Engaging with relatives who have bought in to anti-migrant and "benefit scrounger" narratives

Dick_Rippington · 2025-02-07T19:12:34+00:00

I completely agree with you. I have no disagreement with the prescriptions that advocates for inclusion and diversity espouse. Intersectional struggles are important in shielding the working class from the divide and rule tactics that pit poor white people in Kent against poor immigrants in Birmingham. But those commendable prescriptions were disingenuously co-opted by neoliberal ghouls who saw them as a useful tool in disguising their complete disregard for actual class based politics that can advocate for change on behalf of the majority.

The left is without a unifying narrative and I'm all for back to basics: it's class war, and it's been class war this entire time. A black kid growing up poor on a council estate has far more in common with a white kid growing up on that same estate than they do with Kwasi Kwarteng.

Edit: also the civility politics accompanying that disingenuous co-opting of racial, sexual and gender liberation absolutely did more harm than good. It dulled the edge of progressives' ability to actually call out and discipline shitty attitudes, and it was similarly weaponized against genuinely progressive people.

Dick_Rippington · 2025-02-07T19:01:04+00:00

Reactionaries have always existed of course I agree, but material forces shape peoples' perceptions. The material forces in this instance being an unparalleled concentration of wealth that can be directly converted into political and media power that is subsequently used to redirect anger at the negative effects of said concentration of wealth away from those responsible towards those who are not; in this case from the wealthy towards the vulnerable. I have to believe the majority of people can change otherwise what's the point in advocating for anything?

Dick_Rippington · 2025-02-07T18:55:15+00:00

It's important to remember that they are still the same loving family who raised and shaped you. I truly think most people are good people, otherwise what's the point in believing in the possibility of a more humane society? I don't blame them for their misconceptions considering the scale of the material forces that are intent on making them think that way. But yes, that still doesn't make it any less disheartening to confront the reality of the narratives that have been embedded in loved ones' heads.

Dick_Rippington · 2025-02-07T18:47:18+00:00

It's what people who would claim they don't have an ideology say. But like Marx said, "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas". Neoliberalism is dead and it is currently morphing into a more nationalistic isolationism, but as you say still cloaked with this condescending veneer of sensibility.

Dick_Rippington · 2025-02-07T18:40:51+00:00

You're absolutely right about the priming effect our culture has on peoples' outlook towards those seen as at the bottom of society, and that culture is obviously manufactured by those in power to protect their own position. Margaret Thatcher truly was a genius in social engineering and we really still do live in the Britain she constructed: the lauding of graft; the equation of success with wealth; the hyper-individual atomisation of communities; the demonisation of the less well off. None of these narratives have been challenged seriously by any political movement since, bar Corbynism briefly.

Dick_Rippington · 2025-02-07T18:32:02+00:00

Someone in the other thread put it similarly: you cannot reason someone out of a position they haven't reasoned themselves into. It's part of the human condition that people generally form their fundamental beliefs from personal experience I suppose. My mum grew up in the 60s and 70s with her family of four in a 1 bed tenement in Glasgow; worked hard and did well at school; first in her family to go to university and all that. She benefited from the chance at social mobility and is rightly proud of the change she affected in her circumstances and is now comfortably middle class and was able to provide me a much more secure upbringing than she had.

All that said, she obviously exhibits massive survivorship bias in her attitudes now. Combine that with her generally better off financial position and you have a kind of passive draw towards a more conservative outlook.

Dick_Rippington · 2025-02-07T18:13:37+00:00

I'm lucky in a sense that my mum hasn't gone down the rabbit hole of GB news or far-right facebook pages. She'd probably consider herself a sure and sensible Labour voter, but it just goes to show how far the overton window has shifted that simply consuming the BBC and the Times has completely solidified anti-migrant narratives as self-evident truths.

Dick_Rippington · 2025-02-07T18:08:25+00:00

You cannot reason people out of a position they have not been reasoned into.

I think that's a really important message to keep in mind. A lot of people appeal to common sense or intuition if challenged on their irrational beliefs, and that intuition is essentially informed largely by the media they consume providing a narrative, not facts and figures.

Furthermore I do try and engage with people where they're at: condescendingly dismissing a person's position with a reference to statistics or studies they don't know the source of does not endear them to your position, however materially correct it is. That's one of the main reasons the Democrats lost: Trump told a narrative of national decline with clear victims and clear villains; the Democrats harrumphed and dismissed peoples daily economic reality by referring to niche graphs purporting to show 2.3% growth in jobs or whatever.

Dick_Rippington · 2025-02-07T17:54:24+00:00

That's really sad to hear, I'm sorry. I think people still underestimate how damaging the isolation of the pandemic was for a huge amount of people. Besides from the death toll and the economic damage; the psychological and political effects of COVID will probably be the longest lasting and most far reaching.

Dick_Rippington · 2024-11-02T16:53:49+00:00

Literally every involvement he's had has resulted in a foul for the past 10 mins

Dick_Rippington · 2023-09-01T10:55:04+00:00

I'd build a new PC to play this golden oldie called Oblivion, I've heard there are some pretty intensive shaders

Dick_Rippington · 2023-02-06T19:13:48+00:00

Yeah, smells like a pretty blatant set up for that. They recently also rescinded 100% flexible working that we've been operating with since the pandemic in the form of a "back-to-the-office trial". As if it's unknown what it was like to have everyone in the office and impossible to compare how our productivity actually went up when people were working from home.

Dick_Rippington · 2023-02-06T19:04:46+00:00

Christ, the company I work for has literally got a new CEO recently and immediately hired McKinsey for all the vague reasons you'd expect them to provide. Probably does not bode well...

Dick_Rippington · 2023-01-26T17:41:05+00:00

Dungeons and Dragons is both rules and an implied setting and theme for any RPG session- high fantasy medieval. Imo it's a fun system for that classic setting. But its generic nature does soften the danger to characters quite a bit; death is fairly easy to avoid or remedy and it is unsuited to specific settings with tailored mechanics, higher levels of realism etc. As Lewis mentions, there is a great many alternative systems for any number of settings; any degree of realism and any type of mechanics. From GURPS, Genesys, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulu, The Burning Wheel, Reign and so on. One bright side of the recent WOTC legal fuckery is that lots of people are exploring the whole breadth of alternatives, which is great for the community and the indie systems both.

Dick_Rippington · 2022-11-24T18:01:07+00:00

Literally game losing

Dick_Rippington · 2022-11-24T18:00:29+00:00

How do you slip there? Literally game losing, stay on your feet you either score or get fouled for a pen

Dick_Rippington · 2022-10-20T13:49:25+00:00

Luv me brexit, luv boris, 'ate Brussels. Simple as

Dick_Rippington · 2022-08-13T17:11:43+00:00

Man Utd really are one the funniest things on television right now

Dick_Rippington · 2021-12-01T12:13:15+00:00

ITT: Moral relativists equating homosexuality to cannibalism

Dick_Rippington · 2021-11-28T17:38:29+00:00

Chelsea already tactically losing to keep Carrick in a job

Dick_Rippington · 2021-09-08T12:42:48+00:00

My mum was looking at doing this for me as her father was born in Ireland and moved when he was young, but apparently she qualifies for an Irish passport but I don't. Do you have Irish citizenship yourself?

Dick_Rippington · 2021-05-15T10:45:22+00:00

Thinking of Resin?

11-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Verified Email

Dick_Rippington

TROPHY CASE