Thread by @hecubian_devil

For a long time many of us on the left have tolerated some very counterproductive discourse norms because it seemed like everyone crying about them was actually opposed to the *substance* of anti-racism, disability justice, decolonization, and so on

But it feels like we’ve gotten to a point where these norms are truly untenable, even (especially?) for those of who care to really do the work and win on these fronts, as well as on the front of class struggle.

Particularly, of course, I’m talking about norms of ostracism and deliberately alienating others within the movement when you disagree. *Especially* when you’re only disagreeing about tactics/strategy, rather than goals or values. We’ve just got to stop running everyone off

I think there was a time where it felt like the liberal-left coalition had essentially won the culture war, and now it was simply a matter of enforcement. But that’s clearly wrong. We didn’t, and a lot of us overestimated our power to enforce our preferred norms

Some of us were genuinely eager to enforce what seemed like a new cultural consensus. Others of us went along with it because the intra-left opposition was so overwhelmingly bad-faith, and came from people clearly not persuaded of the substantive importance of, eg, trans rights

I think a lot of us got negatively polarized into accepting or supporting discourse norms that are, frankly, anti-social. Norms which eschew persuasion in favor of discipline. Norms which ‘solve’ disagreement through intimidation or excommunication, rather than solidarity

A lot of us also, I think, were (and maybe still are) pessimistic about the possibility of persuasion. How do you persuade someone out of irrational, reactionary, but strongly-felt beliefs? It’s understandable that for many, social pressure and discipline felt more plausible

Maybe you can’t *fix* a bigot, maybe you can’t change their minds, but you could potentially discipline them. Maybe you could force them into compliance, behaviorally, even if you couldn’t change their minds

And it’s no coincidence this all flowed out of the Obama victories, in which most white voters remained as racially-polarized as ever, yet were defeated by a coalition of people of color and educated liberal/left urban whites.

Part of why Obama’s victories set this into motion (along with a host of other liberal/left dysfunctions) is it seemed like we were on a path to irreversible demographic superiority. Persuasion was moot! Our side of the culture war was bigger, and stronger, and growing

This was a faulty premise for many reasons, and it led to some huge miscalculations.

Chief among them: the mistaken belief that we actually had the structural power to enforce our cultural consensus. Secondarily, the belief that we even *had* a cultural consensus internally

In retrospect it's fairly clear that there never really was a liberal-left cultural consensus at all, nor was there the institutional power to enforce it. Instead, we mostly developed the limited power to discipline ourselves and each other, to punish our coalition partners

This creates structural incentives to manipulate discourse tools and norms in order punish internal political competitors. It leads naturally to dishonesty and the abuse of these rhetorical strategies. To satisfy ego, or ambition, or vindictiveness

It also, of course, shrinks the coalition when you're constantly casting people out of it.

Maybe you still think we *should* not have to persuade, tolerate, or compromise with people whose politics are, in some area or another, reactionary. And you're right; we *shouldn't* have to. But, clearly, we do have to.

I organize all the time with people who are varying degrees of reactionary on trans liberation. I organize with them on our common points of solidarity in a shared struggle for economic justice. And I try to prove to them I'm a trustworthy and valuable partner in that struggle

And I don't humor them or lie to them about my trans-liberatory politics. I don't censor myself. I don't condescend. I explain my positions to them, in detail.

But I also don't censor *them*. I accept I have to put up with some discomfort in order to get the work done.

If we can't accept that the work of liberation will require this kind of honest, uncomfortable tolerance of disagreement, then we're fucked. Because regardless of whether we *should* have to put up with such things, we don't have the power to demand compliance without persuasion

We never really did. It was a decade or so of the *illusion* that such cultural power existed. And we have to face reality

We have to actually do the work of persuading people of our values. And persuasion requires trust. Punishing people doesn't inspire trust.

Ostracizing people—bullying them, shaming them—doesn't inspire trust. *Delivering* for them inspires trust. *Winning* inspires trust.

People are already clamoring for us to abandon these fights altogether. They want us to throw trans people and immigrants to the wolves, for expediency. Largely, these are the same people who made dishonest arguments against "cancel culture" or "PC" in the past

And that, again, is because the people complaining about "PC" or "cancel culture" 10 years ago didn't actually oppose those methods. They opposed the substance. Just like the proponents of social pressure tactics, the opponents also believed there was a cultural consensus!

They also believed that these social pressure tactics were effective! That's why they railed against these methods—because they were scared of them! The whole liberal-left debate about social pressure and ostracism was a veiled, obtuse debate about the substantive differences

And that's where we all fucked up, because no one was *really* engaging with the question of whether these methods *work*. All the dishonest critique poisoned the well and made it near-impossible to look clearly at the issue of efficacy

The pundits who want to abandon trans people, homeless people, & immigrants, want to enforce a new "consensus" and silence yesterday's in-group as today's inconvenient dissidents.

We need a new model altogether, that can accommodate disagreement, without abandoning our values

We need to be able to organize honestly with people who hold reactionary beliefs on issues important to us, *without* lying to them or censoring ourselves, and *while* doing the work of *persuading* them.

We can do this, if we’re honest about who we are and what we believe in, *and* we deliver wins that matter to them, and to us, on points of common cause. That’s how we’ll grow the coalition, and persuade people. By building trust. By winning.