the same approach does not work against institutions in leftist hands, because they do not share the boomercon weakness of openness and tolerance. the second they get a whiff of you being a rightoid, they'll purge you with extreme prejudice, and they proactively screen applicants and recruits to keep their political enemies locked out.
It depends on the specific institution and there are those with conservatives. I actually went to one and then a massively left-wing institution. Guess who was more tolerant? I don't think you have to guess. I have had experience with both far-left and far-right academics, and the far-and-middle right were by far the most tolerant and open to actual discussion. I've certainly encountered far-left academics who were also open to discussion, but the only academics who aggressively shut down any pushback were fucking shitlibs.
I'll have to say a lot of things the moderate-to-right academics said to me were like depth charges that didn't hit for years afterwards, when I suddenly realized "fuck, this guy was right about this thing I was totally convinced otherwise about." And it wasn't by aggressive purging but by actually exposing me to thought.
I know it can seem absolutely hopeless and like you're talking to a brick wall when you're dealing with an NPC but nobody ever wised up by being persecuted. It might seem like nothing is happening behind those eyes, but somewhere under there, there may be a person.
One of these dudes gave me a letter of recommendation that basically made my academic career. They earned my respect well before they earned my agreement on at least some things.
Two things have been responsible for most of my last couple decades of changing my attitude about things political. One was actually being treated respectfully by the people "on the other side," and the second was looking at the absolutely repugnant way people on "my side" were behaving.
Most people are not absolutely impervious to reason,
even if they're acting that way right now.
I hate it when people say stuff like that. No, you fucking dipshit, moral victories do nothing here and playing fair when the other side will do whatever dirty tactics are necessary is a surefire way to constantly lose.
That really depends on the specific dirty tactics. There are some things, like harming innocent third parties, that are always evil, and if you do them, you're just an evil fuck.
And there are some things that are situationally entirely justifiable and even morally correct. They bring a knife? You bring a gun.
I really think if you don't adhere to the morals you're preaching at other people, you're worthless, and you're disgracing your own claimed morality. There's a reason for Alinsky's insistence on holding the other side to their own claimed morality, and why that WORKS. Funny thing, lately it's conservative who seem to understand Alinsky more than liberals, or so-called liberals. These people are authoritarian fucks.
Seriously, the left in its current form is so open to Rules for Radicals tactics that it's ridiculous.
Anyway if that's what you meant by "dirty tricks," I'd agree. Sometimes you have to get down in the mud. But you still have to retain your fundamental morals to be worth anything at all.
