Most sets of ideas and intellectual positions are much more than what they are made to be by those that criticise them or passingly mention them from an outsider perspective.
Really seeing them for what they are requires a kind of diving in that few are prepared to do, be it because of lack of will or time resource (for example in having incompatible priorities, and not enough free moments to allocate the appropriate amount of time to study it).
The problem is not that you are taking another position that resonates more with you -a position that works for you and that you really understand for what it is- to a point where you can confidently make use of it for its purported utility. The problem is making an effort to undermine another position by replacing it for a caricature of what it is, and then mobilising a great deal of means at your disposal to spread this caricature far and wide. By doing this, one seeks to ensure that anyone who would’ve been interested in doing the work to understand the position -and use it for something productive- decide to dismiss it, because judging it by its caricature it seems worthless, or absurd, or cynical, maybe immoral, or downright delusional.
It is a sad state of affairs when great innovative perspectives and paths to action could be opened if people only spent more time working on the utility of their chosen position instead of spending to contribute to the caricature of another, of which they probably hold a negative judgement because they have only encountered the previous version of that very caricature.
Yes, some positions can be downright destructive and counterproductive, but they are a mere fraction of the great total that the aggregate of people with a sincere desire to make things better build. What they need is more people willing to understand them properly and not be demonised or ridiculed for trying by the other team across the sidewalk. This does not mean that any position should go on un-judged, but let’s distinguish between what is a single bad idea and what is a complete viewpoint of which all the rest of its elements could easily survive when reconsidering that single bad idea.
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