It is not hopeless to win people over, even the most conservative, ignorant and ideologically hostile can change their minds

When I was 16, I knew a girl from a small conservative town nearby. Politically, things seemed hopeless even then. Uttering the word socialism was enough get you dirty looks, and even spit on. This girl I knew would write newspaper articles for her school newspaper about how abortion is murder and murderers need punished; how sex outside of marriage and homosexuality is one of the worst sins; she attended young life, supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and would repeat all the usual Republican talking points of the time ("socialism poisoning the minds..."). She loved to debate. When I met her (we had mutual friends), she was convinced I needed saved. When I told her I was a communist, she was morally outraged and expressed all the usual prejudices: "you must be evil; you just want starvation and murder, and even if you don't, that's the unintended inevitable consequences of your kind of thinking" and so on.

 Today, 20 years later, this person, has posted, "no war but class war!" 

This kind of thing is increasingly common. Many people find that things they once felt to be indisputable and common sense were actually a bit ridiculous looking back. I don't point this out to say, "what a hypocrite, how inauthentic, how inconsistent" or anything like that. 

And I don't claim any real responsibility for this person's "journey to the dark side", I doubt much of what I said was the main thing that put them on a path of questioning (I barely knew them or interacted with them much), but it is indicative of a larger process of radicalization. And obviously there are still many torturous steps along the path. 

 False ideologies are a tough nut to crack, and it's not usually breached in a single blow, but chipped away at in a slow process until eventually the old thinking gives way. After all we're talking about real living people with will and consciousness, with reason and feelings, who are engaged in a back and forth with the world they live in. There is an abyss between the real experiences people have every day and the stories they tell themselves to justify these experiences as natural and the best of all possible worlds. Whether it's feeling the pain in your body from years of work; seeing a loved one suffer and die from a disease that could easily be prevented; feeling the anxiety of wondering if your children and grandchildren will be able to breathe the air without getting sick; struggling to pay rent or make car payments; or noticing how thousands of people are helplessly killed in a second because of the decisions of rulers around the world. The bad experiences stack up one on top of the other. It is only so long that repeating the mantra "just think happy thoughts" can hold back the cracks in the dam and the deluge takes place. After all, things must not be so good if you have to tell yourself to think positive thoughts, otherwise you wouldn't think to come up with such consolation in the first place. 

Everyone knows someone like the girl I mentioned, who has had a change of heart and mind. This is not merely hypocrisy, but a good thing. If you realize that you have been making a mistake in your thinking, then it's good to correct the mistake! Being loyal to an idea, regardless of the idea, is a ridiculous ideal. 

If you stop with the arrogant moral outrage and resentment for a second, which it is easy enough to fall into; if you stop fantasizing about mauling all the philistines and idiots who just don't get it because they're not enlightened (they are legion), and you think about how you yourself came to question and break with the familiar ideologies and justifications for this system, then you will realize that you yourself also started off with many ideas that today you find rather ridiculous. I myself was once a young person who scoffed at theory and reading, who thought I knew it all, who held ideas I today find absurd. But the other side of this is that you also realize that there were grains of truth to the old ideas you had, otherwise they would not have had any power to convince you. And don't get me wrong. To use a limited analogy: I'm not claiming that you defend yourself from rabid dogs by petting them-- but not all dogs that show their teeth or bark are rabid. Humans aren't dogs, obviously. But nonetheless, you notice that, as a rule, these differently shaped animals also begin to drool like Pavlov's dog when the bell rings. Certain words trigger certain emotional responses because various arguments have ossified into an automatic feeling after years of training. But, how is it that this conditioning doesn't work on everyone? There must be more variables than what your teacher or social media told you. 

So think about it: how did you get to where you are today, and are you convinced that you have finally figured everything out about the world once and for all and there's nothing left to learn about the world that could challenge what you think today? Was it because you heard some criticisms and better explanations, because someone took the time to patiently explain something to you that made it impossible to think along the same lines you had been thinking? Did the person know your own arguments and way of thinking even better than you did? What kind of things had to happen for you to even consider listening to someone you were convinced was either an absolute irredeemable monster or naive idealist? Were they screaming in your face and spitting on you? Or did they make you feel like you are comrades both walking a similar path trying to make sense of the world? This is a prerequisite, but simply being friendly and nice isn't enough if the explanations and criticisms aren't true. It is not just something specific about the individual, but about WHAT they are criticizing.