get this tattooed somewhere lmao

these folks don't make their decisions by thinking shit through, they're about the safety of the herd https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/1329963692952334338

as someone who grew up in a super conservative white church, I don't think it's possible to convey how much the entire concept of

"You can assess a situation & decide what to do about it!" was totally verboten.

we had a parent with a toddler who was just learning how to walk, & they kept bringing her to church in these long dresses that trailed on the floor. Lots of tripping, falling, & crying.

So one day I said "tell me about this dress" and turns out the in-laws gifted it .

"It's a Florida panhandle thing" was the explanation.

I was like ... girl. Are your in-laws even here? No! Why put what they want over your own kid when they're NOT EVEN HERE?"

like god bless that young mom, we've all done stupid shit when we're broke & tired, at least she had an excuse.

but that's the level of critical thinking that goes into conservatism.

"Persuasion" assumes they think about the world in ways that they just don't do.

bc when people start that kind of thinking, they don't stay conservative for long.

That's why they just train people to not think & navigate the world on fear & shame instead.

You could do a whole deep dive on how that creates cognitive dissonance and "so that means if we can just get through to someone-"

Stop.

Sometimes people hit a sea change where they're willing to chuck their community, friends, social capital, a lot of their professional network, & their own family bc it's all built on injustice.

Liiiike in our church of 100-200 people, like maybe 1-5 people left a year.

A small, steady stream of dissidents is already on its way out at all times.

They usually take *themselves* out. It's not bc somebody rescued them. It's bc they had the resources/lack of attachment to leave, & had developed the critical thinking to navigate their own way out.

It's also such a small number of people as to be effectively meaningless most of the time.

People keep trying to persuade/rescue white supremacists bc it hits their savior complex gspot, not because it's effective. Anybody who leaves was probably already on their way out.

Trying to "rescue" people through "persuasion" is pointless. Conservatism is such an obvious house of cards, it's wild that the secular gentrified white left really thinks it's about "beliefs" at all.

It's about social standing.

Full stop.

You want a sea change? Stop chasing fish & just change the hecking sea already.

The internet is full of forums for people leaving conservative religious groups. If you're really interested in off-ramping people from conservatism, avail yourself of what they already know!

They're super experienced in the practice of huge, personal ideological shifts!

And it just kinda says a lot that the ex-mormon reddit's motto is literally

"We're not here to convince you the church is wrong. We're here to support you when you figure it out yourself."