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I live in an area where most social spaces are dominated by woke ideology. People who don’t agree either pretend to go along, or have abandoned the shared social spaces. I feel that there is an unspoken shared social norm in most spaces around me that you must agree whenever someone implies/states that straight white men are problematic/oppressors. I feel like whatever is going on with this social norm is somehow tied to status games and tribalism. I feel that it is morally and epistemologically wrong to blame such a broad group for so many of the problems in society. It is wrong to over simplify societal problems to such a simple ideology. Ultimately, I believe every person deserves to be treated as a unique individual. It is fine to point out specific instances of a straight/white/male doing a problematic thing, but it wrong to assume that everyone in that group is bad and/or benefits from the problematic thing.
I believe it is ethically wrong for me to pretend to go along with problematizing any group of people just because that is social expectation to fit in with the group. Consequently, I mostly avoid social spaces because I don’t feel comfortable with the social norms that I’m expected to conform to.
There is a part of me that thinks the people in these social groups are otherwise reasonable, but they are also caught up in the social mania of modern times. I would like to be more social and make more friends, but the social norms of the spaces around me make me uncomfortable and closed-off to people. There don’t appear to be spaces near me without the straight white men are problematic norm for the areas I’m interested in (such as book clubs or running clubs).
Has anyone discovered a way to let it be openly known that you don’t agree with the group problematizing social norm, while still being accepted into the group? Like steering the group to a pluralistic acceptance of people with different values because those values don’t impact the stated purpose of the group (i.e. social norms about political ideology shouldn’t matter if you just want to go running with some people).
This is literally impossible. Not going to happen. If they are into culture where you know what your running club members think about current politics, and on top of that that they belong to a totalitarizing purity-obsessed ideology, you are not going to change their minds. You can either suck it up and learn to make a mysterious face if you don't feel comfortable openly lying, or you find another group to run with. There wouldn't be "just running" with them.
If you can't find any group that is not infected, the only advice I can have for you is to move. There's a lot of life outside of woke clusters, and a lot of very nice, interesting and different people. You are not going to change the culture but you can choose which culture you're part of.
I think this may be a bit fatalistic. Most people are averse to conflict and being perceieved as rude, at least when you're phsyically occupying the same space. I've found that simply speaking confidently and (most importantly) not defensively is usually enough to remind everyone that they are, in fact, in mixed company and need to behave like it. A lot of people in these places have literally never spoken to someone who disagrees with them before, and being confronted with a friendly, personable avatar of "the enemy" tends to break their brains and immediately turn you into "one of the good ones" to avoid the cognitive dissonance. The trick is to not get angry and cause them to entrench themselves in defense. You want them to be the asshole who makes things awkward and political, not you.
Obviously this doesn't have a 100% success rate. There are a lot of truly intolerant people out there, but they're the minority. Most people just want to hang out and participate in their hobbies. Standing up to the loudest bullies with a smile on your face is usually enough to force the whole group to moderate its tone.
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