Often the oppressor is also the oppressed in some ways. I think empathy for people doing bad things is good actually.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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Surely it is possible to persuade some of those on the side of the oppressor, and that persuasion might require some tact. Surely.
Surely that "tact" wouldn't be throwing the oppressed under the bus in favor of the oppressor out of fear for "optics". Surely.
When it does, surely call it out. But I hesitate to label everyone doing hearts+minds work as the oppressor. And the powerless saying something that, if taken literally by the powerful, might hurt someone is very different from the powerful doing something to hurt people. All models (and most arguments) are wrong. Some are useful.
God, I know it's paranoid but I always wonder if the people expressing this are just some rightwing psy-op. "Don't listen to the people saying optics are an important aspect of any movement! They are your oppressor!". It's not that they don't have a point, the people that say you shouldn't riot at all bcz think of how it looks etc. are just as bad, but like.... do they only get shown those people at the extremes, or something? Do they really just not understand that messaging has always been a fundemental part of any social movement?
Apparently calling everyone who disagrees with you a paid operative of a psy-op is perfectly tactful and good optics though.
You... don't think that propaganda takes the form of capitalizing on (or even inciting) shifts in cultural attitude that widen ideological differences between two groups? Are you serious?
Did you reply to the wrong comment? Because you certainly didn't respond to what I said.
Your misunderstanding of what I wrote spurred the content of your comment - I extrapolated the conclusions you presented as having drawn, to highlight how the prior flaw in your reasoning doesn't hold when carried out beyond the point at which you stopped.
Oh, so you were replying to a strawman.
Dude it's a textbook use of reductio ad absurdum.
It's a textbook use of a strawman
You're... not very good at this.
Do you have anything other than lazy insults?
No seriously, you've dismissed everything of substance I've put forward with some pretty clear signs you just didn't understand what I was saying - or you're a troll, which from a skim of your profile really doesn't seem likely. You're just not very good at discussing this subject, or with actual debate in general. You've come into this with hostility, and that hostility has lead you to make clear oversights in understanding. It's just not very much fun at this point, and I really need you to realize that. You're not enjoying yourself, because you're having to shift tact over and over to get a rise out of me (I mean, come on, semantics? You know that's now how strawmen work) and it just isn't working.
So you don't have anything other than lazy insults.
It would take an unrealistically fragile ego to interpret that as intentionally insulting, which I seriously doubt you have.
Lol. You know damn well you meant it as intentionally insulting. Don't try to play dumb.
No, I really didn't, I don't even think it is particularly insulting, it's just exasperated. You've repeatedly demonstrated that you're misunderstanding what I've written, and then you're using those misunderstandings to justify your defensive hostility. It's like a strawoboros. Idk, it's not irritating exactly? It's just getting really played out. From reading your opinions we largely agree on pretty much every divisive social issue, you're just a great deal less wordy when expressing them than I am. You're making yourself angry over this, and there's no real need for you to be doing that.
Do you understand the difference between optics and abandoning all principles?
I'm sorry, I'm unclear on what you're saying here. That there is nuance in that difference was... my entire point. King was a master of working optics to further a social cause, it's a large part of why he has had such a lasting impact.
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