Better late than never! 🥳
parenting hypocrisy. people shouldn’t need an offspring to have a working brain.
If your first instinct is to condemn this man for what he used to believe I would urge you to think about how we would ever go about affecting change without people like this who believe one thing, then see the error of their ways and change their mind. Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing.
The problem is more why he changed his view: it affected him. There are people who change their views because they’re curious and empathetic and finally get the time to look into an issue and see how it affects other people. Those are the people that deserve praise for changing their views, even if they used to be conservative shitbags.
I understand where you’re coming from but you need to think of this situation as someone who broke free of cult brainwashing. As someone who was raised conservative evangelical Christian, I can tell you it absolutely is. I felt guilt from not trying to convert people. I was told people different than me were going to hell to burn for an eternity from a young age. Manipulation tactics were used for me to believe in miracles and that the world is in a holy war against satan. Then the sentiment was retold over and over for close to two decades. It took a similar incompatibility as the man in the article for me to finally see that maybe different ideals and viewpoints weren’t evil after all.
He didn’t “see that different ideals and viewpoints weren’t evil”. His own child was affected so it was him that was affected.
He never thought or cared about others outside his own family. That’s why we aren’t congratulating him. He still hasn’t demonstrated any empathy for others.
In this case he changed his viewpoints for very selfish reasons, 100% agree. The point I’m trying to make is someone like this typically doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There’s an entire support group to reinforce and validate the bigotry and ignorance of their beliefs. Even if it’s for selfish reasons, changing a viewpoint like this can be a catalyst for even bigger change and personal growth down the line, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Also it’s not entirely selfish, many fathers would have disowned their daughter when they came out as trans and remained as close minded bigots. This sort of change should be celebrated.
Refraining from being an asshole doesn’t make someone a good person. It’s the bare minimum for being a normal non-hateful person. It’s good for his personal journey and his family, but I don’t have to fete and applaud him.
Well, growing up around the people I did, seeing any amount of change in someone like this gives me hope. And he’s doing much more than “not being an asshole”. Please at least read the article.
Yeah, yeah. He’s an “advocate for change” or something. But only for things that affect him. What are his opinions on whether the 2020 election was “stolen”, or God forbid his opinions on black people?
I’m not advocating for praising him, but everyone is vilifying him for coming around to a different point of view. He’s growing as a person. Maybe not in the altruistic way that you’d like, but it’s still growth. If we stay up on our high horses insisting everyone do the right thing just because it’s the right thing and for no other reason then we’re going to be waiting a very, very long time for change.
Take the fucking win and move on.
Classic Conservative. All feelings of empathy begin and end at himself.
It didn’t happen unless it happened to meeeeeee
Yeah but it sounds like he actually is growing out of the mindset.
Conservatism is simply a lack of experience. We all grew out of some shitty views, just some had their wake up call earlier and others were more isolated from experience and took more time.
Let’s be glad this dude came around at all, or his daughter might just have been another statistic at this point. He could have been another grifting chud on TikTok screeching about the librul media taking his child away through brainwashing, but he chose humanity.
Let’s stop shitting on people who were wrong when they finally come to their senses.
Conservatism is simply a lack of experience
also see: immaturity
And, yes, you are right: people who used to be wrong aren’t wrong anymore. We’re all just really used to brow-beating our perceived enemies.
Yeah this is not uplifting, this is just every conservative. “Oh shit, this is harming me now, we must stop it immediately.”
This is exactly how politicians work. It’s not an issue until it effects them personally, then the law gets changed.
This isn’t uplifting news, this is orphan crushing machine
Yeah but if you think about it, at the local level isn’t that how you want your politicians to work? They experience something that bothers them, and instead of just grumbling about it they go into politics to get elected and change it?
I mean if our politicians worked that way (driven by a single personal desire and hence the relative percentage of votes reflects how much the population wants each desire to influence policy), that’d be quite the improvement!
What if they never experience it?
It’s the Marie Antoinette effect. Even though the quote is likely apocryphal, the point behind it is that she was so unaware of the people’s level of starvation that she genuinely thought that eating brioche (“cake”) was a viable alternative for bread, which they did not have.
You do not want politicians like that.
Oh, people working 40 hours a week can’t afford rent and food? Why don’t they just eat less and get a second job?
They will likely never experience many of the problems that the general population does.
No, politicians especially need to have enough awareness of the world around them to represent people that they are not.
People only understanding something once it happens to them personally is immature and closed-minded, and leads directly to where we are (in the US) with the highest bodies in the land being a bunch of puppets to money and influence.
“Uplifting”
Most of the stuff posted here isn’t uplifting in the slightest. If anything, it’s even worse.
So uplifting that literally every top level comment is negative.
How is this uplifting news? Same old story, they hate until it effects them, then suddenly “things are different”. Yes this is slightly better than him always being a bigot, but honestly, f*** this guys lack of sympathy to start with.
A win is a win and you’re letting good be the enemy of perfect.
Exactly, people somehow expect this to be fixed overall without each individual having to change, which they’ll naturally do one-by-one. Utopian ideas are nice, but it’s a bit very unrealistic to expect everyone to wake up at the exactly same UTC time suddenly and no longer be bigots. That’s not how this changes. It changes one by one.
And sometimes it seems to go further than that. They want them to be changed retroactively it seems. Once a bigot, always a bigot seems to be the prevalent outlook. It’s paramount to recognize that this line of thinking ultimately comes from personal bitterness. That bitterness is valid and an expected emotional response to the hate that is constantly spewed by bigots. However, we need to embrace redemption more if we want to encourage personal change.
It was fine when it was someone else’s kid, though. You should be able to feel this outrage when it happens to anyone, anywhere. But that’s seldom how it goes.
It’s always until it effects them personally.
Sometimes it isn’t. Many of us are disowned
What’s the saying? Better late than never?
I’ve come to the conclusion that conservatives are just people whose sense of empathy is broken. Over and over I hear about conservatives who held bigoted beliefs and only changed their minds when confronted by someone they live becoming the target of other people’s identical bigoted beliefs. These people just can’t empathize enough to think “what if it was my child/spouse/friend?”
Indeed, although I would say it’s a more broad lack of cognitive ability. Low empathy, low intelligence and low capacity for abstract and critical thought. All of these make them easy to manipulate.
Sadly, some of them have issues so severe that they will even reject their own children.
Luckily, this father was capable of letting the love of his child overcome.
Sometimes I think that someone should start some kind of religion to help manipulate them in a way that they love their children, neighbours and love peace.
Then I think, that Jesus dude already tried, but with mixed results.
Anti-Lifers when they or their relatives need an abortion sometimes go from protest to clinic to protest.
The Only Moral Abortion Is My Abortion
Yeah, those “the only justified abortion is my abortion” people are the worst of the worst.
Or in other words, they’re selfish. Its only an issue when it affects them.
I have much, much harsher words than selfish for how I describe these troglodytes.
Well, It’s being selfish and lacking the forethought to muse about things that can happen to them too
Yes, selfish and shortsighted. Far too often their selfishness manifests in behaviour that actually hurts them too. Even if they can’t be taught empathy, I’d settle for teaching them enlightened self interest.
Same here.
Low empathy AND low imagination
Pretty fucking sad that it takes personal impact for any of these assholes to experience empathy.
Honestly that some are capable is uplifting…just not in the way you’re thinking.
I got lucky, my family never cared about me being anything specific so my social transition was the dream of minor annoyances while they had to overwrite a lifetime of conditioning of what they called me… But I have other trans friends who are clinging to the bricks by their nails because their parents think they are possessed by demons or “Don’t want to deepen their mental illness by playing along” So many parents demand absolute piety and there is something inside us damaged irreparably when they withhold their love.
I get to be strong because I am cherished by my people. To see people weakened for the lack of something I am given so freely is to know that I am not just lucky. It is to know exactly how much I owe to circumstance. Many of those who starve for acceptance see people like this and while the bitter see the nearsightedness… The dreamer dreams that it is possible one day it could happen to them because people who actually changed when it is their kid are rarer than you could hope.
Doesn’t give a shit until it personally impacts them.
Never complain about progress
One person isn’t progress when the rate of replacement is higher than rate of attrition.
It’s progress for that one person
Individuals are irrelevant.
Because you will assimilate them?
If your spouse is beating you slightly less than usual, then I guess things are looking up and there’s no problem because as you say
Never complain about progress
I mean yeah that is progress.
The guy was wrong and he saw the light, I guess we can go ahead and keep attacking him though.
Surely that will… change his mind… actually I’m unclear on what response you want from him.
Lots of people saying this isn’t uplifting enough. If this was my dad, I’d feel a lot more than just uplifted.
The more people who come around to reason, the more people will be exposed by proxy to a healthy perspective. This is absolutely uplifting, even if it’s tragic we are in this place to begin with.
It shouldn’t take until your own flesh and blood is affected to care about other people.
And part of the problem is that for so many even that isn’t enough.
Yes, it shouldn’t. But when someone changes like this we need to let them own the change rather than complain it shouldn’t have taken so much to change. He admitted fault and chose his child, he finally gained perspective. No different than convicts should be forgiven after serving their time in prison, he did his time locked in his hate, and found a road out whether we feel it selfish or not.
It’s a good point. However it is worth noting that conservatives are like this. Not sure how it can be used to rehabilitate them or whatever, but maybe it could be
100% - it’s not bad that he switched, he should be embraced.
Embraced>Embarrassed.
To those who downvoted this, obviously there are some hard limits to this idea, paradox of tolerance and all.
Unfortunately we can never personally experience everyone’s situation which is why empathy is important, and seems to be sorely lacking in a lot of people.
You know Lemmy has suitably replaced reddit when every ‘uplifting’ news story is really more of an illustration of our illustrious American hellscape.
I’ll only be convinced when this exact same story is reposted in 2-3 days, and then again in 6-7 days
And don’t forget power mods!
I block one community a week to avoid depressing stuff from the status quo in the US. This one is next to go.
