dr bwinbwin<p>this morning's rogue thoughts...</p><p>"Petty Hatreds"</p><p>back in the days of usenet, i used to argue with right wing nut jobs on alt.politics.homosexuality. it was the early 90s and i wasn't comfortable with labeling someone a "homophobe." i was younger then and much more pedantic than i am now. i thought "heterosexist" was more accurate, but even that didn't quite capture the rhetoric of anti-gay buffoons who couldn't think outside of jerry falwell's talking points. nor did it catch on as a popular term. so i started referring not to them as persons but to their attitudinal expressions, which i called "petty hatreds."</p><p>using that phrase didn't derail the focus into semantic nonsense about who or what they were "afraid" of (remember...the 90s). it revealed to them what they were doing in a simple, direct way. they couldn't argue with it because even they recognized its accuracy--though i'm sure at the time they considered their homophobia as justifiable and monumentally important, not petty. </p><p><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/PettyHatreds" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PettyHatreds</span></a> dislodges the essentialism at the foundations of their thinking. it reveals their supremacist attitudes, not as the bedrock of a black and white reality, but as a choice in how to treat their fellow humans. moreover, it shifted the focus from queer folk having to justify our own existence to them having to justify their choices. </p><p>i'd like to see people use "petty hatreds" more widely when confronted with so-called conservatives who disparage, denigrate, or dehumanize others, especially marginalized peoples. it disarms their defensiveness at being called a homophobe, transphobe, antisemite, misogynist, et cetera. "petty" reframes their hateful expressions as frivolous, unserious, and immature--as something easily dismissed. it provides a cognitive prompt for them to re-evaluate their expressions of hatred--where they have to question their culturally programmed, black and white worldviews. it makes them question themselves and their motivation--"am i really being petty?"</p><p>if they want to persist in expressing their petty hatreds, the first thing they need to explain is why it is not petty--a difficult burden. it also provides the so-called moderates with a ready-made cognitive schema for dismissing their extremist rhetoric as unserious and immature rather than accepting inculcated cultural biases. it might even provide a cultural inoculation against whatever pipeline into which the youthful among us are about to descend.</p><p>what other potential effects do you think the label of <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/PettyHatreds" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PettyHatreds</span></a> might have? other thoughts? 🤔 </p><p><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/RogueThoughts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>RogueThoughts</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/PettyHatreds" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PettyHatreds</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Discourse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Discourse</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/PoliticalDiscourse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>PoliticalDiscourse</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/ReframeTheDiscourse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ReframeTheDiscourse</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Xenophobia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Xenophobia</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Homophobia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Homophobia</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Transphobia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Transphobia</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Misogyny" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Misogyny</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/AntiSemitism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AntiSemitism</span></a></p>