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markpkessinger

(8,381 posts)
Mon Apr 13, 2015, 11:50 PM Apr 2015

Why I Do This

(Note: This is something I posted earlier today on Facebook. I had shared a comment I had posted to a very fine New York Times editorial on capital punishment. In response, a friend responded that, while he agreed with me in substance, these exchanges were ultimately futile and pointless, because no minds would ever be changed. I certainly understand why he might feel that way -- I feel the same way at times. So I began thinking about why, exactly, I continue to engage on topics on Facebook, on DU and around the Internet. A lot of folks responded very positively to my response, so I thought I would share it here. Here is that response (it was originally three separate comments, but I've placed them all into one here):

I'm afraid I have to disagree about the utility (or futility) of these discussions. When toxic ideas are left unchallenged, they are assumed by some to have a legitimacy they don't deserve. I can certainly understand how you feel -- I feel that way myself much of the time. But I still think it remains critically important to remain engaged.

As an illustration of why I think it is so important to remain engaged, I would point to an issue in which I have a great personal stake: that of LGBT civil rights. I came out in 1980, before we were aware of AIDS. You might be surprised to hear this, but it was a time of great optimism in the gay and lesbian community. A number of major cities across the country had begun to enact anti-discrimination laws, and the wider society seemed to be inching towards greater acceptance.

Then the AIDS crisis hit. Christian conservatives wasted no time in exploiting that crisis to their fullest advantage. People like Jerry Falswell and the execrable Anita Bryant did their worst. And one by one, cities that had enacted laws barring discrimination against LGBT folks began to repeal them. And even worse, some enacted laws that specifically discriminated, barring, for example, LGBT folks from holding positions as teachers or from being adoptive parents. For the LGBT community, faced with the onslaught of death all around us, and at the same time watching helplessly as the country regressed and many of the gains we had made simply disappeared, let me tell you, it was a depressing, demoralizing period of history to live through.

Yet, here we are, 35 years later, with gay marriage now legal in many states, and likely to be made legal in many more. It was certainly tempting, back in the early '80s, to simply give up, to stop trying to engage people in dialogue. There appeared to be no hope on the horizon. But if we had done that, if we had stopped engaging friends, family members, co-workers, etc. in discussions about these issues even when they disagreed with us, none of the gains we have made since would have happened -- and that likely includes, I would add, the development of effective life-sustaining treatments for HIV/AIDS, that have benefited not only gay AIDS sufferers, but all HIV/AIDS patients, both here and around the world. Had groups like ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) not engaged in the kinds of direct, street level agitation and disruption in pursuit of speedier clinical trials, we might still be waiting for those drugs to be developed.

The lessons for me in that experience were both the need of remaining engaged in issues, as well as the importance, particularly in times of frustration and demoralization, of keeping in sight the longer view of things. Things don't always happen as quickly as we would like. But we have to continue to have hope that progress will eventually come. If we give up on that hope, and give up on pushing towards it, then we will have effectively guaranteed that it will never come. Oh, wait -- there was a third lesson in that as well: never, EVER, allow yourself to be complacent about gains you may have already made!

One final thought: if I ever allowed myself to succumb to the belief that closed minds could not be opened, that hearts could not be moved, that knowledge could not eventually overcome ignorance, that rationality could not eventually overcome irrationality, that bigotry and prejudice could not be overcome -- then this would be a world I would cease to have any interest in continuing to live in. So for me, not engaging in these issues is really not an option. Fortunately, I have seen people's views change -- sometimes relatively quickly, sometimes over many decades.
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Why I Do This (Original Post) markpkessinger Apr 2015 OP
K&R marym625 Apr 2015 #1
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/images/ACFFE3.jpg blkmusclmachine Apr 2015 #2
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