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I agree that framing issues in a way that allows people to avoid feeling like they have done something wrong is more effective. I also think most activists are

I agree that framing issues in a way that allows people to avoid feeling like they have done something wrong is more effective. I also think most activists are aware of this. I also think that crafting positive, uplifting messages requires a certain level of societal support. Hard to know what one could buy to stop police brutality right now, for instance. I suspect people will come up with things. When I see a protest right now I don't think about a carefully crafted campaign. I think about a tent revival[1]. Just like a tent revival, sinners are welcome as long as they already want to repent, but there's not going to be a lot there to make you feel good if you aren't a believer. I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity. I think a lot of people mistake preaching to the choir as preaching poorly to the unconverted. It's not unique in any way to the left - people often mistake messages that are intended for the conservative faithful as outreach and mock it for its ineffectiveness. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_revival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_revival [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/8rjtsi/young_atheist_phase/ https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/8rjtsi/young_athei...

moon4u 6y ago
> I also think most activists are aware of this. I'm sorry, but how did you come to this conclusion? The first thing that comes to mind is the new tactic used by activist, saying something to the effect of "If you are not doing something to prevent racism, then you are guilty of being racist." Which is what (I believe) lead to this thing: https://www.businessinsider.com/white-protesters-confront-diners-during-black-lives-matter-protest-2020-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/white-protesters-confront-di...
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I think there's a distinction in terminology here. "Activist" generally (among people I talk to at least!) refers to activist organizers, who mostly agree that stunts like this are both bad and strategically unhelpful. Unfortunately, it's in the nature of community organizing that sometimes the community goes off script.
  - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    There whole point was that's not off script but rather exactly what the whole "silence is violence" is.
- aeturnum 6y ago
  So, to pivot back to my tent revival example: religions often have practices that turn off outsiders, but they often simultaneously are seeking to convert those outsiders. It's a balance! I would say that "If you are not doing something to prevent racism, then you are guilty of being racist" is a message aimed squarely at those who already believe. It's urging people to do more to support the movement. It makes me think of "All people are sinners except those saved by Jesus Christ." Both in that it's somewhat alienating to outsiders and that the people making the statements are quite serious about them! Activists know this! They know that it would be better for recruitment to have a purely positive message to give people. That's just not where the movement is right now.
  - moon4u 6y ago
    I don't think that you are correct. Well... maybe they do know it and are opting for an alternative approach, because guilt-tripping seems like a fairly common tactic, especially in the aforementioned activists.
peterpeppers 6y ago
Interesting point. Martin Luther King Jr spoke quite a bit about addressing GUILT before he was killed. Unfortunately for all of us, he was incredibly unpopular before his death due to his position on the Vietnam War so his message on guilt is lost to transcripts. QUOTE: "The Negro needs the white man to save him from his fears, the white man needs the Negro to save him from his GUILT. We are tied together in so many ways, our language, our music, our cultural patterns, our material prosperity, and even our food are an amalgam of black and white." SOLUTIONS FOR GUILT AND FEAR: Dr King mentioned in his speech that one can tackle guilt and fear through ACTION and COLLECTIVE EFFORT: 1. True integration - "Shared power, where black men and white men share power together, to build a new and a great nation" 2. White student generations of goodwill "who will stick with the cause of justice and the cause of civil rights and the cause of peace throughout the days ahead" The action of whites here tackles their guilt while providing hope and reducing fear for blacks. 3. "Coalitions of conscience" 4. Taking a long-view anchored in hope. SOURCE: https://gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf https://gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf
- taurath 6y ago
  And I must say, though this thought is controversial. If you are a white man born in America, feeling guilt is what you’re supposed to feel, as a human being. Not personal guilt, as few even living today are directly responsible for the systems that came before. But guilt from being born into privilege in a society built entirely to benefit you, from the net worth of your parents, to the quiet mono-racial neighborhoods that are the after effects of federal redlining. Born poor? That means you should understand the plight of people trapped in hopeless poverty more.
  - galkk 6y ago
    No, they aren't supposed to neither feel the guilt nor repent for color of their skin.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Should you self-flagellate for being born in the situation you are in? How would that benefit anyone? Guilt is a negative emotion, and in my opinion you shouldn't have to do penance for things you have no control over. Instead, you can use your position of privilege to do good in whatever way fits. My small contribution, I run an online community (~1000 members in our Discord server) with a zero tolerance policy on racism, racist / sexist / orientation stereotypes, etc. It's ran and frequented by a highly diverse range of people from all over the world. It's not much, but I know I'm not contributing to the problem and I like to think my community is making the world a better place.
Kednicma 6y ago
I agree that current protests are not "carefully crafted campaigns", but I think that that is largely due to the simplicity of the message: They want less police brutality and murders. The resulting system is not really set up to receive "sinners" or do any other quasi-religious things; it's merely a vehicle for conveying petitions for redress. I remember being a young atheist; I thought that people believed in Christian and other hateful creeds because they were misled, miseducated, etc. Now that I'm a mature Pastafarian, I know that people believe in hateful creeds because people cannot divorce their identity from their beliefs and are not willing to risk their self-image merely for the sake of being more logical or historical, let alone more moral. However, that's not why people are currently protesting; it's why people are counter-protesting, though.
- atoav 6y ago
  The whole thing reminds me of how the post WWII German society was in turmoil because of the student protests in the 60s. The new generations didn't feel silence and not guilting the old Nazis was the appropriate thing to do. What they did instead was going into the places where Nazis worked ("storm the institutions") themselves and started moving into official positions there. Over time they just replaced them. I am not sure how German society would look like today if nobody dared to guilt the Nazis about being Nazis after WWII, but one thing is true: guilt alone doesn't work at all. You have to provide alternatives, make them attractive, allow people to take a new role within the new that you are planning (and be it repenting sinner).
lambdatronics 6y ago
> recognize their validity. Exactly. The behavioral change is one thing, but who's gonna do the emotional work? >I also think most activists are aware of this. Maybe, but I suspect that often it's just as important to the activists/choir to wring an apology/conviction out of the others. Settling out of court (to mix metaphors) is not as satisfying.
roenxi 6y ago
> I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity. Can this get expanded on a little bit? How does one recognise some else's validity? I get the simultaneous feeling that leaving them alone isn't what they want, and me waving my hands and pronouncing them (eg, a young gay) valid is likely to get a very negative reaction. Who am I to decide what is and isn't valid. What exactly does that mean in a what-do-they-want sense? My guess is they want other people to copy them so they can build a community, but I'm sure there are other interpretations.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  > How does one recognise some else's validity? This means things like recognising that being gay is a thing, that it's a normal and perfectly ok way to be, and that the person in question is in fact gay and accepted into the group as such. It's the opposite of the kind of parenting that makes people nervous to "come out" (which many gay kids will have grown up in).
- rocqua 6y ago
  Suppose you feel that you live in a society where being gay or atheist is looked down upon. Moreover, suppose at the same time that you are gay or atheist and not ashamed of that anymore. Then, it makes sense that you'd want your 'validity recognized' from people close to you. Besides that, I can see many such people making a wider argument to others that they should accept that being gay or atheist is a valid choice. I personally think that, besides the above, a lot of the loudness comes from a feeling of freedom. Where all of a sudden you no longer need to hide who you are, which leads to a stronger expression of a part of you that was pent-up.
- aeturnum 6y ago
  > How does one recognise some else's validity? Actually a very hard question with a million answers for a million different combinations of identity and scenarios. At a high level I think recognizing validity takes the form of a social acknowledgement that someone else as "as much" right as us to be in public space. You can think about LGTBQ+ folks going out glammed-to-the-gills, or how the modern gay rights movement started after police raided a gay bar for no particular reason, or slut marches protesting sexual harassment. These are all people doing things in public that are taboo in a way that's related to their identity (gay people acknowledging their sexuality in public / people dressing in revealing ways) and demanding they be treated with respect. Often even if they are shouting rude things. For a more heteronormative example you could think about the distraught parent who might break social norms when their child is hurt or killed. If you're a doctor and you have to tell the parents their child is dead and they scream at you, you don't treat them like they're random people on the street. You respect their validity and understand that they are dealing with a lot and your feelings aren't top of mind[1]. It can also be as small as not asking where someone who is a little racially ambiguous "where they're from" before you get to know them. Not because the question is rude exactly, but because it's probably a question they get a lot and it highlights the difference in your backgrounds. [1] This is actually very hard on medical professionals even if we all understand!
mlang23 6y ago
I wish you could leave religion out of your analysis. It would make it much easier to believe you.
- aeturnum 6y ago
  Religion, whatever else it is, is part of the human experience. Religious traditions are some of the oldest organizations in existence. Whatever the nature of god, they all deal with reassuring the faithful and attracting the unconverted, which was why I thought they comparison was apt.
himinlomax 6y ago
> I also think that crafting positive, uplifting messages requires a certain level of societal support. The opposite of guilt-tripping is not "positive, uplifting." Let's take a contemporary example: Guilt-tripping: "when you don't wear a mask you're KILLING grandma." Positive, uplifting (and also BS): "those new designer masks are so cute and trendy!" Using social proof without guilt tripping: "as more and more people make the effort to wear mask, we stand a chance to stop this deadly disease."
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  Fully agree. Neither preaching nor ad financed well-being articles are particularly interesting if we are talking about news. We still have the problem of overzealous banning of content/language/bad opinions. To suggest feel-good articles as a solution sounds a little bit too dystopian.
darkerside 6y ago
The interesting corollary is that, while individual change may be positive, that's not what gets into the media. Just look at the news. What sells and gets clicks is violence, protest, and conflict. Only the occasional baby panda story makes its way through. There was a story on HN recently about how protestors for the Micheal Brown case made headlines while the Eric Garner case did not, and it was because the Brown case had shades of grey, while the Garnet case was open and shut. Similarly, college rape cases with evidence don't make the headlines, while unsubstantiated accusations get picked up by feminist organizations and promoted. Another example, PETA makes waves with irritating campaigns that turn people off from the movement, while other animals rights organizations quietly do good. But all those movements have a purpose. Even if they do not convince any individuals, while only preaching to the choir, they get important messages out there, expand the moral Overton window, and make their peer organizations' positive messages more likely to be heard and accepted.
RandoHolmes 6y ago
> I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity. Back when I was in college (late 90's) I remember coming across a forum post where someone else was talking about this. The gist of it was that they knew a gay women who came out when she was in college, and after she did everything became about sexuality. According to the poster, this woman was pretty annoying to a lot of people. "How do you know person X is gay? Don't worry, they'll tell you about it". But then he talked about how he was friends with this woman over a lifetime and eventually you could know her for years and never realize she was gay. It stopped being the most important part of her identity and just became 1 thing in a 100. She would talk about it with her closest friends but it just wasn't something she needed everyone to know. The explanation this person gave is that when you're new to something like that, you sort of wrap yourself up in it as an identity. But then over time, as it becomes familiar, you find that there are other aspects of your identity as well, and maybe your sexuality/religion/whathaveyou isn't the most important thing to communicate to other people. Since then, I've seen this borne out twice in my life. The first: While in college I befriended a guy online who eventually told me he was gay. I never personally cared so for me it was whatever. But fast forward a few months and at one point I eventually blew up on him (over chat, we were strictly online friends) because I just got so tired of him equating everything to being gay. It would be completely innocuous things that somehow indicated someone was gay or disliked gays. He went offline after that and never came back and I sometimes wonder if he liked me. For me it was just an online friend, but I do sometimes think about it. I can't remember how we met, but I think it was while I was running a kingdom in the online game of Utopia (I'm pretty sure it's still around in some form). The second: I have a very good friend whom I've known for over 25 years. I'm closer to this guy than my own brothers. He grew up christian and at some point in college decided he was an atheist. And he turned into the stereotypical 'angry atheist'. I used to talk to him about it and ask him why he felt the need to be an asshole to someone just because they were a theist. Over the years he's calmed down a LOT and treats theists with a lot more respect than he used to. You'd probably never know he was atheist unless you asked him specifically. --- Anyway, I was just surprised to see this sentiment. It's one that I've kept with me for years and I very rarely ever see anyone else acknowledge it.
shireboy 6y ago
> Just like a tent revival, sinners are welcome as long as they already want to repent, but there's not going to be a lot there to make you feel good if you aren't a believer. I think this is a really good analogy I'd not thought of, but incorrect in the last part. I think there are (and historically, were [1]) plenty of casual participants in tent revivals, made to feel good because they are collectively part of something energetic and out of the ordinary that their peers were also part of. Such person thinks consciously or subconsciously "I may not buy (or even understand) what preacher-man is shouting about, but it sure is fun be with lots of people dancing, yelling, and letting loose, and they seem to like me when I participate. Maybe if I'm even more energetic than guy next to me, I'll get even more approval from these people." Not every participant, but I have to think that was one motivation in many cases. I'll leave to others to draw parallels to present day. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening
- aeturnum 6y ago
  Yah, the comparison is pretty reductive to tent revivals (which, as you say, are diverse and not always fire-and-brimstone affairs). There have also been people combining activism and protest with street fairs and free food (which makes me think of evangelical tent revivals), but that's been muted since the pandemic.

moon4u 6y ago

> I also think most activists are aware of this. I'm sorry, but how did you come to this conclusion? The first thing that comes to mind is the new tactic used by activist, saying something to the effect of "If you are not doing something to prevent racism, then you are guilty of being racist." Which is what (I believe) lead to this thing: https://www.businessinsider.com/white-protesters-confront-diners-during-black-lives-matter-protest-2020-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/white-protesters-confront-di...

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I think there's a distinction in terminology here. "Activist" generally (among people I talk to at least!) refers to activist organizers, who mostly agree that stunts like this are both bad and strategically unhelpful. Unfortunately, it's in the nature of community organizing that sometimes the community goes off script.
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  There whole point was that's not off script but rather exactly what the whole "silence is violence" is.
aeturnum 6y ago
So, to pivot back to my tent revival example: religions often have practices that turn off outsiders, but they often simultaneously are seeking to convert those outsiders. It's a balance! I would say that "If you are not doing something to prevent racism, then you are guilty of being racist" is a message aimed squarely at those who already believe. It's urging people to do more to support the movement. It makes me think of "All people are sinners except those saved by Jesus Christ." Both in that it's somewhat alienating to outsiders and that the people making the statements are quite serious about them! Activists know this! They know that it would be better for recruitment to have a purely positive message to give people. That's just not where the movement is right now.
- moon4u 6y ago
  I don't think that you are correct. Well... maybe they do know it and are opting for an alternative approach, because guilt-tripping seems like a fairly common tactic, especially in the aforementioned activists.

peterpeppers 6y ago

Interesting point. Martin Luther King Jr spoke quite a bit about addressing GUILT before he was killed. Unfortunately for all of us, he was incredibly unpopular before his death due to his position on the Vietnam War so his message on guilt is lost to transcripts. QUOTE: "The Negro needs the white man to save him from his fears, the white man needs the Negro to save him from his GUILT. We are tied together in so many ways, our language, our music, our cultural patterns, our material prosperity, and even our food are an amalgam of black and white." SOLUTIONS FOR GUILT AND FEAR: Dr King mentioned in his speech that one can tackle guilt and fear through ACTION and COLLECTIVE EFFORT: 1. True integration - "Shared power, where black men and white men share power together, to build a new and a great nation" 2. White student generations of goodwill "who will stick with the cause of justice and the cause of civil rights and the cause of peace throughout the days ahead" The action of whites here tackles their guilt while providing hope and reducing fear for blacks. 3. "Coalitions of conscience" 4. Taking a long-view anchored in hope. SOURCE: https://gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf https://gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf

taurath 6y ago
And I must say, though this thought is controversial. If you are a white man born in America, feeling guilt is what you’re supposed to feel, as a human being. Not personal guilt, as few even living today are directly responsible for the systems that came before. But guilt from being born into privilege in a society built entirely to benefit you, from the net worth of your parents, to the quiet mono-racial neighborhoods that are the after effects of federal redlining. Born poor? That means you should understand the plight of people trapped in hopeless poverty more.
- galkk 6y ago
  No, they aren't supposed to neither feel the guilt nor repent for color of their skin.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Should you self-flagellate for being born in the situation you are in? How would that benefit anyone? Guilt is a negative emotion, and in my opinion you shouldn't have to do penance for things you have no control over. Instead, you can use your position of privilege to do good in whatever way fits. My small contribution, I run an online community (~1000 members in our Discord server) with a zero tolerance policy on racism, racist / sexist / orientation stereotypes, etc. It's ran and frequented by a highly diverse range of people from all over the world. It's not much, but I know I'm not contributing to the problem and I like to think my community is making the world a better place.

Kednicma 6y ago

I agree that current protests are not "carefully crafted campaigns", but I think that that is largely due to the simplicity of the message: They want less police brutality and murders. The resulting system is not really set up to receive "sinners" or do any other quasi-religious things; it's merely a vehicle for conveying petitions for redress. I remember being a young atheist; I thought that people believed in Christian and other hateful creeds because they were misled, miseducated, etc. Now that I'm a mature Pastafarian, I know that people believe in hateful creeds because people cannot divorce their identity from their beliefs and are not willing to risk their self-image merely for the sake of being more logical or historical, let alone more moral. However, that's not why people are currently protesting; it's why people are counter-protesting, though.

atoav 6y ago
The whole thing reminds me of how the post WWII German society was in turmoil because of the student protests in the 60s. The new generations didn't feel silence and not guilting the old Nazis was the appropriate thing to do. What they did instead was going into the places where Nazis worked ("storm the institutions") themselves and started moving into official positions there. Over time they just replaced them. I am not sure how German society would look like today if nobody dared to guilt the Nazis about being Nazis after WWII, but one thing is true: guilt alone doesn't work at all. You have to provide alternatives, make them attractive, allow people to take a new role within the new that you are planning (and be it repenting sinner).

lambdatronics 6y ago

> recognize their validity. Exactly. The behavioral change is one thing, but who's gonna do the emotional work? >I also think most activists are aware of this. Maybe, but I suspect that often it's just as important to the activists/choir to wring an apology/conviction out of the others. Settling out of court (to mix metaphors) is not as satisfying.

roenxi 6y ago

> I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity. Can this get expanded on a little bit? How does one recognise some else's validity? I get the simultaneous feeling that leaving them alone isn't what they want, and me waving my hands and pronouncing them (eg, a young gay) valid is likely to get a very negative reaction. Who am I to decide what is and isn't valid. What exactly does that mean in a what-do-they-want sense? My guess is they want other people to copy them so they can build a community, but I'm sure there are other interpretations.

nicoburns 6y ago
> How does one recognise some else's validity? This means things like recognising that being gay is a thing, that it's a normal and perfectly ok way to be, and that the person in question is in fact gay and accepted into the group as such. It's the opposite of the kind of parenting that makes people nervous to "come out" (which many gay kids will have grown up in).
rocqua 6y ago
Suppose you feel that you live in a society where being gay or atheist is looked down upon. Moreover, suppose at the same time that you are gay or atheist and not ashamed of that anymore. Then, it makes sense that you'd want your 'validity recognized' from people close to you. Besides that, I can see many such people making a wider argument to others that they should accept that being gay or atheist is a valid choice. I personally think that, besides the above, a lot of the loudness comes from a feeling of freedom. Where all of a sudden you no longer need to hide who you are, which leads to a stronger expression of a part of you that was pent-up.
aeturnum 6y ago
> How does one recognise some else's validity? Actually a very hard question with a million answers for a million different combinations of identity and scenarios. At a high level I think recognizing validity takes the form of a social acknowledgement that someone else as "as much" right as us to be in public space. You can think about LGTBQ+ folks going out glammed-to-the-gills, or how the modern gay rights movement started after police raided a gay bar for no particular reason, or slut marches protesting sexual harassment. These are all people doing things in public that are taboo in a way that's related to their identity (gay people acknowledging their sexuality in public / people dressing in revealing ways) and demanding they be treated with respect. Often even if they are shouting rude things. For a more heteronormative example you could think about the distraught parent who might break social norms when their child is hurt or killed. If you're a doctor and you have to tell the parents their child is dead and they scream at you, you don't treat them like they're random people on the street. You respect their validity and understand that they are dealing with a lot and your feelings aren't top of mind[1]. It can also be as small as not asking where someone who is a little racially ambiguous "where they're from" before you get to know them. Not because the question is rude exactly, but because it's probably a question they get a lot and it highlights the difference in your backgrounds. [1] This is actually very hard on medical professionals even if we all understand!

mlang23 6y ago

I wish you could leave religion out of your analysis. It would make it much easier to believe you.

aeturnum 6y ago
Religion, whatever else it is, is part of the human experience. Religious traditions are some of the oldest organizations in existence. Whatever the nature of god, they all deal with reassuring the faithful and attracting the unconverted, which was why I thought they comparison was apt.

himinlomax 6y ago

> I also think that crafting positive, uplifting messages requires a certain level of societal support. The opposite of guilt-tripping is not "positive, uplifting." Let's take a contemporary example: Guilt-tripping: "when you don't wear a mask you're KILLING grandma." Positive, uplifting (and also BS): "those new designer masks are so cute and trendy!" Using social proof without guilt tripping: "as more and more people make the effort to wear mask, we stand a chance to stop this deadly disease."

raxxorrax 6y ago
Fully agree. Neither preaching nor ad financed well-being articles are particularly interesting if we are talking about news. We still have the problem of overzealous banning of content/language/bad opinions. To suggest feel-good articles as a solution sounds a little bit too dystopian.

darkerside 6y ago

The interesting corollary is that, while individual change may be positive, that's not what gets into the media. Just look at the news. What sells and gets clicks is violence, protest, and conflict. Only the occasional baby panda story makes its way through. There was a story on HN recently about how protestors for the Micheal Brown case made headlines while the Eric Garner case did not, and it was because the Brown case had shades of grey, while the Garnet case was open and shut. Similarly, college rape cases with evidence don't make the headlines, while unsubstantiated accusations get picked up by feminist organizations and promoted. Another example, PETA makes waves with irritating campaigns that turn people off from the movement, while other animals rights organizations quietly do good. But all those movements have a purpose. Even if they do not convince any individuals, while only preaching to the choir, they get important messages out there, expand the moral Overton window, and make their peer organizations' positive messages more likely to be heard and accepted.

RandoHolmes 6y ago

> I see the Social Justice left as being in a phase like "young atheists"[2] or young gay people go through when they first embrace their identity: loud and proud and insistent that others recognize their validity. Back when I was in college (late 90's) I remember coming across a forum post where someone else was talking about this. The gist of it was that they knew a gay women who came out when she was in college, and after she did everything became about sexuality. According to the poster, this woman was pretty annoying to a lot of people. "How do you know person X is gay? Don't worry, they'll tell you about it". But then he talked about how he was friends with this woman over a lifetime and eventually you could know her for years and never realize she was gay. It stopped being the most important part of her identity and just became 1 thing in a 100. She would talk about it with her closest friends but it just wasn't something she needed everyone to know. The explanation this person gave is that when you're new to something like that, you sort of wrap yourself up in it as an identity. But then over time, as it becomes familiar, you find that there are other aspects of your identity as well, and maybe your sexuality/religion/whathaveyou isn't the most important thing to communicate to other people. Since then, I've seen this borne out twice in my life. The first: While in college I befriended a guy online who eventually told me he was gay. I never personally cared so for me it was whatever. But fast forward a few months and at one point I eventually blew up on him (over chat, we were strictly online friends) because I just got so tired of him equating everything to being gay. It would be completely innocuous things that somehow indicated someone was gay or disliked gays. He went offline after that and never came back and I sometimes wonder if he liked me. For me it was just an online friend, but I do sometimes think about it. I can't remember how we met, but I think it was while I was running a kingdom in the online game of Utopia (I'm pretty sure it's still around in some form). The second: I have a very good friend whom I've known for over 25 years. I'm closer to this guy than my own brothers. He grew up christian and at some point in college decided he was an atheist. And he turned into the stereotypical 'angry atheist'. I used to talk to him about it and ask him why he felt the need to be an asshole to someone just because they were a theist. Over the years he's calmed down a LOT and treats theists with a lot more respect than he used to. You'd probably never know he was atheist unless you asked him specifically. --- Anyway, I was just surprised to see this sentiment. It's one that I've kept with me for years and I very rarely ever see anyone else acknowledge it.

shireboy 6y ago

> Just like a tent revival, sinners are welcome as long as they already want to repent, but there's not going to be a lot there to make you feel good if you aren't a believer. I think this is a really good analogy I'd not thought of, but incorrect in the last part. I think there are (and historically, were [1]) plenty of casual participants in tent revivals, made to feel good because they are collectively part of something energetic and out of the ordinary that their peers were also part of. Such person thinks consciously or subconsciously "I may not buy (or even understand) what preacher-man is shouting about, but it sure is fun be with lots of people dancing, yelling, and letting loose, and they seem to like me when I participate. Maybe if I'm even more energetic than guy next to me, I'll get even more approval from these people." Not every participant, but I have to think that was one motivation in many cases. I'll leave to others to draw parallels to present day. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening

aeturnum 6y ago
Yah, the comparison is pretty reductive to tent revivals (which, as you say, are diverse and not always fire-and-brimstone affairs). There have also been people combining activism and protest with street fairs and free food (which makes me think of evangelical tent revivals), but that's been muted since the pandemic.