?
I wouldn’t.
In fact, I would try to deprogram anyone who thinks anyone should.
hear, hear
Wow I did not interpret the term “liberal” at all in the same way that you have. Liberalism as an ideology is centrist at best, right of center at worst if you consider the overton window in developed nations other than the US.
Interesting to contrast the votes on this with the other thread about conservatives.
No problem with extremists as long as they’re our extremists.
I have yet to meet an extreme liberal that wanted to declare one of my children inferior to other humans.
I can’t say the same about conservatives.
I think most parents will agree that they are looking out for their kids first, and until your platform respects all of my children like they were your own, it gets NO support from me.
Did we fail the test because we’re wrong, or was the answer sheet wrong? Maybe we say conservatives are bad not because of some hidden bias but because conservatives are bad.
Far left extremism - ending homelessness by taking money from the rich
Far right extremism - invading a capitol building to block vote counts
SEE?!?! BoTh SiDeS aRe ThE sAmE!!
Far right extremism - ending homelessness by throwing them in jail and forcing them to work for the rich at below minimum wage
Far left extremism - silencing all opposition, one party, everyone is equal (except those who are more equal of course), corruption, executions, burning of books, and much more.
If it sounds very similar to right wing extremism, congrats, you’ve discovered a cool fact: all extremism is bad.
If you think I’m pulling it out of my ass, those things happened in my country when we were under Soviet communist occupation. Also extreme poverty, never seen before or after their occupation.
Since when are soviets extreme liberals?
Great, but that’s not what republicans mean when they say “extremist liberal.” Instead they have coopted the term “extremist” so it no longer means anything, except what they want it to, when they want it to.
That’s what extremists do, gaslight, obstruct and project. It’s all 101 level stuff.
I’m not disagreeing with you, I just really hate when people who know extreme left just from the internet claim how awesome it is. It’s not, there’s really few differences between extreme left and extreme right.
you’re describing authoritarianism, not leftism. We want to feed the hungry, care for the poor/sick/elderly, and give every person the opportunity to live happily with dignity. None of that has anything to do with your strawman.
Did you miss like half of the premise? Or the keyword extreme?
Your strawman can be broken down very easily when you leave out half the original points.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Lmao “far left extremism” is somehow contextually different than the phrase OP used (which btw is the context for this whole thread) than “extreme liberal?”
Laughably, you think your quibbling got you an out as far as providing proof of your claim. Please show me where Far Left Extremists™️ banned or burned books in any way near where Conservatives have. My proof is below, let’s see yours?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_banning_in_the_United_States_(2021–present)
Is that actually far left extremism, or just fascism with a misleading name tag?
Far left extremism. Soviets wanted to create utopia where everyone is equal, except the leaders of course. That’s not gonna change. And then it cascades into straight up dictatorship.
Still sounds like fascism.
Indeed it does. That was my whole point.
If someone hands you a bowl of shit and tells you it’s chocolate pudding, that doesn’t make actual chocolate pudding shitty.
But, I can definitely understand being skeptical of chocolate pudding after eating a bowl of shit.
At the very least I guess we can both agree that we need to check our pudding for pieces of shit before we dive right in.
That’s not far left. “Everyone is equal” is left-wing, but adding “except the leaders” is right-wing. It’s not that the far left is like the right, but that those claiming to be far left and doing right wing stuff aren’t as far left as they say they are.
But when they say they’re left-wing, I’m sure you’ll trust the soviet leadership. Why would they have a reason to lie?
one party
A well known issue with the left is that leftwing parties tend to split into a million different fractions.
corruption
Pretty sure a key feature of left-wing policy is transparency and removal of money in politics. Contrast to, for example, the recent US (right wing) supreme court ruling that bribery is totally legal as long as you do it beforehand.
executions
Unless this is your dog whistle for freedom to have an abortion, you’re just Imaging this. The death penalty is very much opposed by every left wing group or person.
burning of books,
Maybe, maybe at the far end, republishing books with disclaimers about the period they were written in…
those things happened in my country when we were under Soviet communist occupation.
And do you think the Soviet Union under Stalin was very leftwing? Or were they just extremely authoritarian? Did they practice much egalitarianism, or did they merely say they did? We’re they anti-war? Pro multiculturalism?
Another internet warrior making stuff up. Everything I said happened in my country and happens in every communist country. Your “No True Scotsman” is boring and uninspiring.
Except the “other side” from conservatism would usually be progressivism. Maybe this is my US bias showing, but all mainline political thought is based on liberalism here: it’s the nonliberals who are the extremists, whether they’re progressive or regressive in their authoritarianism.
Objectifying people is never a good look.
Make them live in Downton Abbey
