However I find myself being disagreed with quite often, mostly for not advocating or cheering violence, “by any means possible” change, or revolutionary tactics. It would seem that I’m not viewed as authentically holding my view unless I advocate extreme, violent, or radical action to accomplish it.
Those seem like two different things to me.
Edit: TO COMMUNISTS, ANARCHISTS, OR ANYONE ELSE CALLING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF SOCIETY
THIS OBVIOUSLY ISN’T MEANT FOR YOU.
Dying won’t do you much good at getting the future you want. There’s a long history of violent anarchists and socialists that killed or died for their beliefs, and none of that violence led to progress.
I think maybe your ego is a little beyond realistic. My life or yours are will make barely more than an infinitesimal difference in the world. But enough slightly above infinitesimal add up. Maybe be the person that made the world very very slightly better rather than the one that died for nothing?
Reform has made huge differences in our lives, from the magna carta to union activity to the civil rights struggle. Things are immensely better than they were in the 1500s, and it was all incremental.