Thread by @LadyMephista

Today is #InternationalWomensDay
We may ask ourselves, how can we even hope for a better future when the truth, our freedom and even our livelihood are under constant attack?
This is a thread about the spell of chauvinism and the false narratives it creates.

1/21 Effectiveness: During the pandemic many of us were fed up with the chaotic reactions of our governments and the quirkiness of some people who just didn‘s seem to be aware of the usefulness of regulations. Behind closed doors I often heard people ask the question:

2/21 “Might we be better of with a well meaning authoritarian leadership? If people are not able to listen to reason, maybe a wiser person or government needs to make the decisions for them…” This idea is as old as Platons philosopher state.

3/21It comes from a position of deep distrust towards common people. The radicalisation we saw unfolding seems, at first sight, to confirm this distrust. However, we need to distinguish between those who fell for fascist ideas and those whose sentiments actually had a valid basis

4/21 Abigail Thorne made a nuanced video on this topic:

5/21Pluralistic societies, at their best, are able to integrate multiple perspectives in their decision making, usually these decisions are a compromise for everyone. This leads to the paradoxical situation that the best compromise is rarely greeted with enthusiasm from any party

6/21 Polarisation usually starts, when we’re no longer able to listen to perspectives different to ourselves. When every retort is perceived as a threat, we start to speak past each other without even trying to understand the argument of the other side.

7/21 If we overestimate the validity of our own perspectives we fail to notice the strength that comes along with long debates and the constant negotiation that are an integral part of a vivid democracy,

8/21 and we also fail to notice that long-term goals are more important than the fast success of a more efficient top-down decision.

9/21 This leads me to the next point: The incompleteness of every perspective and every model of the world and therefore the inevitable bias in any so called fact we are confronted with:

10/21 Facts: This word has been abused for quite a while from two rhetorical angles, I call them false relativism and false rationalism. Both tricks are used to distorts and distracts us.

11/21 False relativism: Every model of the world is incomplete and every so called fact is dependent on the limited data we take into account, therefore most of us can agree that truth has to be relative to our perspective.

12/21 However, this doesn’t mean that obvious falsehoods are relative too.

13/21 If something is proven to be wrong there is no logical way to defend it. And yet, relativism is so often overstated that we all seem to loose our common ground on what we can agree on. Be aware that truth may be relative, but falsehoods aren’t.

14/21 False rationalism: Have you ever heard the sentence “fact’s don’t care about your feelings.”? Usually, when it comes up, it’s used in an attempt to defend the cherry picking of data and the constructions of causalities.

15/21 Every attempt to deconstruct these false causalities, is then turned into an invalid sentiment.

16/21 Many chauvinists are claiming objectivism for themselves, when in fact they are only able to defend their argument if they ignore a huge bulk of data. Whenever someone reminds them of this, they accuse the other side of being too sensitive to see the world as it actually is

17/21 What they really mean, is the world as they see it. Their narratives often create the impression as if the hierarchies and power structures we experience today are somehow inevitable and every attempt to call them into question is somehow irrational.

18/21 The strange thing is that even well meaning people are falling for this narrative. When we interact with each other we are capable of perceiving others as imaginative and complex as ourselves but somehow we forget this when we think about society as a whole.

19/21 This inability to view society as a network of multifaceted individuals makes us think we are stuck and we don’t have the agency to create a world that serves all of us and not just a few.

20/21 This narrative turns then into a fact because we no longer perceive the actual fragility of power structures.

21/21 If we want to heal, we need to overturn chauvinism and if we really want to overturn it, we need to confront the chauvinist within ourselves. It’s a constant learning process, but if we succeed I’m still hopeful for our future.