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I feel like being kind and compassionate works better with IRL acquaintances. Although IME they too have a persistent habit of just turning off their brains the moment the arguments get more detailed than anything they've gleamed from an activist's TikTok video.
But in the public sphere, there is observable value in being mean. The Left has been really good at employing mockery and mean-spiritedness to their own ends. It makes hay for the true believers, and cows fence-sitters into snapping into the cool, trendy orthodoxy of the day out of fear of being embarrassed. When I was a younger man on the Left, it was a popular sentiment that to really destroy bad ideas, you had to ruthlessly mock and ridicule them (with facts and reason on our side, but of course!).
Admittedly, I don't think this breaks any cycles. Grudges will be held, vengeance may be enacted further down the line. It's not lost on me that that much of the progressive zeitgeist is a reaction to some conservative Christian status quo ante. This ain't exactly stable.
But maybe being an uncompromising, loudmouth fucker is the only way you stay in the fight.
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