One of my new friends is/was a cop. Just found out about it. I genuinely believe ACAB, and this news has me conflicted because my new friend seems really cool and super nice. I don’t know him super well yet, though. He’s a big part of this new friend group and I don’t know how to process this and how to deal with the fact he’s a cop.
I don’t want to look past the fact he’s a cop, but I want to stay his friend and stay in this friend group.
Any advice for dealing with this shit?
I can’t talk to my therapist about it until Thursday.
I genuinely believe ACAB, and this news has me conflicted because my new friend seems really cool and super nice.
What you’re experiencing is cognitive dissonance. New information is clashing with your prior beliefs, leaving you with a choice: either update your beliefs or double down and lie to yourself even harder.
The thing is: which belief is the lie? Can cops not be bastards? Or is this guy not as nice as he appears to be?
That all cops are bastards.
Oh yeah? You gonna open up to a cop? You gonna talk to him about stuff, maybe? You know, about that thing? What’s he gonna do? Is he gonna write it down later? What if he finds out about your association with a minority? Is he gonna arrest your friend because of something you let slip? Does he hide when his friends and family commit crimes? Can you trust a friend like that?
Because the fact he chose a bastard job makes him a bastard.
I feel bad for you. The imaginary world you live in must be really terrifying.
Where I live, there’s a strict screening process to become a cop. It requires a three-year education, and you need a college degree just to apply. There are far more applicants than available spots, so even many good candidates don’t make it in. Trust in the police is generally quite high among the population, they’re respected, and every time a firearm is used for example, it’s investigated thoroughly. Officers do face legal consequences when malpractice is discovered.
So, yeah, I’d hang out with a cop and talk to them about the same stuff I’d discuss with anyone else.
Oooooh, so your opinion is irrelevant everywhere else. Have fun with the leopards. I’m sure they won’t eat your face.
When you realize that the cop on the job and the person in their free time are 2 separate, almost independent, personalities, the cognitive dissonance goes away.
Uh no. That is exactly what cognitive dissonance IS.
No. If you want to correct someone, please be sure to know your definitions.
Cognitive dissonance is a process inside the observers mind. In this example it goes something like this: ‘I believe all cops are bastards’ vs. ‘I met a cop and he is not a bastard’ -> something doesnt match, thats the dissonance.
My sarcastic comment hinted at the person OP met not being a cop, but the flipside of a human that is a cop in their job and a completely different person in their freetime (like schizophrenics). This makes the second statement ‘I met a cop and he is not a bastard’ untrue and resolves the dissonance.
This is one of many problems with “ACAB” because not every cop is one way or the other.
Reality is that a functioning society needs police officers. It sounds like you hit it off with this person and they have some good qualities that you like.
How do you expect the police to change if we don’t get involved? Getting rid of the police entirely is not a solution. But getting in and making changes from the inside is a valid way to make things better.
Why are you wanting to create an echo chamber for yourself? Why don’t you expose yourself to others and other ideas that are different than yours? What’s the harm there? Are you scared you won’t be able to change his mind or that his ideas might make some sense to you?
Yes go out and befriend a KKK grand wizard today lol you will learn a lot.
I have a friend who worked at a convenience store in an area where the KKK still has a decent presence. The local grand wizard or dragon or whatever ridiculous rank he had took a liking to my friend (it should maybe be noted that my friend is practically a caricature of blond, blue-eyed whiteness.) I wouldn’t say they were friends, it was more than he was on the clock and couldn’t really afford to lose his job by telling some racist fuck to pound sand, they didn’t keep in contact outside of work, neither of them changed each other’s minds about anything (my friend is now engaged to a black woman) but they did have some fairly in depth and civil conversations about race and society and such.
I can’t say for what Mr Pointy Hat’s takeaway was from their talks, but my friend’s overall impression is that the klan guy was kind of stuck. He kind of seemed to know that the world had changed around him, and that maybe he was in the wrong and there was no place for someone like him anymore, but he was unable and/or unwilling to change himself to adapt to the new world and to different ways of thinking than he’d been brought up with, so the kkk was kind of his way of carving a safe space for himself out of the world where he knew how things worked and where he had some sort of value. And his hatred towards black people and other people different from himself wasn’t really that they should be killed or enslaved or treated poorly, but that he didn’t get why they needed to be part of the same society as him, sort of like if they could just all go off and live in their own countries he’d wish them the best in their endeavors.
I’m not saying that’s at all a good philosophy, I find it absolutely abhorrent, but it’s also more nuanced than I would have otherwise thought a klansman would be capable of.
I also won’t say that my friend necessarily had a perfect read on this guy, it could very well be that he totally took the wrong things away from what the guy said. And even if he did hit the nail on the head, with a sample size of 1, you can’t exactly extrapolate that to say that the rest of the klan or other racist shitbags feel the same way.
But I do think there can be some value in talking to some of these types of people, maybe not befriending them exactly, but building some sort of mutual understanding might help get some of them onto the right path before they end up too old and stuck in their ways like that guy.
Something about playing with a dog who was rolling in the sewer and you will also stink like shit. I’m exposed to enough morons, people don’t change at least not for the better. I’m not going out of my way to engage more but good for you.
If you didn’t think people can change, you probably wouldn’t spend as much time arguing with people on the internet as you do. Not really much point in doing that since you’re not going to change their minds after all.
But even if you genuinely don’t think people are capable of improvement, I think it would still be worthwhile in a “know your enemy” sort of way.
Yeah just keep getting to know your enemy. That is super effective way to deal with them. Kill them with kindness as it were lol while they kill you with rocks. Worry not I’m sure in 3 days you’ll rise again.
My dude, what the actual fuck are you on about?
“Know your enemy” isn’t a saying about peaceful turn-the-other-cheek, love-thy-neighbor, forgiveness bullshit
It’s about knowing how and why they fight so you know how to defeat them.
You can’t and won’t win over every individual Nazi or klansman and make them see the light, but each one you do is one less enemy on their side and one more ally on yours, and my talking to them you get a better understanding on how to beat them.
Sure buddy sure. As Elvis put it." A little bit less conversation a little more action please…" Ya dig?
