This post would benefit from a treatment of the role friendship plays in these dynamics. It’s one thing to be cancelled by anonymous strangers. It’s quite another to be silenced or cancelled by your friends.
Here are some examples.
Your new partner wants to meet your friends. You now feel pressure to keep those friendships so that you can be seen not as a pariah but as popular. Your friends are rigid ideologues. What do you do?
Your friend is suicidal, and also a rigid ideologue. Speaking your dissent of their ideology causes them to have suicidal thoughts, for which they blame you. Do you argue your point, even though you may be furthering their extreme anguish, or do you stop, even though you may be getting emotionally blackmailed?
You are poor and stressed, and your housemates are rigid ideologues. Speaking your dissent might destabilize your housing situation, which might have unpredictable knock-on effects. Do you stay silent, or speak up?
Your parents are top notch status game players, who have managed to avoid ever getting embroiled in political controversy. They judge you by your achievements, not by your struggles. Do you take on the additional challenge of sticking your neck out, or keep your head down and work on your career?
You get called out by a large number of your friends on social media. Do you argue? Do you act conciliatory without actually disowning your statements? Do you apologize and tell them you’ll “educate yourself” and make reparations? Do you self-cancel and just disappear?
You meet a new friend. Not knowing whether each other are rigid ideologues, you both start signaling that you are, just in case the other is (defect-defect). How do you break the cycle and get to cooperate-cooperate? What if a third person enters the mix who is a rigid ideologue, and you both start mirroring them? How can you regain your original equilibrium?
In general, if you’re careful to avoid giving unsolicited opinions you can avoid most of these problems even with rigid ideologues. You wouldn’t inform a random stranger that they’re ugly just because it’s true, and if you find yourself expressing or wishing to express ideas which people don’t want to hear from you, it’s worth reflecting on why that is and what you are looking to get out of saying it.
This post would benefit from a treatment of the role friendship plays in these dynamics. It’s one thing to be cancelled by anonymous strangers. It’s quite another to be silenced or cancelled by your friends.
Here are some examples.
Your new partner wants to meet your friends. You now feel pressure to keep those friendships so that you can be seen not as a pariah but as popular. Your friends are rigid ideologues. What do you do?
Your friend is suicidal, and also a rigid ideologue. Speaking your dissent of their ideology causes them to have suicidal thoughts, for which they blame you. Do you argue your point, even though you may be furthering their extreme anguish, or do you stop, even though you may be getting emotionally blackmailed?
You are poor and stressed, and your housemates are rigid ideologues. Speaking your dissent might destabilize your housing situation, which might have unpredictable knock-on effects. Do you stay silent, or speak up?
Your parents are top notch status game players, who have managed to avoid ever getting embroiled in political controversy. They judge you by your achievements, not by your struggles. Do you take on the additional challenge of sticking your neck out, or keep your head down and work on your career?
You get called out by a large number of your friends on social media. Do you argue? Do you act conciliatory without actually disowning your statements? Do you apologize and tell them you’ll “educate yourself” and make reparations? Do you self-cancel and just disappear?
You meet a new friend. Not knowing whether each other are rigid ideologues, you both start signaling that you are, just in case the other is (defect-defect). How do you break the cycle and get to cooperate-cooperate? What if a third person enters the mix who is a rigid ideologue, and you both start mirroring them? How can you regain your original equilibrium?
In general, if you’re careful to avoid giving unsolicited opinions you can avoid most of these problems even with rigid ideologues. You wouldn’t inform a random stranger that they’re ugly just because it’s true, and if you find yourself expressing or wishing to express ideas which people don’t want to hear from you, it’s worth reflecting on why that is and what you are looking to get out of saying it.