Earlier quoted context omitted.
It absolutely does work. A little bit, at first, when you have broad consensus backing you - but it does work. People will begrudgingly change their behavior for relatively minor things, and the change in the use rate of racial epithets in public reflects that. The problem is that A) this process is more useful for advancing within the ideological block than for advancing the ideology's goals, and B) there's a "Laffe…
> It absolutely does work. A little bit, at first, when you have broad consensus backing you - but it does work. People will begrudgingly change their behavior for relatively minor things, and the change in the use rate of racial epithets in public reflects that. The only change is that you now have a bunch of people who are afraid to use a handful of naughty words in public because they might lose their job over it.…
That's not the "only change". If were, that's still a feature, not a bug. It means that real consequences are possible, and that those possible consequences are widely understood.
One is never going to change the mind and heart of a deeply racist person, but one can help bend the overall curve of intolerance over time.