Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
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It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
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If this is about a personal relationship, all you should focus on is minimizing harm. Assume that any fear on one party is valid, and help to keep them separate from a potential attacker. Don't invalidate the feelings of either party - we may not always get to learn the truth, but many times we have to mitigate with incomplete information, but also that it is not your responsibility to fix alone. Remember that your strength is for protection, not destruction. Everyone sees things differently, including you, so there might be red flags that one party sees clearly that you missed - assume their judgment is right. If you are super positive, double checked, super sure that there is no risk of harm, then you dont need to directly intervene, but you can still emotionally support both sides without invalidating the other one, and it's their loss if this is only about turning you into the rope in a tug of war for attention. Make some different friends if this is only about manipulating you.
If this, however, is about politics, then you must remember that the only true natural law is that the biggest army wins, therefore, there is no such thing as neutrality. You cannot stand for all sides, nor should you stand for nothing and you should move to protect your family, friends and community from acts of hatred. Use your strength for protection, never against the weak and powerless, lest your own alliances and friendships be short lived; History shows repeatedly that movements formed from hatred are weak, short sighted, make poor allegiences, never learn from history, and are self destructive. Distrust any source of information that makes you feel scared and angry - especially if they use stereotypes to do so - since these are wedges to separate you from your community and to keep you addicted to propaganda. Keep your sources of information as varied as a healthy diet would be. And never ever, no matter how bad things seem to get, lose your faith in humanity. In the art of trying to be well informed, you will stare into the abyss. And the 1/3 of the human population made of evil hearts will dominate this information. You wont hear any of the other 2/3. Especially that last third made of good hearts. Hold onto this hope, and you will know any voice against the whole of society is wrong.