I completely get this.
I have one friend who agrees with everything I say, but as soon as I say any word that falls into the category of “bad thing” (as determined by his facebook feed), he disagrees.
The “bundle of sticks” analogy has historically been used a lot by fascists. If someone used it to try to convince me, you can be sure it would backfire!
I mean you do have to be tactical when talking to others. You need to gauge what level they are roughly at before you use certain “buzzwords.” For example, you might want to say an industry is “mostly dominated by guys” instead of using phrases like “white cis male patriarchy” with some people because it WILL trigger them. Same thing when talking about racism. We all know what “white supremacy” means but to your average normie they think only of the KKK and stuff like that. Same with terms like “systemic racism” or whatever. I hate to say it, but it’s kind of a game of cat and mouse. We always have to be ready to phrase things differently because once we settle on something, the right will figure it out and then run their media on overdrive to let their base know what buzzwords to watch out for.
I mean before I was where I am today just saying Stalin or Mao would have triggered me to think of the “millions that died” or whatever. At some point you do have to be open about your views but that doesn’t mean you need to bombard someone immediately with words like “bourgeoisie” or “dictatorship of the proletariat” or “means of production” right from the get go. Even something as banal as “material conditions” requires the other person to kind of already know what you’re talking about in the first place.
For example, you might want to say an industry is “mostly dominated by guys” instead of using phrases like “white cis male patriarchy” with some people because it WILL trigger them.
These phrases can become triggering even for people who agree with the overall concepts, because they’re overused and often used by people who don’t really understand them. Someone hears something like that, thinks it sounds smart, is a contrarian, and starts labelling anything remotely related to any of those words with the full phrase. They’re called buzzwords because they generate a buzz (like a bee, not a beer). Unfortunately that buzzing is often akin to a hornet, not a bee.
can we not use the fasces metaphor as presented by someone named “Caesar” please