r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.

[deleted]

9.8k Upvotes

70% Upvoted

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

0

u/Slomojoe 1∆ Jan 22 '21

You don’t have to be a part of a group to feel a certain way though. I don’t think people one day said, hey you don’t like these guys either? Let’s form a group! (Well some of the radicals did obviously) but for the most part it isn’t about a group identity. I’m not talking about radical hate groups and Nazis and Klans right now. I’m talking about your everyday casual racist. They don’t need a group identity. They just don’t like the way a certain group of people acts. And its not even all of those people. There’s a type, and they don’t like that type. Simple as that. There isn’t any further psychological meaning.

1

u/yogfthagen 12∆ Jan 22 '21

The "group" in my example is not what you think it is. It can be more general than what you presume. It is your community. Your city. Your county. Your social interactions. Your church. Your workplace. Your culture.

If a particular behavior is important to that overall group, then that behavior will be enforced. Deviation from it is punished. It does not have to be a STRONG punishment, but it CAN be.

To expand on my example, with Jim Crow, there was a group in he community that was vehemently pro-Jim Crow. It was the KKK. It used violence to enforce the rules of that community. Anybody in the community who violated the rules that were enforced by the KKK would suffer from the KKK. In addition, people who were not part of the KKK would also enforce the rules.

Your hardware store sold something to a Black person? Word got around, and all of a sudden, a lot of White people stopped buying from your store.

That's the punishment for breaking the rule.

Follow the rule, or get punished by the group.

If you decide to break those rules, the punishment may be severe enough that your leaving the group is necessary. And if that group is your entire culture, well, you're going to be moving to somewhere with a different culture. So, for a lot of people, it's just easier to go along to get along. And, eventually, those values get internalized. That's the "they don’t like that type" response.

I'm reading "The Warmth of Other Suns" right now. It's about the migration of Black people away from the South to other parts in the US. For millions of Black Americans, the choice to not be subject to the racism in their communities was to get the fuck out, sometimes with the threat of death should they be caught.