this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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askchapo

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34
Will I ever stop having cringe takes? (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 day ago by dil@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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Over the past few years, I've been sliding left ideologically, and as I move further left my old positions seem cringy.

That's expected when you change your worldview and realize you were parroting (e.g.) CIA propaganda, but it's left me feeling a bit ungrounded. I'm worried that in another year I'll look back and think my current views are dumb. Tbh, they almost certainly are.

Does this go away eventually? Or are y'all constantly refining your understanding, so you always dislike your views from a year ago?

Also:

If folks leave, where do they go from here? Are they just picking their preferred flavor of communism/anarchism? Are there other categories of leftism that they're heading to? I'm sure some backslide, but I mean heading somewhere new - like I didn't know people actually liked DPRK until I heard about "tankies." I saw a group that doesn't believe in objective reality?

I'm not really expecting to look at anything new and not be a Marxist, but I'd like to know what's out there to be sure.

I just wanna pick one goddamn worldview, never change it, and still be right about everything all the time. Is that so much to ask?

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[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 1 points 1 day ago

I think in terms of anything I ever learned about therapy and considered in my self reflection that if your aim is to be more mentally healthy then your goal ought to encourage you to be kinder to yourself. In that sense, an ideal mindset wouldn't be becoming less cringe, but rather to cease to be so cringed out by your past. That one day you might face it and understand that you were and continue to be a human constrained by your life experience, knowledge, and desires on a linear timeline with no do overs. Your existence in society is inexorably tied to confusion, an attention economy, and unfathomable violence. So to recognize yourself as imperfect could be a mental movement explored without it being a verdict on your worth & a debt to be paid and you can give yourself some grace from the vacuum you likely frame your shortcomings in. Insodoing the new cringe that comes up stops being an existentially threatening punch you always need your guard up for and becomes more like a rainy day you face with warm soup, curiosity, patience, and reflection.