@EdinburghFeminist
I'm so delighted to see so many athletes speaking up now, we need more, but this is more than I've ever seen before today. I'm busy replying to them all individually to thank them - I want them all to see that they have support.
That's entirely in line with the advice given about how to engage with and support people in communities to which you don't ordinarily belong. You do that by liking, replying, and being supportive etc.
There has to be a golden bridge in Sun Tzu terms otherwise people will fight to the death when there's no viable escape route. So, people who've previously been all about the #BeKind need to know that they can rethink this, especially in some contexts like sports (in this case).
A different take on why people need golden bridges from an anti-vaxxer perspective and using what is known about perpetrating cons/fraud:
Goffman observed that all “marks” eventually come to understand that they have been defrauded. But strangely, they almost never complain or report the crime to the authorities. Why? Because, Goffman argues, admitting that you have been conned is so deeply shameful that “marks” experience it as a kind of social death – the painful end of one of the many social roles we all play.
…
Within those groups, we can pinpoint influential members who may be turning their backs on Covid denialism, and encourage them in their journey. We can message them offering support, particularly if our reference groups overlap – whether that means sharing the same home town, or practising the same faith. The more shared social space, the better. We might offer to back them up if they get trolled for expressing misgivings about Covid denialism. Or we could let them know that we would admire them for telling the truth.
Those people may not have a television audience of millions, but they nonetheless have the potential to act as “coolers” for those in their reference groups – both online and off. The higher their status within the groups, the more influence they will have in reconciling their fellow travellers to the reality of the pandemic, perhaps enabling them to rejoin society, or at least preventing them from endangering the rest of us.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/09/convince-anti-vaxxers