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Not true. Slavery was dismantled peacefully in many places. The US just happened to have a weird politial configuration that caused it to go out with a bang. In most places, those who did not benefit from the "right" to own slaves were persuaded by discourse such as we have in The Motte, and eventually those who did benefit were so politically isolated they surrendered and became skulls without a fight. The winning side usually granted a fig leaf that some portion of the losing side would not become skulls.
To give a contemporary example that's being discussed here of late, incels. In a Handmaid's Tale society, many incels might get the "right" to a goverment issued GF. So do all incels become revolutionaries to reimpose the patriarchy?
No. They know they've been outgunned by peaceful spread of feminism in the last 120 years. So instead 99% of them become skulls peacefully.
Maybe. But certainly Britain itself decided on the slavery issue peacefully, and that was a rather important domino, yes?
EDIT: To the part you added in:
This is a meaningful distinction. But the people on the losing side of culture wars often know what losing will mean for them -- that members of their team will end up socially marginalized and that the rights they hold holy will go extinct -- but after getting outmaneuvred by changes in public opinion, peacefully surrender in exchange for a few rats on their side being allowed to board a life raft.
Take the upper crust of old European nobility. A lot of those peacefully gave up their estate and are still rich. But the baronets and lesser gentry plummeted in status, and some surely became penniless and died without issue, who otherwise would have still been noble.
To recap, my claim is (a) you do not always need knives to force your enemy to surrender, discourse is still useful, and (b) there's nothing special about this culture war existentially threatening rights you consider sacrosanct and non-negotiable, all culture wars have been like that. All culture wars have been "5000 lb bombs".
I don't see you addressing popocatepetl's material point. The British were not slaves. They did not decide to free them due to the slaves' coercion, threats and censorship of anti-slave ideas. They argued and one day they agreed to free them. This very important issue of 'who are people' was settled by arguing. Ergo, less arguing, less freed slaves.
You're losing me with your analogy, what does (what I assume is ) a chomskyist take on US anticommunist misdeeds have to do with this. Yeah the british imposed abolition by force in a dirty imperialist way, and you and I believe that is a great thing.
To get back to them, who said it needed to threaten them and destabilize their society? A good deed doesn't count unless it leaves you destitute and maimed? It did cost them a lot of money and effort. Please reconcile that with your view that only the use of raw power by the people whose personhood is denied results in change. You want censorship? But at the time, the notables and 'good people' in their society were probably much more likely to want to ban pro-slave views.
I'll just quote Scott:
I don't know why you want to jettison our beautiful weapons for some ugly ones.
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