I started a job at a sawmill and at first things were good, it seemed liek the group I was working with was a good bunch of folks but a couple of things have stood out to me.
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This sweet older lady that I was shadowing for the first day, we were joking and talking the whole day and i thought she was just a really nice person. And then one day I overhear her in the lunch room saying “they just don’t deserve to live honestly” when referring to addicts, like wtf? how can someone be so pleasant and then turn around and say something so barbaric.
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I was shadowing another guy who seemed friendly and we were getting along well, and then one time while a group of us were standing around just talking, he was complaining lightheartedly about his wife when he starts dropping bombs like: “Best place for a woman is in the kitchen” and “A woman looks best behind a vacuum” there were more but I don`t remember cause I was honestly shocked.
I was looking forward to getting to know the people here and getting in on the group dynamic but now im not sure if im gonna be able to stand anyone here lol, so far it was only these two but going forward I want to be able to counter reactionary bullshit like this when I hear it. Chapos how do you counter this shit when you come across it without pissing off your coworkers?
Only start challenging them when you’ve become part of the work culture imo. Once you have respect they’ll respect what you’ll say, but if they don’t then you might just make them think you’re annoying. But once you’re in a position where you can push back,
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Don’t get emotional. Even if someone’s saying something abhorrent, just casually ask questions socraticly, or maybe laugh a little if they say something particularly stupid, but never go beyond that.
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If you don’t know something say “I don’t know” or “Hmm, good point, I’ll have to look into that” instead of floundering, trying to own them. If they make a good point acknowledge it, find common ground where you can, and try to make the agreed upon aspect line up with your political vision.
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A good concept for Americans is the concept of positive liberty vs negative liberty. More effective as a starting point than any European or socialist sounding words. Also, in general try to formulate things in your own words instead of using slogans and words that people recognize and have built up readymade responses to.
Lots of good suggestions here. If I’m not feeling up for a long session of asking questions and digging deeper, I’ll sometimes try to put a twist on the topic that brings out another side to the issue. I had a coworker say some bad shit about addicts too, for example, so I took us off on a tangent about how pharmaceutical companies knew that people were getting addicted to opioids and deliberately pushed the drugs to make a profit, etc. If you really feeling like going for it, you can get into the CIA and drugs. Or for your other example, you can go off on a tangent about how being able to feed yourself and maintain your home is a basic life skill and you’ve never really understood how some men seem proud of being helpless. Well, that last bit might be coming on too strong–but you get the idea.
Just joke to the absurd extremes of the opinion and see how far they go. If they agree with you, people will generally see them as wrong, and of they push back then get them on the push back. Most people don’t actually have experience discussing and challenging their ideologies (as they aren’t forum junkies), so it’s pretty easy to dance rhetorical circles around them.
That being said, the most important thing is not to look like a dick while you are doing it.
99% of people in the real world have a bunch of stupid bullshit in their brain thats only there cos they have never really looked at it or been challenged on it, and also just say stuff for the sake of having something to say, maybe, I dunno. I like to think I would challenge that shit when I saw it but would probably just fake laugh out of politeness I don’t know I haven’t spoken to anyone new in like a year.
Right? I always thought I would be the first to call someone out on that, but then it happened and I just chickened out lol. Oh well, I intend to push back more the next time it happens.
It’s hard to navigate that situation because you don’t want everyone to end up thinking you’re a moralizing killjoy. People tend to rationalize their discomfort at being confronted by assuming the other person is just trying to feel superior and isn’t actually making genuine points. I run into this all the time with animal rights stuff. People are more likely to go down the “vegans are too preachy/intolerant/arrogant” route instead of engaging with the stuff you’re telling them about factory farming. It’s particularly difficult to navigate that in the workplace.
