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WetMattos
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Closeauthor=Sated
Normally, it's the people who think that a topic is pointless that are the ones you most need to be trying to engage. But if you're only interested in preaching to the choir then go ahead, see how much of a difference that makes.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm talking about someone who defends the use of tranny as an acceptable term for women like me. There's no argument i can muster that will reach them, and frankly, it's too much emotional expenditure for something so small. So, no, i won't engage someone who haven't reached the level of even recognizing my humanity.
With that said, is there even a point to your comments, or you've reached that one moment where your sole purpose is to redirect the discussion? 'Cuz i have yet to see you doing anything other than that.
ubon
66
author=Sated
Normally, it's the people who think that a topic is pointless that are the ones you most need to be trying to engage. But if you're only interested in preaching to the choir then go ahead, see how much of a difference that makes.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
the ones who think this topic is pointless have, clearly, made up their minds. after ten pages of bad-faith arguments aimed at shutting down or muddying the discussion, I don't think anyone here is obligated to provide free lessons to people who strut in saying 'okay, but now I wanna learn! honest! but first a vitriolic tangent about those dratted SJWs!'
also: not every discussion in this vein has to be an entry-level topic aimed at convincing outsiders. sometimes it's productive for people with prior experience to discuss things on their own level, to come to a fuller understanding of the subject.
really, though. I have to question what, exactly, is driving some people to pretend that certain people in this thread are 'just trying to learn' or whatever. if all you can manage is to try and convince people that they're obligated to talk things out with people whose only interest is burying the discussion and attacking vulnerable people, then your input really isn't needed here.
you have to accept that some people won't agree with you, sure. but you also have to accept that some people aren't worth the time or effort to talk to, and ignoring that to try and push people into discussing things with this forum's incredibly obvious gamergate shill, for instance, is nothing but another diversionary tactic. cutting out the bullshit isn't 'creating an echo chamber' or whatever.
ubon
66
author=Sated
The truly ironic thing is that you and Max are basically two sides to the same depressingly droll coin.
like, the hell is this? this is absolutely meaningless. there's no purpose to this line but to throw out some smug quote at someone who's had enough of that bullshit directed at them already. you are not providing anything of value to this discussion through these means.
like, let me say it again for the record: pretending that people have to engage with abusive and harmful people just because they show up to the discussion is really shitty. if you're so uncritical that, even after reading everything certain people in here have said, your only thoughts are still 'well the other posters here need to engage with this valuable content', then I gotta question what good you think you're doing here. no one owes anyone an answer in general, but we especially don't have to treat empty antifeminist talking points with care and respect. if you disagree, you're welcome to engage with them yourself.
author=mawk
but first a vitriolic tangent about those dratted SJWs!'
I admit I have been doing this (but without the vitriol) but I have also been making a concerted effort to emphasize that my thoughts are outside of the scope of what's being discussed, a sidebar if you will. Being in the middle of a very liberal area of the country I've been all over the place on that experience.
You can argue that maybe that's muddying the discussion (that I again emphasize that I am not a part of, as not to make anyone's viewpoints feel invalid) but at this point we're balls deep in a 13 page discussion that has gone every which way so I don't feel so bad.
I always appreciate (and await) your views, however.
ubon
66
you aren't the one I had in mind with that, honestly. I disagree that 'people getting offended for offense's sake' is enough of a thing to merit a place in this kind of discussion, and feel that it does muddy the topic of representation when someone gives everyone else an excuse to assume that those complaints are just being made for attention, but there have been far worse offenders in here.
author=mawk
you aren't the one I had in mind with that, honestly. I disagree that 'people getting offended for offense's sake' is enough of a thing to merit a place in this kind of discussion, and feel that it does muddy the topic of representation when someone gives everyone else an excuse to assume that those complaints are just being made for attention, but there have been far worse offenders in here.
Absolutely, but to be fair 'the discussion' here has been going backwards and forwards and sideways to the point that I can probably safely wager that most of the people participating and reading this topic aren't even sure what the topic is at this point. At this point it's only tangentially related to the topic of representation at best.
I think partially what's happening here is that people feel (disclaimer, not me, since I admittedly know jack squat about trans issues except 'hey, I'm all for it, do what you want') that even amongst people who are genuinely concerned about the cause, many complaints are coming from a good place, but to a lot of people outside of the spectrum they seem broad and messy at best, and petty and nonconstructive at worst.
Again for example, like the 'microaggression' thing that some white allies (and some minorities) go on about. That was/is a big thing for a while, and way too much energy was spent on it, I feel. Do you really think some poor black kid in the ghetto gives a fuck about microaggressions?
I guess at this point I'm just spouting off my thoughts like word vomit, which is muddying up the discussion. But...what discussion at this point? Maybe this topic needs a hard reset.
Most of the people who are trying to learn are those who are lurking, and refraining from posting.
If someone thinks that a topic is pointless they shouldn't be in the thread they don't care about decrying it's pointlessness.
The only reason I can think of for one to do so is that the existence of such a thread aggravates them for whatever reason. I know I've certainly done that before so I don't automatically think that anyone who does so is a prick: Sometimes pointless arguing gets on your nerves. But this is a sensitive topic to some folks and should be given a measure of care.
So I don't know what Sated's point is. Other than ideological difference. In which case, what can you do?
If someone thinks that a topic is pointless they shouldn't be in the thread they don't care about decrying it's pointlessness.
The only reason I can think of for one to do so is that the existence of such a thread aggravates them for whatever reason. I know I've certainly done that before so I don't automatically think that anyone who does so is a prick: Sometimes pointless arguing gets on your nerves. But this is a sensitive topic to some folks and should be given a measure of care.
So I don't know what Sated's point is. Other than ideological difference. In which case, what can you do?
ubon
66
author-Feldschlact IV
Do you really think some poor black kid in the ghetto gives a fuck about microaggressions?
this is, in essence, a hasty reskin of the 'why do women care about catcalling when (stereotype about the Middle East)' thing people love to throw out in other cases. it is inappropriate to use the suffering of one person as a bargaining chip to invalidate the bigotry someone else experiences.
microaggressions are not some concept spearheaded mainly by white allies. they aren't something that 'real' marginalized people don't care about. and the idea isn't that I'm going to haul off and punch someone every time some well-intentioned person acting on ingrained transphobia asks me about my genitals.
microagressions, as a concept, simply illustrate that people who would think of themselves as progressive and thoughtful are still capable of acting in bigoted ways without thinking. that the root of racism, sexism, and so on isn't individual racist or sexist people, but the cultural norms steeped in bigotry that influence our views and how we treat other people. the subject of microaggressions is there to provide examples of the ways we can and should critically examine our views and our 'common sense', as we can easily and unknowingly hurt other people.
at least, that's how I've come to view it! I'm sure there are other facets.
author=Feldschlacht IVauthor=mawkAbsolutely, but to be fair 'the discussion' here has been going backwards and forwards and sideways to the point that I can probably safely wager that most of the people participating and reading this topic aren't even sure what the topic is at this point. At this point it's only tangentially related to the topic of representation at best.
you aren't the one I had in mind with that, honestly. I disagree that 'people getting offended for offense's sake' is enough of a thing to merit a place in this kind of discussion, and feel that it does muddy the topic of representation when someone gives everyone else an excuse to assume that those complaints are just being made for attention, but there have been far worse offenders in here.
I think partially what's happening here is that people feel (disclaimer, not me, since I admittedly know jack squat about trans issues except 'hey, I'm all for it, do what you want') that even amongst people who are genuinely concerned about the cause, many complaints are coming from a good place, but to a lot of people outside of the spectrum they seem broad and messy at best, and petty and nonconstructive at worst.
Again for example, like the 'microaggression' thing that some white allies (and some minorities) go on about. That was/is a big thing for a while, and way too much energy was spent on it, I feel. Do you really think some poor black kid in the ghetto gives a fuck about microaggressions?
I guess at this point I'm just spouting off my thoughts like word vomit, which is muddying up the discussion. But...what discussion at this point? Maybe this topic needs a hard reset.
They do. That's, pretty much the point. They do. It matters. It has been documented that it matters. Regarding racism, at least, we have books on the issue since the start of the last century - Franz Fanon comes to mind, in a psychiatric perspective no less.
The thing is that, i really, really want to make some points here. But i can't, because the level of vitriol has reached the point that i actually dread coming to the discussion, and i can't say that because i'll be told i need to grow some balls - a pair of which i already own. I really wish to start talking, for example, about positive masculine representation, and how the notion of sexual orientation is unproductive to a trans inclusive society, for example, but i need to spend so long defending myself that i can't reach that point in the discourse, you feel me?
It's not that the discussion has no point. It's that people have made so that no point can be made without inviting more vitriol, and for some of us, this is unacceptable. If i need to choose between my mental health and my participation in the community, the community is worth jack shit in the first place, and i really don't want to draw this conclusion at this point.
So either people take a stance against the fuckery that has been going in this place, or we'll end up in fourteen pages of turd, and happy that it didn't go worse. I deeply believe we can do better than that.
ubon
66
yeah, that's the difficult thing -- we've more or less proven at this point that it's not possible to hold this kind of discussion here.
unless people get better at giving people breathing room to state their concerns, and identifying bad-faith arguments and calling those out when they occur, and in general prioritizing open-minded discussion instead of encouraging assholes who come in with a shrug and say 'well, I don't understand so this is obviously all bullshit!'
like, you wanna accuse anyone of being closed-minded? you come back after you've taken a good hard look at the people who came in purely to dismiss the concerns in this topic out of hand, and the people who followed after to twist this into yet another strawman symposium about how bad SJWs are. the burden of being 'open-minded' does not solely fall on squeaky wheels like us.
if your only purpose here is to equivocate everything that's happened in this topic into 'SJWs vs. channers' or whatever, then you're acting in favour of the people who came to shut this discussion down.
unless people get better at giving people breathing room to state their concerns, and identifying bad-faith arguments and calling those out when they occur, and in general prioritizing open-minded discussion instead of encouraging assholes who come in with a shrug and say 'well, I don't understand so this is obviously all bullshit!'
like, you wanna accuse anyone of being closed-minded? you come back after you've taken a good hard look at the people who came in purely to dismiss the concerns in this topic out of hand, and the people who followed after to twist this into yet another strawman symposium about how bad SJWs are. the burden of being 'open-minded' does not solely fall on squeaky wheels like us.
if your only purpose here is to equivocate everything that's happened in this topic into 'SJWs vs. channers' or whatever, then you're acting in favour of the people who came to shut this discussion down.
I totally get where you guys are coming from and generally I agree.
I just feel not nearly enough progress has been made and I am just sort of exhausted at the seeming ineffectualness that any of the modern social justice movement seems to have on well...anything.
While I totally agree with the end goal (justice, equality, and representation for everyone), sometimes I can't help but think the collective mass of young people fighting for it just sound like whiny, entitled kids.
I struggle with that feeling and maybe it has some basis living in Seattle (many well off, young, white, leftist millennial, an interesting combination), but sometimes it feels like everyone fighting for this is pulling in all directions.
Sure, micro aggressions do bother me. And I think it's a valid discussion. But it doesn't bother me enough to demand everyone else to artificially change their tune to satisfy my sensitivities, because what ends up possibly happening is a bunch of people pretending and skating on thin ice around me as not to accidentally offend me, which is even more infuriating.
My girlfriend is from the South, and when I go down there with her to visit her family, a lot of people aren't politically correct, that's what I like about it. Someone doesn't like me because of my skin color? They're gonna let you know about it. Cool! Now I know to stay the fuck away from you. But when I go back home to the West Coast (especially being an East Coast native), I have to deal with a lot of people who are also probably still racist but they have to pretend not to be because they don't want to offend me. What people call 'political correctness' sort of bothers me because to a minority it just seems like 'forced dishonesty'.
I'd rather just know what I'm dealing with and to be done with it. I'm not really a fan of soft censoring of words, ideas, and discussion just because it makes me uncomfortable. Just let me know what prejudices you have from the jump so everyone knows where they stand.
Okay, now I'm rambling. I'm sorry, I was all over the place, I guess.
I just feel not nearly enough progress has been made and I am just sort of exhausted at the seeming ineffectualness that any of the modern social justice movement seems to have on well...anything.
While I totally agree with the end goal (justice, equality, and representation for everyone), sometimes I can't help but think the collective mass of young people fighting for it just sound like whiny, entitled kids.
I struggle with that feeling and maybe it has some basis living in Seattle (many well off, young, white, leftist millennial, an interesting combination), but sometimes it feels like everyone fighting for this is pulling in all directions.
Sure, micro aggressions do bother me. And I think it's a valid discussion. But it doesn't bother me enough to demand everyone else to artificially change their tune to satisfy my sensitivities, because what ends up possibly happening is a bunch of people pretending and skating on thin ice around me as not to accidentally offend me, which is even more infuriating.
My girlfriend is from the South, and when I go down there with her to visit her family, a lot of people aren't politically correct, that's what I like about it. Someone doesn't like me because of my skin color? They're gonna let you know about it. Cool! Now I know to stay the fuck away from you. But when I go back home to the West Coast (especially being an East Coast native), I have to deal with a lot of people who are also probably still racist but they have to pretend not to be because they don't want to offend me. What people call 'political correctness' sort of bothers me because to a minority it just seems like 'forced dishonesty'.
I'd rather just know what I'm dealing with and to be done with it. I'm not really a fan of soft censoring of words, ideas, and discussion just because it makes me uncomfortable. Just let me know what prejudices you have from the jump so everyone knows where they stand.
Okay, now I'm rambling. I'm sorry, I was all over the place, I guess.
ubon
66
interesting historical note on 'political correctness': its first real entry into the broad political lexicon was as an ominous-sounding term for people to get upset by. from the very start of its political usage in the 90s, it was nothing but a boogeyman to rebrand the concept of respect and progressivism into some artificial political initiative for people to rally against.
'political correctness' is not a goal of any activist movement. 'political correctness' is the term used by people opposing them to make the activists sound more sinister and monolithic than they are.
never forget! conservatism is the art of using the language of progress to make the status quo seem like the progressive option, and the progressive option the tool of the enemy.
Wikipedia for a quick source, since someone will ask. it's fine, this isn't a college essay.
I have some thoughts on what you said about artificiality too, but they basically boil down to 'avoiding shitty bigoted behaviour isn't the Herculean effort it's cracked up to be' and 'someone who's cognizant of their bigoted tendencies and avoids them for other people's comfort isn't 'artificially' nice, that's just legitimately a nice thing to do'
'political correctness' is not a goal of any activist movement. 'political correctness' is the term used by people opposing them to make the activists sound more sinister and monolithic than they are.
never forget! conservatism is the art of using the language of progress to make the status quo seem like the progressive option, and the progressive option the tool of the enemy.
Wikipedia for a quick source, since someone will ask. it's fine, this isn't a college essay.
I have some thoughts on what you said about artificiality too, but they basically boil down to 'avoiding shitty bigoted behaviour isn't the Herculean effort it's cracked up to be' and 'someone who's cognizant of their bigoted tendencies and avoids them for other people's comfort isn't 'artificially' nice, that's just legitimately a nice thing to do'
Alichains
637
I remember taking a philosophy class a few years back and that's more or less what the (White Southerner) professor said. In the South you'll know a racist as soon as you see the Confederate Flag. In the North you can never tell who has a white cloak in their closet. This was confirmed by one of my classmates who was a black woman from the South. (For the record, I'm from Massachusetts and I've seen plenty of casual racism there.)
I agree with Mawk though, basic decency shouldn't be demonized as "Political Correctness".
@Sated
Max has a history of showing up, derailing and shutting down discussions like these. From what I can tell, it gives him some false sense of superiority. There's no point in trying engage with him. You'd be better off arguing with a brick wall.
I agree with Mawk though, basic decency shouldn't be demonized as "Political Correctness".
@Sated
Max has a history of showing up, derailing and shutting down discussions like these. From what I can tell, it gives him some false sense of superiority. There's no point in trying engage with him. You'd be better off arguing with a brick wall.
author=Satedauthor=IsrieriIt is just an idealogical difference. But to be honest, even if I where to diverge from my given opinion, I'd still feel the need to point out that if you really really really really don't want to engage with someone then the best way to do that probably isn't a 400 word, four paragraph post aimed directly at them...
So I don't know what Sated's point is. Other than ideological difference. In which case, what can you do?
Anything less and i'd be accused of being dismissive, disrespectful, illogical, or whatever is the flavor of the month word to devalue my point - all of which were already implied or directly used against me and the position people believe i stand for.
Anything else?
author=Alichains
I remember taking a philosophy class a few years back and that's more or less what the (White Southerner) professor said. In the South you'll know a racist as soon as you see the Confederate Flag. In the North you can never tell who has a white cloak in their closet. This was confirmed by one of my classmates who was a black woman from the South. (For the record, I'm from Massachusetts and I've seen plenty of casual racism there.)
The current discourse on oppression understand that most of the violence happens in conceptual level, which then enables other more direct ways of violence, which explains why some white supremacist groups are moving away from their already known signifiers in an effort to be less identifiable when acting. Racism, transphobia, homophobia, sexism; it's less about what you do, and more about how you think of people.
Which is why it's of utmost importance to create narratives that confront these perspectives.
Ya know, if you pretend to be something long enough, you eventually become that thing. It's a psychological oddity that tricks you into becoming the thing you act out, via reinforcing the act over and over. Also, people pretending not to be racist are maintaining an image that will make others pretend so that they're not seen as the odd person out and eventually leads to everyone acting one way and not realising that it was pretence to begin with - because over time if you act like something you become it.
So really you should be wanting more people to pretend to be the thing they aren't in the hopes that their constant pretence eventually gives with to them becoming that thing. In this case, non-racist.
And even if they don't, then at least they influenced others not to be racist by just not acting that way and presenting a face of the norm being not-racist.
So really you should be wanting more people to pretend to be the thing they aren't in the hopes that their constant pretence eventually gives with to them becoming that thing. In this case, non-racist.
And even if they don't, then at least they influenced others not to be racist by just not acting that way and presenting a face of the norm being not-racist.
ubon
66
that's why that thing I mentioned is so important. bigotry is defined not by individual bigoted people but by the societal tendency toward bigotry, the decades and centuries of influence that those attitudes have had on how things are structured and how we view the world.
activism is not just some sisyphean struggle to make everyone Act Nice -- properly practiced, its purpose is to root out and replace systems of oppression so that they can no longer have that terrifying and subtle impact on vulnerable people's lives. ingrained white supremacy, ingrained sexism, ingrained xenophobia -- these and more are all present in our culture and our way of life, and they're not going anywhere until we learn to recognize them.
activism is not just some sisyphean struggle to make everyone Act Nice -- properly practiced, its purpose is to root out and replace systems of oppression so that they can no longer have that terrifying and subtle impact on vulnerable people's lives. ingrained white supremacy, ingrained sexism, ingrained xenophobia -- these and more are all present in our culture and our way of life, and they're not going anywhere until we learn to recognize them.
Learning to recognise it as a thing is a very big, important first step. The second is to learn about it and the third is to make a correction in your own dealings with others in response to it. Then to call out the bad behaviour in others and try to create an awakening in them.
Of course, you're going to get those who stick their heads in the sand and cryfemnazifoul, but the more people who don't do that, the more pressure there is on those who do to conform to the societal norm.
Of course, you're going to get those who stick their heads in the sand and cry
