Post by Heightism Report on Feb 16, 2017 20:59:29 GMT
In essence, keep doing what you're doing. However, as you move forward, make sure not to get frustrated at the immediate results(or lack thereof) from the people we debate. These people have been indoctrinated with not only heightism, but in a society where "everyone's opinion matters" regardless of how much expertise they lack on any given subject. Social media has also given idiots a platform to garner the support of other idiots, thus, these folks feel empowered to continue their pseudo-intellectual, hateful, self-important rantings. The reason I'm saying this is to point-out that we're not in the business of changing these people's minds. These people were indoctrinated to resist us on every front, and we're not going to breakthrough that indoctrination with any level of empirical or anecdotal evidence. They are lost causes in regard to changing their minds. So why should we even bother if our efforts are futile at this point in time? Following are a few reasons why we need to keep moving forward
1) Planting Seeds- Right now, we aren't going to reap any form of harvest from our efforts, so we're just planting seeds for when(if) society ever decides to take heightism seriously. If that ever happens, these people's words will remain, and they will be chastised as being the hateful people that history frowns upon. If short people ever decide to get on the same page, we will have set the template for how to move forward, and those short people can use the content we've created to help them gain momentum. So, keep in mind that our victory is based on setting the tone and establishing a narrative that short people will use if they ever get tired of being treated like second-class citizens.
2) Turning Up The Heat- As I've eluded to, the people we debate are lost causes in regard to listening to anything we say with any degree of seriousness. They're not the type of people who are open to hearing new perspectives. They are followers who protect the status-quo as an automatic reflex to the indoctrination they've received, so don't expect them to give any ground when they proudly adhere to doing exactly what society tells them to do. We are the ones who are operating outside of the status-quo framework, thus, societal shills are going to react harshly when we challenge the very foundations that their thought processes are built-on. The reason we need to challenge them is to Turn Up The Heat. They need to know what it feels like to be challenged on their heightism.(Read the "Creating A Culture of Shame" thread for elaboration on this point) If we can replicate the experience of them being challenged more frequently, they'll eventually be the ones who get painted into a corner, not us. This won't happen until more short people step out of the shadows, but those of us who currently are part of the solution can get the ball rolling in this regard. Most people have never been challenged on heightism, and when we do so, they childishly lash-out. We can't expect people who respond to societal indoctrination to rationally accept the fact that they aren't the definitive authorities on everything about our society. When we challenge them, many of them throw tantrums, block us, delete their tweets, lie about the content of what was said, and employ various other sulk and pout mechanisms to play damage control. When we cause them to throw these tantrums, we have inconvenienced them. They need to know what inconvenience feels like since the society we live in has programmed them to believe that we are an inconvenience for merely existing. We aren't given any of the social mechanisms most groups use to address wrongs. We don't have celebrities, organizations, academic departments, or powerful allies on our side. Every piece of evidence we provide will be nitpicked to death or the conversation will be derailed by keeping the focus on the fictions they assume about our lives, character, personality, and general success in the world, and this society will give them the benefit of the doubt for their prejudiced assumptions, while dismissing all of our empirical evidence. We're not allowed to make comparisons to other discriminations in order to put heightism in an easily-accessible context. We're not even allowed to merely report the actions that are perpetrated against us without the blame being shifted back to us. Those who perpetrate these actions are given a pass, but we can't report their actions without being given a discriminatory label. For all of these reasons, all we can do to reverse this idiotic and hateful narrative is to infiltrate their comfort zones by poking them with a proverbial stick. We need to keep poking them with these sticks until we can pin them down.
3) The Ripple Effect- Another benefit of having these debates is that parties who aren't involved read them as well. Since they are heightist as well(everyone is heightist unless they deprogram society's lies) they too feel discomfort for being forced to think about whether they have been indoctrinated with prejudice. Also, other short people need to see that there are those of us who won't tolerate being snidely dismissed, mocked, ridiculed, stereotyped, emasculated, and treated as a nuisance based on a physical characteristic.
Basically, don't get married to immediate results in these dialogues because we're not going to change minds or even come close to reversing the double-standards, discriminatory characterizations, trivializing of our issues, ignorant people who think they're experts, the joy people get out of mocking us, and all of the other facets of this form of discrimination. None of this is going to be overturned in immediate fashion. When they throw their tantrums, we need to celebrate that they feel backed into a corner. WHATEVER WE DO THOUGH, WE CANNOT buy into their lies that our behavior can "solve discrimination." This isn't about our behavior, this is about a hate-based school of thought that puts us in a no-win-situation, so don't think for a second that we need to cater to heightists in any way. Society has been setup to cater to them 100% already. They already run the whole kit and caboodle, so our focus needs to be chipping away at the unfair cloak of immunity they have been given. Keep-up the good work everyone, and I hope to see more of you participating here in the near future
1) Planting Seeds- Right now, we aren't going to reap any form of harvest from our efforts, so we're just planting seeds for when(if) society ever decides to take heightism seriously. If that ever happens, these people's words will remain, and they will be chastised as being the hateful people that history frowns upon. If short people ever decide to get on the same page, we will have set the template for how to move forward, and those short people can use the content we've created to help them gain momentum. So, keep in mind that our victory is based on setting the tone and establishing a narrative that short people will use if they ever get tired of being treated like second-class citizens.
2) Turning Up The Heat- As I've eluded to, the people we debate are lost causes in regard to listening to anything we say with any degree of seriousness. They're not the type of people who are open to hearing new perspectives. They are followers who protect the status-quo as an automatic reflex to the indoctrination they've received, so don't expect them to give any ground when they proudly adhere to doing exactly what society tells them to do. We are the ones who are operating outside of the status-quo framework, thus, societal shills are going to react harshly when we challenge the very foundations that their thought processes are built-on. The reason we need to challenge them is to Turn Up The Heat. They need to know what it feels like to be challenged on their heightism.(Read the "Creating A Culture of Shame" thread for elaboration on this point) If we can replicate the experience of them being challenged more frequently, they'll eventually be the ones who get painted into a corner, not us. This won't happen until more short people step out of the shadows, but those of us who currently are part of the solution can get the ball rolling in this regard. Most people have never been challenged on heightism, and when we do so, they childishly lash-out. We can't expect people who respond to societal indoctrination to rationally accept the fact that they aren't the definitive authorities on everything about our society. When we challenge them, many of them throw tantrums, block us, delete their tweets, lie about the content of what was said, and employ various other sulk and pout mechanisms to play damage control. When we cause them to throw these tantrums, we have inconvenienced them. They need to know what inconvenience feels like since the society we live in has programmed them to believe that we are an inconvenience for merely existing. We aren't given any of the social mechanisms most groups use to address wrongs. We don't have celebrities, organizations, academic departments, or powerful allies on our side. Every piece of evidence we provide will be nitpicked to death or the conversation will be derailed by keeping the focus on the fictions they assume about our lives, character, personality, and general success in the world, and this society will give them the benefit of the doubt for their prejudiced assumptions, while dismissing all of our empirical evidence. We're not allowed to make comparisons to other discriminations in order to put heightism in an easily-accessible context. We're not even allowed to merely report the actions that are perpetrated against us without the blame being shifted back to us. Those who perpetrate these actions are given a pass, but we can't report their actions without being given a discriminatory label. For all of these reasons, all we can do to reverse this idiotic and hateful narrative is to infiltrate their comfort zones by poking them with a proverbial stick. We need to keep poking them with these sticks until we can pin them down.
3) The Ripple Effect- Another benefit of having these debates is that parties who aren't involved read them as well. Since they are heightist as well(everyone is heightist unless they deprogram society's lies) they too feel discomfort for being forced to think about whether they have been indoctrinated with prejudice. Also, other short people need to see that there are those of us who won't tolerate being snidely dismissed, mocked, ridiculed, stereotyped, emasculated, and treated as a nuisance based on a physical characteristic.
Basically, don't get married to immediate results in these dialogues because we're not going to change minds or even come close to reversing the double-standards, discriminatory characterizations, trivializing of our issues, ignorant people who think they're experts, the joy people get out of mocking us, and all of the other facets of this form of discrimination. None of this is going to be overturned in immediate fashion. When they throw their tantrums, we need to celebrate that they feel backed into a corner. WHATEVER WE DO THOUGH, WE CANNOT buy into their lies that our behavior can "solve discrimination." This isn't about our behavior, this is about a hate-based school of thought that puts us in a no-win-situation, so don't think for a second that we need to cater to heightists in any way. Society has been setup to cater to them 100% already. They already run the whole kit and caboodle, so our focus needs to be chipping away at the unfair cloak of immunity they have been given. Keep-up the good work everyone, and I hope to see more of you participating here in the near future
