What I Like About RC

In order to be able to cooperate with other streams and movements for bettering of humans or humanity or the human situation, it would be good to have clarity about what is unique about RC and what we like best about it. It’s not enough to be able to wave Harvey’s The List. We need to know such a list by heart. Preferably our own personal list. (When we agree with others, it becomes our thinking but not if we just parrot others.) For inspiration, I’ll give you a list. Please, make your own.

RC saved my life. I hate to think about what would have become of me if I hadn’t stumbled upon RC.
RC stands out in that it’s not a philosophy or method but a discovery. Therefore, it’s timeless and eternal.
RC is for everyone and against no one. And the One Point Program should make sure that dissidents are not ousted.
The distinction between the Person and the Pattern is almost unique and certainly no other group has ever suggested this difference as radically as RC.
RC Theory is developing. It’s not just insights from the past.
The only reason RC does not work is when it’s not applied. And the only one to blame is the counselor, never the client. There is great respect for what client are and do, the human brain. No one is “crazy” or “faulty ” for having been hurt and trying to recover from it.
In RC, “talkers” learn to listen and “listeners” learn to talk. And everyone is a born leader. There is no division between “important” and “less important” people. RC leaders have extra responsibilities, not are more important or talented.
RC tries to get the most oppressed people in a group to lead so that the group often is the best for everyone in it. Leadership is for the group, not the leader. But also a safe ground to learn it.
RC is very brainy and still embraces feelings and emotions.
RC is against all ways of humans hurting humans.
RC’s Theory on Internalized Oppression makes very clear why people stayed oppressed so long.
RC reaches out to all people, no matter what their background, position or oppression.
The more you do RC (clienting, counseling, leading), the better you’re at it.
There is a wealth of Theory. We never need to be lost for good reading.
RC Theory sets the bar high. No timid goals. Though, to get there, it advocates taking realistic baby steps or many people cooperating. RC is optimistic.

How do you see RC as very special?

History: We Were Only Allowed to Lead RC Anti-Racism if …

Stories about RC in the olden days can be informative to RCers less years around and also do justice to past work that we stand on today.

There was a time that almost all RCers were White (Caucasian). Then we were advised to all work on our earliest memories connected to racism. And no one was allowed to lead an event (evening, support group, workshop) on discharging racism unless the majority of one’s friends was non-Caucasian. That was a frustrating but great idea. Those were the days!

So, in order to make progress here, we had to make non-White friends, get out of our White bubble (isolation) and that would give us plenty of stuff to discharge on more.

These were the stages I went through.

A. What Racism, What Non-Whites?

I was hardly aware of racism. And I assumed that “being against it” sufficed. And non-Whites did not seem around. Until I started discharging. Then I suddenly remember a teacher who was not White. And then another one. And how strange grownups reacted to them.

I decided to be in a topic group against racism at every workshop and to counsel on it for an hour every week, saying: it’s not a lot but it’s still something.

B. Guilt, Guilt, Guilt

It was so hard to think at all when guilt was everywhere in your head.

The best way was to discharge on early memories and to set a goal at the end of the session for one action against racism. Preferably a small attainable goal. If you didn’t succeed in your goal, you did not get punished or were not frowned-up. But if you did succeed in any way (for instance, you remembered your goal), you had something good to use for discharge in the next session.

Besides working on early memories, celebrating (Hurray, hurray!) fresh successes were another successful way to discharge. And fresh failure was also easy to discharge on.

C. Becoming More Experienced

Slowly, it dawned on us that we didn’t need to hide our racism as non-Whites could smell it a mile away. We started interrupting racist remarks (another success to report on in our sessions). We did not attack Whites making racist remarks or “jokes” but rather tried to win them over to join anti-racism.

D. Leading, Finally

It was a great moment when I concluded that I was spending most of my time with friends with non-Whites. I could start leading groups.

I was already doing many sessions with other Caucasians about racism. And with a leader who had a non-White partner. (That surely helps being motivated to work on this stuff.)

E. Racism Hurts the Oppressor Too

It became clear to me that while racism hurts, maims and kills non-Whites, in terms of distress recordings, White children got a really bad deal too. That we, from a very young age, feel deeply ashamed of the racism from White grownups who raise us (including the uneasiness of those who preached against racism). That’s a very lonely life!

Whites, first of all, do a favor to themselves being serious about being an ally to non-Whites, to get rid of their racism and deep loneliness. And to reconnect to how good we are for not wanting anything to do with racism.

F. Mixed Blessings

I noticed something special in my regular co-counselors who had a mixed ethnic background: one non-White and one White parent. They had “regular” internalized White racism combined with very strong feelings against non-Whites including themselves. The put-downs from their White parent had hit harder than from strangers. I checked with other mixed-background counselors. Same story.

G. Are Whites Oppressed?

Then I led a Regional RC workshop for Whites exploring if Whites are oppressed. (This was 10 years before Harvey asked the question. Can you be bragging if you just state what happened and you worked hard for it?)

We tried a direction like “I promise to be completely close to my White family” and me saying to my client “I will never distance myself from you” – something like that. Tons of discharge.

Racism doesn’t only isolate Whites from non-Whites, it isolates Whites from each other and themselves!

My Chinese friend liked my hope that Whites only needed to reconnect to each other and then would automatically stop being racist. It was a nice over-simplified dream.

I would say now, White young people certainly are oppressed, not as Whites but certainly as White young people (See HERE).

H. It Passes on

It became so important in my life that I would not marry a “racist.” And I didn’t. That also helped my children to have close friends (and partners) of every ethnicity.

Your Opposite Backgrounds Don’t Cancel Out!

In daily life and most people would like you to label yourself clearly. Once you’re pigeon-holed, you can be handled with ease.

However, we sometimes self-identify (not to please or ease others but to help us feel at home, safe and move on) with identities that are more-or-less opposites.

I’m owning class and non-White.

Your class position doesn’t cancel out the supremacy racism and your ethnic background doesn’t undo your elite class position. You discharge on both liberations (internalized oppression and oppressor patterns).

I lived a heterosexual life, had a heterosexual identity and then I fell in love with another woman and now call myself lesbian.

So what are you? You’re probably a (formerly) heterosexual woman and a lesbian. You might also call yourself a bisexual but not just to escape the shame attached to both other identities (of being in the heterosexual oppressor position and of being queer).

I grew up poor. I’m now pretty well-to-do.

You could call yourself upwardly-mobile but don’t let your growing-up-poor working-class background negate your middle-class or successfully working-class background to escape the shame (of having no money respectively of having money). Both positions made your life richer (pardon the pun).

I lived as a thief but then I became thoroughly honest.

You could call yourself just a repentant but you have properties from both lifestyles. Don’t deny any of it, just to escape the shame. As a thief, you may have learned good things. (How stressful it was. How to spot a dishonest person.) And now, you may be more honest than most people. Don’t bury any of it.

As a young person I was a shorty but now I’m towering.

Both identities are important. Discharge about both of them.

I worked myself almost to death but now I’m old and redundant.

Don’t just talk about the present oppression of being written-off. How was it to have been forced to work so hard?

You get my drift. Does this apply to you or your counselors too? Is this obvious to you or did you think something new, reading this?

To hell with puzzled stares of others. Reclaim all your identities!

Decide to Become Active, Not Just Reactive

It’s a nice idea that, once we re-evaluated and cleaned up enough old distress, we will have better memories, have a more flexible brain and will look more freshly at the future – and therefore we will be more active in bringing about a better world for all. But the latter point is doubtful. Maybe eventually, we’ll start help improving the world for all, but if we wait for this spontaneous change, in most people it could take very long. Better is to take decisions “before we feel ready.”

Being Reactive

Reacting is a lower life form. Even viruses and bacteria react. Even lifeless objects, like billiard balls, react to changes that affect them.

This is not to say that reacting is unimportant. You are crossing the street and a car is approaching – you better make sure you stay safe. You have an important test – you better learn. Don’t ignore reality.

I was having a bite at a quick-and-dirty. (It was actually not dirty.) Someone came over and asked me: Would you buy me a small meat meal? I said: sure (although I’m a vegetarian). Later he asked: Could I also have a drink? I said: Anything you want (although I never drink soda myself; he had a coke). I just reacted – it was easy.

The biggest disasters happen because people fail to react. Wars can only happen when m ost people look away. The Holocaust is also caused by millions of silent bystanders (and governments and media that didn’t report what was going on). The serial abuser was often believed that it was a one-off thing and so could become serial.

We know from our sessions how much unnecessary distress and oppression was in the world and still is. And it seems profitable to all people to stop this pandemic of irrationality. We surely don’t want to wait until all people got enough sessions to stop the misery. And after a couple of sessions, we can also know that we are the best persons available to help clean up the mess.

Be Active Too

But good as reacting is, acting is better. And someone who is active will certainly be reactive – and not let indifference, inaction and apathy allow oppression to take place unchallenged.

Waiting until we’re ready is going to be a slow process. Deciding is faster. Let’s do ourselves a favor and take a few sessions on “I’ve decided to become active.”

And I don’t just mean that we should all go save the planet – though I wouldn’t object if everyone did so. It could be too: I’ve had enough eating junk food and snacking – I’m going to have proper food only. Or will start exercising. (See Harvey’s Commitment for “World changers.”)

Let’s not just sit around waiting for when the news or the spirit grabs us. We don’t need anything from outside of us anymore and no one needs to tell us, to go do something.

In the times that an atomic world war, nuclear holocaust, was looming – may those times never return – one slogan was: Better active today than radioactive tomorrow. It’s not always easy to become active. We sometimes seem to need a lot of motivation.

But what also may help is an awareness that we simply can be active, that we’re invited to become activists, that life is better fighting for an ideal than just riding out the ride, that we are most ourselves when we do.

To choose change. To do a few sessions to decide to become active in wide world change. To stop just reacting to the news but rather join the troops of idealists forever, always on the lookout where to chip in.

Not just to react when our response is needed in emergencies. We can make a difference before the shit hits the fan.

Even radioactive substance shows spontaneity (but not free will). We have the ability to initiate. To spontaneously say: I have enough of this, I’ve seen enough, I have a thought.

Participants in groups often just sit around and wait, react to what is offered. TV culture. But when called into leadership, we suddenly emerge as initiators, begin to think about what we could do and say.

(Leaders are often not more talented, wiser or smarter. Rather, they got the idea or the job to take initiative. When we take the job, we also get ideas. As soon as we try to think about something, we’ll have thoughts.)

Humans can brainstorm, jump linear thinking. We have an ability to foresee the time after now and imagine improvement – and work for it.

Not because we should. Not to avoid punishment or condemnation. Not because otherwise we won’t be a good person or it will be all our fault.

Rather, we may become activists for a better world for all because that is the best expression of who we are. Being an activist is the best life.

Love Thy Enemy as Thyself

I heard that Cherie Brown, many decades ago, advocated learning to love people while they still have all their distress in place. Not just to say: Once they’re less distressed, I’ll like them.

You don’t throw out your shoes when some mud got stuck to them.

We want someone (our partner) to change? They couldn’t. But what they can do is to become themselves again. When we love them, they have exactly what it takes to free themselves from old distress. But, when we want them charged, even a little, all they hear is “you don’t love me” and are stuck. So, let’s love them with all they have. Paradoxically, when we love them as they are, they will “change.” When we want them changed, they are stuck.

To forgive people who hurt us – it is said a lot – we can do to free ourselves – from anger, resentment, revenge. Hate may be better than self-hate but we’re still stuck in hatred – a world of violence. (Forgiveness for some of us might be premature when the hurt is still fresh.)

What about more distant people?

Most of us know people we “absolutely” “simply” can’t stand. What do we need to discharge to love them, feel for them, give them a hand, be generous toward them so that we humbly can “be an environment in which healing can take place” (Ram Dass) so that the moment they see us or hear from us, they’ll start discharging effectively, feeling that they are with a friend, someone to trust?

As long as we are antagonistic, they will just hate us back. Then they also can’t stand “people like us.” But more than we could hate their distress recordings, they’d love to get rid of them. Let’s be their allies!

To dislike them, we must feel superior to them. We must think that we are nicer or more proper or more moral or more intelligent – whatever we fancy, not to identify with them and prefer ourselves over them. We need to remember that no one was born to please us, give us a better (a more comfortable) life, to be there just for our good. That means that when we hate, we must work on humbleness more and our integrity.

We don’t have to endanger ourselves to dangerous recordings, but when we’re safe, we can try to get rid of our greatest powerlessness vis- à-vis others. And when we can deal with such people, we can deal with anyone. Getting closer to one person improves all our relationships.

We should not ignore violent patterns. But we should also make a distinction between the person and the pattern. That is fundamental to RC. We can’t expect to be involved in bettering humanity if we only want to be close to certain people. Harvey was everyone’s ally. So can we be.

Featured

If You Hate Reading, Read This

Read in a session. Take a rational text like RC or math or physics. Emotional or distress texts are often harder to read. Take your time discharging. It will make that you become good at reading. And fond of it.

If you have enough free attention to listen, you can read. Try to realize what you read.

And it can become fun and a skill you’re good at, by experience and discharge.

You don’t need the distress that makes it hard to read. Chuck it!

Through reading, you will learn so much, so fast!

Begin by reading slowly but precisely. Don’t worry about the speed. That will come with practice. (But if you begin with fast and imprecise reading, you will never really read what it says.)

In the beginning, reading one copy of Present Time took me three months, every three months. I was a slooow reader. But discharge helps! Now, I read it cover to cover in a (busy) week. I still don’t read as fast as insatiable bookworms. But I read. Faster than most people.

I just heard someone say: People don’t read anymore. I can tell you: “people” never read. Harvey would spend morning class time at workshops teaching the newest RC Theory from the latest Present Times. No one complained, “I read that already.” I was the only one on hundreds of counselors who was up-to-date. It helps to prioritize doing sessions on reading.

Outside of sessions, begin reading stuff that you find super-interesting. Stories, novels, comics, about your best hobby, whatever it is. And RC stuff. Texts that fascinate you, that you can’t put down (so to speak). Look for the subject(s) that you like, from writers that you like. Or texts that are simple, easy. Don’t feel too embarrassed to read children’s books. You learn better when it’s fun. (I raised a few voracious readers. They started with simple books they liked – Lord of the R., Harry P.)

There is no law that says that you must read a text from the beginning to the end. Skip difficult stuff (words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books). But don’t skip discharging. If it’s a text with pictures or large quotes, look at them first. With a long text, you can first browse the title, the first few words, the ending (whodunit?), maybe a few words in the middle. Look for introductions, names of chapters or captions.

(I’ve read articles and even books backward. First I looked if I liked the ending. I did. Then I read what came just before that. That was OK too. Then ahead of that. The whole thing backward. Why drag yourself through a text if that way it’s fun for you?!)

Maybe you better like reading texts that you know already. Like transcripts of lectures or (news) reports that you have listened to. Or first, have someone read you the text before you try reading it.

Does reading remind you of school? Discharge! Does it remind you that you were called or felt stupid? Discharge! Does it “make” you feel bored? Discharge! Does it “make” you feel forced? Discharge! Don’t just walk away from reading. Discharge and then read some more.

Have a friend do the same program as you and read the same text and then talk about it after you’re finished reading. If you own the copy, make notes in the text, illustrate it, cross out words you dislike – it’s your party!

In the end, you’ll read for relaxation, for pleasure. You’ll stop watching TV. In your free time, you’ll read and do activism. And never look back.

Look at what a long text you’ve read now! Over 600 words!

Don’t just learn reading. Teach others. It’s the best.

RC Teachers

We could call it negligent not to read new Theory or to fail rereading old Theory. But instead of calling a teacher who has a hard time doing so all kinds of names, it will be better to ask them: What takes higher priority than reading Theory? We must assume that the first thought that comes up reveals what distress the teacher rather discharges than reading Theory. That must be pity urgent stuff. Giving a hand with discharging that, should make it easier to keep our thinking up-to-date.

Writing

Once you mastered reading, you can add learning to write. Through writing, you can teach many people very fast (once they learned reading). And let them profit from the writing styles you read and from your unique thoughts and insights. It’s the best.

Learning to write is even easier than learning to read. Three steps:

1. Write anything you think. Brainstorm. There is no thought unworthy of being jotted down. (“I don’t know what to write” – write that down!) Try not to correct or perfect anything. Later. Writing is like talking: once words are out, some next words got ready to emerge. Don’t frustrate your train of thought with being critical.

2. Review what you wrote and be merciless on the quality. You may expand on it (going back to 1!) and remove and change anything. (Any part you like very much but doesn’t work in this text, instead of throwing it out, save it in a special file.) Use spell and grammar checkers. Once you are finished reviewing, you start from the top. Clarify and simplify, anything hard for a reader to understand. Review and review until (and beyond) you hate reading it again. Until you find nothing anymore to improve. (If you’re a recovering perfectionist, you may stop just before it becomes perfect.)

(If the text is very important and you have time, ask friends and family to proofread for you. Some of their criticisms may “prove” that they didn’t read well what is written but that also means the text could be improved there. (Don ‘t discard their help.) If you have the money for it, hire a professional editor, at least for part of the text. Learn from those corrections how you can improve your writing and may stay outside of some of your bad habits and chronics.)

3. Keep reading to give you more ideas about how to write better. But writing is like discharging. The more you’ve done it already, the easier the next time is. So, keep writing.

How to Communicate at the Same Time that the Situation is Dire and that All is Well?

Harvey suggested after asking the above question: At least when we suggest that all is well, the patterns will object that the situation is dire. Something like that. Have we come any further than that? Maybe.

Listen to Al Gore communicating about all our lives hanging in the balance. His message, information and reasoning have all the alarming information while his tone is absolutely light, calm and confident.

No doubt, that’s the reason that his YouTube clips drown in a rising sea of fake news’ videos denying climate change. He’s a very effective communicator that the big polluters don’t want you to see or believe.

US actor/film star-turned-president Ronald Reagan used the same airy composed sonorous sure tone.

They didn’t take out a copyright on this. Let’s practice it in our sessions and use it. It’s like rehearsing a good joke. Once we told it enough times, we stop laughing about it and are better able to make others laugh with it.

Let’s train ourselves saying the most alarming (and true, and therefore most alarming) things good-humoredly calmly and confidently. If people can do this without RC, we certainly can reach this while discharging.

(It’s scary that one’s power increases with one’s improved tone. That should “obligate” us to also work on our integrity and on being an ally with all oppressed groups (and all people) – not to abuse this “authority.”)

(But those who learned, as (children of) agents of oppression, to fake confidence, a reassuring tone while they’re either numb or terrified really, they should do sessions on being real.)

We can walk and talk to groups as if we are the emperor while we talk with any individual as their best friend. If have seen someone do so.

It’s not true that we get more followers or students when we sound sweet and vulnerable all the time. Now – that’s for most of us something scary to internalize.

Big Shout-Out to Diane Shisk

It is not true that all leaders have good sessions. Harvey for years, notoriously and to his chagrin had to mention that his clienting was not so successful. (Less experienced counselors too easily project what they need to discharge about unto their leaders. And then, they don’t think about what the leader needs.) Asking groups you lead to counsel you can help. It’s also a nice way to repay the leader for the effort. (HERE are some hopefully helpful hints how to counsel our leaders better.)

I also have seen leaders who are bad clients. Although every client always does the best s/he can, we can still as clients choose to try and help our counselor, not help our counselor or even trouble our counselor. Intimidating our counselors, criticizing them, telling them to shut up, are some of the ways even experienced clients may act. Which, of course, makes their sessions shallow and their progress slow.

I’m relating this to say: it’s not a given that an experienced RC leader has great sessions. Therefore, I want to applaud Diane for being our example of making sure she has effective sessions. How does that show? Well, one Present Times she writes that she is way too hopeless and anxious to lead environmental change and the next Present Time she pens what we need to know, what we need to counsel about and what we need to do to save the planet. In other words: she saw her challenge and took it.

(This validation is only for Diane, not an oblique criticism on other RCers.)

How Does RC Relate to Other Methods of Taming Humans?

In the first decades of RC, we needed to say that there was nothing like it and it’s the best. And that is still a pretty actuate statement. But there are many people who developed and execute different methods for human progress. It would be good to seek alliance with such groups, learn from each other and become one even more powerful gang.

This could also give us a better understanding of our strong and weak points and the true value of what we are calling RC. Only insecure people need to say all the time: We are the best. Ours is the only way.

NB: I do not advocate at all to mix different methods. That’s not the same as learning from each other. But it’ll help us to become humbler, as advocated before, and so, be able to teach more Blue Collar Workers.

We need to quit being so insecure (see also: HERE) that we must be haughty.

What is unique of RC is that it is not a method but rather a discovery of natural recovery processes that in the end, will give people greater mental capacities than anything else ever before. All people must have access to this to become their fullest self. That should be a right like to clean air.

What’s not superior about RC is that it’s, like lots of therapies, a slow process. It may be faster than most therapies but it’s still slow. It may take years before participants get a clue about their chronic distresses (if they’re under 60). This is a bit compensated by our solid Theory (most religions too have better theory than practice) and our Liberation work.

There are methods that are more hands-on than RC. Quick results. But their disadvantages are that they are less inborn and less fundamental.

For instance, there’re methods to learn to communicate empathetically. That gives quicker results in cleaning up bad relationships. One could say that most people learned an aggressive way to speak and listen, and this is then like learning a new language that doesn’t short-sell anyone. Learning speech to relate well is not as fundamental as learning to heal all distress, but both could certainly be applied in tandem.

It certainly helps to have free attention when connecting to people but it can also help to know how to talk and listen in a friendly way.

It reminds me a bit of the old discussion in RC if we should work on our oldest distress connected to sexuality in any way at all or on the most hurtful experience connected to sex in any way at all. The outcome of this “dispute” was: whatever the client prefers. In the end, the rape survivors will also want to clean up the earliest stuff; the early worker will certainly encounter later giant blocks of distress that s/he will be happy to clean up too, maybe even before all the early stuff is gone.

We need RCer who are good at other methods to share their other expertises and compare them to RC. Where they conflict, where they supplement each other, where they says the same thing, where one is better or less good. Lifestyles, religions, therapies, action programs for Wide World Change, etc. We may need to discharge a lot before we can do this, but many of us have done this when we first learned RC.

It is kind of arrogant to say that we only learned to clean up our other knowledge, as if one can only learn one worthwhile thing: RC.

I’ll give you one example. Massage. I asked an excellent experienced professional masseur who also learned RC about it. He told me: “Muscle massage is fooling the brain. You mislead it about the tension in the muscle and then it stops tightening it. But you heal no trauma at all.” Further, I noticed that some RCers claim that “The body remembers trauma. So when we touch, it can bring up old memories for healing.” Well, we know that the bodily cells don’t have that kind of a memory. Rather, our touch sends a signal to the brain and that does the recalling.

In other words, there is a place for massage but not in RC. We do healing of old stuff. After a good session (but sometimes a great number of sessions), no one needs a massage. And restimulating old memories in the client we also don’t do. If you want a massage, get it outside of RC. Harvey was right not to include it.

We can acknowledge to masseurs that they do a great job helping people to feel better. And we can offer them to learn another method not necessarily always instead, to heal all old pain and understand emotional discharge.

What can we learn from Greenpeace? From the AA? From Islam? From Rogerian Counseling? From Danish culture? From the awareness and outlook of Aboriginals? Etc. Some of this we do already in our Literature.

In the medical field there is progress from healing to prevention, new is an ambition to heal all major illnesses, which will no doubt be followed by repairing and preventing of aging and eventually an aim to prevent death. How does this relate to the work we know so well, to heal all distress and even explore the possibility of physical immortality?

What rightful place can RC take in the whole collection of attempts to better humanity and the entire range of human excellence?

Of course, we do not need to embrace what we found already to be outright harmful methods like hypnosis and biological psychiatry.

The goal of these comparisons is only to inform each other, not to pronounce judgment or advocate. Each RCer can draw their own conclusions.

Are we ready to do look at these comparisons and at RC’s place in the whole, to get off our Rational Island? Harvey would be pleased.

Don’t Let Permissiveness Kill Permissiveness

For a long time, it seemed a good idea to let everyone have their say. If we listen well, people will discharge and their messages will become more rational.

However, this doesn’t always work, especially in the Wide World. When angry people decide to use democracy to uproot democracy, it’s not smart to allow them.

So, we don’t give the mike or floor to people who preach hatred, or spread their writings or clips, even when they “explain” very nicely why they are so angry at certain groups of people and that they are victims.

A point in case is when “allies to Palestinians” (often not Palestinian themselves and not knowing any Palestinians – or Israelis) hijack a meeting to only allow discussing a condemnation of Zionism. We take a firm stand that the oppressive society is only strengthened when Palestinians and Jewish Israelis are played against each other. That any People is allowed to have their own state, including Jews and Palestinians. Besides, we can ask: Who made you the spokesperson for the Palestinian People? This question is very relevant because when an oppressed group speaks out, listening well may make their position become more detailed and ready to go together with the needs of all other oppressed groups. But when self-appointed “allies” speak up, often their monologues are recordings that self-repeat without ending.

Also, people who sold their heart to totalitarianism, like neo-Nazis, often use democratic principles to spread their poisonous messages. It is not a good idea to let them. We may say things like: We believe in respect for everyone but not in letting people speak who do not respect everyone.

One of the things to bear in mind, when this kind of hatred is vented, is that we need to deny their claims and prove them wrong but not in order to convince them – since they probably need to discharge a long time before they can admit that. Rather, we need to speak up to show the bystanders the truth. Therefore, it is important to stick to facts, stay calm, friendly but loud, not exaggerate, acknowledge good points the others make but point out where they try to mislead or say untruths.

It’s easier to stay calm if you did sessions ahead of time, when you smile at people and hum a little song to yourself because you are in a good mood and determined to stay jolly.

When the bystanders understand that speakers just are spreading hatred, they will refuse to listen more and take away the permissiveness that allowed hate speech at first.

When, on the other hand, hateful activists start bullying non-hateful speakers (so not: the president of a dictatorship!), we need to confront the bullies. Use slogans like Let him speak and Let us make up our own minds. Your first goal though is not to out-scream the bullies but to seem more rational than them to the audience.

Sometimes there is no short-term elegant solution but staying passive and silent might be simply too costly in terms of missed chances. You want to tell your grandchildren that you put up a good fight – not that you got intimidated. Winning would be nice too, but fighting is sometimes more essential. Yet, it’s more important to live for the revolution than die for it. Avoid martyrdom.