On persuasion and fear
April 11, 2022 8:55 AM Subscribe
Two discussions of persuasion and susceptibility to persuasion. On scar tissue among people who experienced the post-9/11 shift in public American discourse, and on a different variety of scar tissue for people who came to political awareness in the last ten years, and how they respond to different kinds of rhetoric. On conditions for the formations of cults, and building resilience to being recruited.
I'm going to be chewing on that first link for a while.
I will say that something I think they miss is that a lot of where we get into debates and arguments are social media spaces like Twitter that prioritizes speed, brevity, and entertainment value over all else. Debates on social media are where nuance goes to die. That's not to say that social media is the cause—the phenomenon, as the first link shows, predates social media as we know it—but social media is an exacerbating force for polarization and false dichotomies.
The lack of room for nuance destroys the space needed for discussion that can actually alter people's perspectives. I am reminded of a time in my life when I was a budding capital-A Atheist, and ready to share some of my enlightened Atheist views to an online forum I had joined at the time. Specifically, my post was about how religion polarizes and leads to hate. To my surprise, my post was not taken as the brilliant, enlightened Atheist idea I assumed it to be... but it also didn't result in me being chased with virtual torches and pitchforks. A polite, reasoned, nuanced discussion occurred between people on this board of devout faith, and also fellow non-believers. I came away from it a bit chagrinned, but with a new understanding and respect for religion and faith for people—though I was and remain a staunch, lower-case-a atheist.
On top of that, in a complicated world, people want easy answers. One of the things about 9/11 that seems to be forgotten is how much it shattered a lot of people's beliefs about American supremacy. We were convinced, as a society, that we had seen the End of History. We'd won the Cold War and ushered in a Pax Americana, the economy was booming, we were starting a new millennium where our country was respected and nothing could ever hurt us again.
Until it did.
There were no easy answers as to why 9/11 happened. Its causes are myriad and complicated. I recall choosing to buy and read Jihad vs McWorld, picking it up at a book store while on a family vacation in California in 2002, so I could gain some understanding into what happened. Most people would not choose such an action, instead preferring to get their insights into what happened from those who would make it simple, the ones spouting "They hate us for our freedom," or the ones saying it was all a massive conspiracy. (No matter how complex a conspiracy theory is, it's still fundamentally an "easy answer" for those who believe it.) Cable news, and the rise of the Internet made easy answers easier to get and harder to shake, especially when those easy answers align with one's pre-existing worldview.
Promises of easy answers are the foundation of fascism and authoritarianism. They're the foundations of radicalism. They're the foundation of cults. They're the foundation of al-Qaeda and ISIS, the foundation of Proud Boys and Atomwaffen, the foundation of Tankie ideology, and the foundation of TERFism, and so much more. And the harder it gets to find anything but easy answers, the more likely we are to see more radicalization, destruction of nuance, and erosion of the gray areas where debate and change can happen.
posted by SansPoint at 9:58 AM on April 11, 2022 [27 favorites]
I will say that something I think they miss is that a lot of where we get into debates and arguments are social media spaces like Twitter that prioritizes speed, brevity, and entertainment value over all else. Debates on social media are where nuance goes to die. That's not to say that social media is the cause—the phenomenon, as the first link shows, predates social media as we know it—but social media is an exacerbating force for polarization and false dichotomies.
The lack of room for nuance destroys the space needed for discussion that can actually alter people's perspectives. I am reminded of a time in my life when I was a budding capital-A Atheist, and ready to share some of my enlightened Atheist views to an online forum I had joined at the time. Specifically, my post was about how religion polarizes and leads to hate. To my surprise, my post was not taken as the brilliant, enlightened Atheist idea I assumed it to be... but it also didn't result in me being chased with virtual torches and pitchforks. A polite, reasoned, nuanced discussion occurred between people on this board of devout faith, and also fellow non-believers. I came away from it a bit chagrinned, but with a new understanding and respect for religion and faith for people—though I was and remain a staunch, lower-case-a atheist.
On top of that, in a complicated world, people want easy answers. One of the things about 9/11 that seems to be forgotten is how much it shattered a lot of people's beliefs about American supremacy. We were convinced, as a society, that we had seen the End of History. We'd won the Cold War and ushered in a Pax Americana, the economy was booming, we were starting a new millennium where our country was respected and nothing could ever hurt us again.
Until it did.
There were no easy answers as to why 9/11 happened. Its causes are myriad and complicated. I recall choosing to buy and read Jihad vs McWorld, picking it up at a book store while on a family vacation in California in 2002, so I could gain some understanding into what happened. Most people would not choose such an action, instead preferring to get their insights into what happened from those who would make it simple, the ones spouting "They hate us for our freedom," or the ones saying it was all a massive conspiracy. (No matter how complex a conspiracy theory is, it's still fundamentally an "easy answer" for those who believe it.) Cable news, and the rise of the Internet made easy answers easier to get and harder to shake, especially when those easy answers align with one's pre-existing worldview.
Promises of easy answers are the foundation of fascism and authoritarianism. They're the foundations of radicalism. They're the foundation of cults. They're the foundation of al-Qaeda and ISIS, the foundation of Proud Boys and Atomwaffen, the foundation of Tankie ideology, and the foundation of TERFism, and so much more. And the harder it gets to find anything but easy answers, the more likely we are to see more radicalization, destruction of nuance, and erosion of the gray areas where debate and change can happen.
posted by SansPoint at 9:58 AM on April 11, 2022 [27 favorites]
You know, 9/11 happened just as I was beginning to notice that politics existed and could be shaped. (My very first memory of paying attention to government as something that could be molded and changed and which one could be involved in was the 2000 primary, in which my extended family was vocally involved as McCain supporters; I would move to a new state in the summer of 2001, and then 9/11 happened about a week before my eleventh birthday.)
So trying to sort myself and my political viewpoints relative to whether I was pre-9/11 or post 9/11 is deeply weird to me, because as a matter of chance, that shift in American political discourse happened just exactly when I was starting to understand and pay attention to the world around me. A thing I'm considering, though, is that some of the things that I vividly remember about being a tween and early teenager is encountering the people who were politically fully formed in those years and who were pushing back in alarm: I remember a "liberal is not a dirty word" lecture from a high school debate teacher that startled me with tenseness of his vehemence--why was he so emphatic about this?--and I remember observing the patent asinine-ness of "freedom fries" and absorbing some of the immediate cultural reaction to that surge in things I was absorbing as culture and media, like Futurama and Green Day's American Idiot album.
And then on the gripping hand, my budding political opinions were also shaped by the specifics of my online queer community, because that was one of my portals to a lot of concepts I might not otherwise encountered. It was certainly the place where I wound up sitting and listening to a lot of much more lefty people than I might otherwise have. But one thing that strikes me about that is that my online queer community was very much an online ace community, and heavily also a trans community, and at that it was one with different focuses, emphases, and goals from the more mainstreamed fight for marriage equality.
I think that's especially relevant for this conversation from a Tumblr point of view, because a lot of the tumblr SJ discussions that are being referenced in that first link are trying to figure out why you often see people arguing for an ethos of morality that is very.... hm.... conservative Christianity with a gay hat, at the edges; the ideas from reflexive Bush-era conservatism repackaged with some surface tolerance and new boogeyman outgroups. It strikes me that the marriage equality fight that many people about my age and a bit younger remember as central to the queer activism we grew up around--you have to understand, I didn't know gayness was a thing until I was about twelve, I managed to miss the impact of AIDS entirely--was this traumatized thing that was seeking to use respectability politics to secure necessary rights for folks' families. And the reasons for that trauma were often very clamped down.
I've seen both of these posts before, but they're certainly very interesting to chew over and consider again today; I wonder how much seeing the people who were protesting the political changes that swept the USA in the Bush years also changed the political outlook for young people, just as much as the changes with power did. Thank you for bringing them here!
posted by sciatrix at 10:28 AM on April 11, 2022 [13 favorites]
So trying to sort myself and my political viewpoints relative to whether I was pre-9/11 or post 9/11 is deeply weird to me, because as a matter of chance, that shift in American political discourse happened just exactly when I was starting to understand and pay attention to the world around me. A thing I'm considering, though, is that some of the things that I vividly remember about being a tween and early teenager is encountering the people who were politically fully formed in those years and who were pushing back in alarm: I remember a "liberal is not a dirty word" lecture from a high school debate teacher that startled me with tenseness of his vehemence--why was he so emphatic about this?--and I remember observing the patent asinine-ness of "freedom fries" and absorbing some of the immediate cultural reaction to that surge in things I was absorbing as culture and media, like Futurama and Green Day's American Idiot album.
And then on the gripping hand, my budding political opinions were also shaped by the specifics of my online queer community, because that was one of my portals to a lot of concepts I might not otherwise encountered. It was certainly the place where I wound up sitting and listening to a lot of much more lefty people than I might otherwise have. But one thing that strikes me about that is that my online queer community was very much an online ace community, and heavily also a trans community, and at that it was one with different focuses, emphases, and goals from the more mainstreamed fight for marriage equality.
I think that's especially relevant for this conversation from a Tumblr point of view, because a lot of the tumblr SJ discussions that are being referenced in that first link are trying to figure out why you often see people arguing for an ethos of morality that is very.... hm.... conservative Christianity with a gay hat, at the edges; the ideas from reflexive Bush-era conservatism repackaged with some surface tolerance and new boogeyman outgroups. It strikes me that the marriage equality fight that many people about my age and a bit younger remember as central to the queer activism we grew up around--you have to understand, I didn't know gayness was a thing until I was about twelve, I managed to miss the impact of AIDS entirely--was this traumatized thing that was seeking to use respectability politics to secure necessary rights for folks' families. And the reasons for that trauma were often very clamped down.
I've seen both of these posts before, but they're certainly very interesting to chew over and consider again today; I wonder how much seeing the people who were protesting the political changes that swept the USA in the Bush years also changed the political outlook for young people, just as much as the changes with power did. Thank you for bringing them here!
posted by sciatrix at 10:28 AM on April 11, 2022 [13 favorites]
What I'm seeing is the collision between the societal belief that discourse is how we can seek truth and that it's wrong to "demonize" someone for their views and a more vocal marginalized population making the important point that they should not be expected to continually argue for their right to exist. Part of the problem (and the first link demonstrates it repeatedly) is the one-sided application of the principle of charity - leftists are chided for not showing charity to people who are often times literally arguing that they are less than human, while no expectation of reciprocal charity is applied. This is why I find Yonatan Zunger's essay on tolerance as peace treaty to be important reading, as he explains why reciprocity is important. (I'll also point out that the unilateral principle of charity often to me smacks of virtue signaling - it feels often like the person is trying to say that one side should "be better" without any consideration for the message that gets sent.)
I've reached the point where I find lines like "ideas you don't like", "difference of opinion", and the like to be bad faith arguments meant to remove context themselves to make the unreasonable seem reasonable. If you can't actually defend your position without resorting to hiding it, that says much about your position.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:12 AM on April 11, 2022 [22 favorites]
I've reached the point where I find lines like "ideas you don't like", "difference of opinion", and the like to be bad faith arguments meant to remove context themselves to make the unreasonable seem reasonable. If you can't actually defend your position without resorting to hiding it, that says much about your position.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:12 AM on April 11, 2022 [22 favorites]
NoxAeternum: Oh, absolutely. As Sartre said, “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words.” It still holds true today. It still holds true if you swap out "anti-Semites" with "TERFs" or "Neo-Nazis" or any other group whose belief is predicated that someone else is subhuman for their identity. I have no problem with people drawing a clear line when a marginalized person's humanity is called into question. Doubly so when it's a marginalized person drawing that line for themselves.
However, every anti-Semite, TERF, Neo-Nazi, ISIS member, QAnon supporter, and so on is a human being and their humanity is as valid as anyone else's, even if they don't see other people's humanity. We shouldn't lose sight of that. Call it a form of "Love the sinner, hate the sin," perhaps. It is possible for people who are virulently horrible to others, who see people as subhuman for the color of their skin, gender, sexuality, religion, whatever, to see those people as human. How we do that? I'm not sure. I am certain of one thing: the dead learn no lessons.
One thing I do know, and one thing research has shown, is that the way to keep people from falling down that path towards dehumanizing others is to appeal to mutual humanity, stopping them before they become radicalized. We do that through giving people community, through talk, assuaging fears, and mutual understanding. This is, of course, near-impossible to do in a social media space for reasons I outlined in my previous comment.
And to be clear, I'm not saying "Don't punch Nazis/TERFs/etc." Do punch them. Certainly punch the ones who are already so far down the rabbit hole you can't pull them out without a lot of concerted time and effort. Do punch the ones that put everyone else at risk through their violence. The people on the edges, the people who could fall in to the hole of dehumanizing radicalization? That punch is what could push them over the edge and down the hole. Those are the ones we need to offer a hand to.
posted by SansPoint at 11:35 AM on April 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
However, every anti-Semite, TERF, Neo-Nazi, ISIS member, QAnon supporter, and so on is a human being and their humanity is as valid as anyone else's, even if they don't see other people's humanity. We shouldn't lose sight of that. Call it a form of "Love the sinner, hate the sin," perhaps. It is possible for people who are virulently horrible to others, who see people as subhuman for the color of their skin, gender, sexuality, religion, whatever, to see those people as human. How we do that? I'm not sure. I am certain of one thing: the dead learn no lessons.
One thing I do know, and one thing research has shown, is that the way to keep people from falling down that path towards dehumanizing others is to appeal to mutual humanity, stopping them before they become radicalized. We do that through giving people community, through talk, assuaging fears, and mutual understanding. This is, of course, near-impossible to do in a social media space for reasons I outlined in my previous comment.
And to be clear, I'm not saying "Don't punch Nazis/TERFs/etc." Do punch them. Certainly punch the ones who are already so far down the rabbit hole you can't pull them out without a lot of concerted time and effort. Do punch the ones that put everyone else at risk through their violence. The people on the edges, the people who could fall in to the hole of dehumanizing radicalization? That punch is what could push them over the edge and down the hole. Those are the ones we need to offer a hand to.
posted by SansPoint at 11:35 AM on April 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
Interesting. I don't know if I buy it. I spent a fair bit of time among young activists during the four or five years before 2002 and the accusations then sure sounded pretty similar. There were a lot of reasonable people trying to do good work and a loud few always hot to pick a fight with people who slightly disagree with them. I'm very tempted to argue that the difference is that more people can see it now. You used to have to actively go to a meeting to see it in 2000, and everyone who was at the meetings was used to it. I'm less active today, but the teenage/20s activists I've met in the last few years seem a hell of a lot more patient and thoughtful than the ones I palled around with in 2000. Perhaps they're getting tired of putting up with liberal bullshit again. Just like they were in 1960, and in 1917. That's a good thing.
I'd suggest the lesson of 2001 isn't that people demonize others and it hurts the conversation. It's that the US will do anything to maintain control and protect the interests of domestic wealth and the vast majority of the country is unlikely to notice or care at all. There was a small, vocal minority who asked, "why do you hate?" They didn't really matter much. "What do you have to worry about" was the phrase that did the most damage to civil liberties.
posted by eotvos at 11:50 AM on April 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
I'd suggest the lesson of 2001 isn't that people demonize others and it hurts the conversation. It's that the US will do anything to maintain control and protect the interests of domestic wealth and the vast majority of the country is unlikely to notice or care at all. There was a small, vocal minority who asked, "why do you hate?" They didn't really matter much. "What do you have to worry about" was the phrase that did the most damage to civil liberties.
posted by eotvos at 11:50 AM on April 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
I remember a "liberal is not a dirty word" lecture from a high school debate teacher that startled me with tenseness of his vehemence ...
Funny thing is, today I see online leftists using the word "liberal" with as much contempt as Republicans ever did, although for different reasons. I don't blame them, of course; there's too much pain out there to do that, too many people asked to eat shit in the name of good faith. I think a lot about how ready young people are to talk about guillotines these days. Them, too, I don't blame.
All I know is that our country is, at best, premised on the concept of an Enlightenment model of free discussion and the idea of a "reasonable man." It had not been road-tested at the time and is not holding up now, if indeed it ever did. What are we going to do?
posted by Countess Elena at 11:57 AM on April 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
Funny thing is, today I see online leftists using the word "liberal" with as much contempt as Republicans ever did, although for different reasons. I don't blame them, of course; there's too much pain out there to do that, too many people asked to eat shit in the name of good faith. I think a lot about how ready young people are to talk about guillotines these days. Them, too, I don't blame.
All I know is that our country is, at best, premised on the concept of an Enlightenment model of free discussion and the idea of a "reasonable man." It had not been road-tested at the time and is not holding up now, if indeed it ever did. What are we going to do?
posted by Countess Elena at 11:57 AM on April 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
It is possible for people who are virulently horrible to others, who see people as subhuman for the color of their skin, gender, sexuality, religion, whatever, to see those people as human. How we do that?
I tend to see the issue here being more that people don't want to acknowledge the capacity of humans to be monsters. Which is understandable - it's something that is hard to approach because of the questions it raises. But a victim viewing an abuser as a monster isn't dehumanizing them, because humans can easily be monsters as well, in ways rooted in their humanity.
We do that through giving people community, through talk, assuaging fears, and mutual understanding.
The problem here is what happens when their fear is rooted in the systems that are harming the marginalized? When mutual understanding is impossible? When you have a community that has the victims among its members, what does it say when we invite their abuser in, especially if we've done nothing to demand their changed behavior? One massive problem that routinely happens is we demand that victims are obliged to be part of the moral development, which is another form of abuse. Should we extend a hand to pull people back from radicalization? Of course - but it cannot be our full praxis, nor should it be allowed to compromise the safety of others in our community. It's okay for us to have standards that are part of the deal of being part of our community.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:32 PM on April 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
I tend to see the issue here being more that people don't want to acknowledge the capacity of humans to be monsters. Which is understandable - it's something that is hard to approach because of the questions it raises. But a victim viewing an abuser as a monster isn't dehumanizing them, because humans can easily be monsters as well, in ways rooted in their humanity.
We do that through giving people community, through talk, assuaging fears, and mutual understanding.
The problem here is what happens when their fear is rooted in the systems that are harming the marginalized? When mutual understanding is impossible? When you have a community that has the victims among its members, what does it say when we invite their abuser in, especially if we've done nothing to demand their changed behavior? One massive problem that routinely happens is we demand that victims are obliged to be part of the moral development, which is another form of abuse. Should we extend a hand to pull people back from radicalization? Of course - but it cannot be our full praxis, nor should it be allowed to compromise the safety of others in our community. It's okay for us to have standards that are part of the deal of being part of our community.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:32 PM on April 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
I feel like this is the case of two things that looks similar but have wildly different origins. The Bush era was a wave of nationalist, authoritarian fear-mongering exploited, but also planned and executed in service of consolidating power, complete with scapegoating of a whole host of minorities (in addition to the racism and Islamophobia, that was the era of states having multiple referenda/initiatives about gay marriage to juice the vote). This came complete with number stickers about shooting liberals.
The GenZ rhetoric grew up around the decay of respectability/outreach politics. You don't have to weather all of the micro aggressions. Are you having trouble telling disingenuous and earnest questions apart? You don't have to. Tell them to fuck off. You don't need to educate others, be their magical mentor figure, have infinite patience for the same conversation again and again. Don't let people derail every conversation you try to have, turning them into another debate about if someone's existence is valid. Has that attitude gone too far? Maybe sometimes? But comparing the two, especially from the outside, seems superficial at best.
On preview, what NoxAeternum said.
posted by Garm at 12:38 PM on April 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
The GenZ rhetoric grew up around the decay of respectability/outreach politics. You don't have to weather all of the micro aggressions. Are you having trouble telling disingenuous and earnest questions apart? You don't have to. Tell them to fuck off. You don't need to educate others, be their magical mentor figure, have infinite patience for the same conversation again and again. Don't let people derail every conversation you try to have, turning them into another debate about if someone's existence is valid. Has that attitude gone too far? Maybe sometimes? But comparing the two, especially from the outside, seems superficial at best.
On preview, what NoxAeternum said.
posted by Garm at 12:38 PM on April 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
And the reason they "look similar" is because we live in a society where the idea of discourse has been taken to extremes that have turned out to be questionable. Look at the recent protest at Yale Law, where the protestors are being condemned for "violating academic freedom and free discourse" - but it's worth noting that the people condemning them are very carefully avoiding talking about what they were protesting, because it turns out they were opposed to the Federalist Society inviting a representative of the Orwellianly named Alliance Defending Freedom - an organization defined as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which openly seeks to criminalize homosexuality - to speak on campus. Their point was that the invitation legitimizes the ADF and their hateful positions, and I have to agree with them.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:51 PM on April 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:51 PM on April 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
Mildly, one question I would ask is whether it always makes sense in these contexts to boil everything down to a zero-sum privileged vs marginalized, or abuser vs. abused, dynamic. Rushing to frame morality in binaristic yes/no terms without reference to specifics leaves people very vulnerable to whoever can successfully wrestle the framing such that they sit in the "correct" position.
On the other hand, I've talked about TERFism and radical feminism more generally occupying a fascist position on gender roles: radical feminist frameworks boil down gender oppression to a win/lose struggle in which only one party can and must prevail, and argue for moralistic reasons that the more marginalized gender should vanquish the less marginalized. TERFism is probably the most salient position to the links in the FPP community, since TERFs have been recruiting heavily in these tumblr communities for the ten years I've been hanging out in them, and that was something that was absolutely being openly discussed around 2015 when the first conversation linked was happening. Contextually, these posters are talking about movements with a specific context, and exclusively among younger people who would earnestly tell you they are working for social justice and mean it, while in practice espousing gatekeeping access to community resources, pushing heavily for more respectable-seeming positions, and emphasizing purity in thought (and often denouncing the potential corruption inherent in deliberately choosing to consuming "problematic" media). The parallels to the Bush-era authoritarian fear-mongering are actually pretty strong, particularly when you consider known examples of power consolidation in the space such as Winterfox/Benjanun Sridankeuw--known bad actors who can and do use spaces like this to amass considerable personal power, usually at the expense of the most marginalized people in that space.
This is not necessarily a group of people who use the rhetoric of social justice with a cynical smirk of owning the libs with their own language, and I think it's dangerous to assume that this is what the conversation in the linked FPPs is about.
I'm telling you, it is absolutely possible to tailor poison to your own sensibilities and values--or mine. We can't rely solely on our values in order to keep ourselves from hurting other people; we need to be able to pause and interrogate our reflexive emotional reactions as we think and respond to make sure that our initial reaction are in keeping with our values. TERFism is probably the most well-known version of this which might be palatable to MeFites, which is the other reason I often use it as an example. In this context, where I think we by and large agree that privileged people have a responsibility to stop and listen carefully to marginalized people in the event of any conflict, I think it's a more interesting and difficult question to pause and ask ourselves how we can prevent ourselves being suckered in by pitches that are actively marketing to us.
posted by sciatrix at 12:56 PM on April 11, 2022 [17 favorites]
On the other hand, I've talked about TERFism and radical feminism more generally occupying a fascist position on gender roles: radical feminist frameworks boil down gender oppression to a win/lose struggle in which only one party can and must prevail, and argue for moralistic reasons that the more marginalized gender should vanquish the less marginalized. TERFism is probably the most salient position to the links in the FPP community, since TERFs have been recruiting heavily in these tumblr communities for the ten years I've been hanging out in them, and that was something that was absolutely being openly discussed around 2015 when the first conversation linked was happening. Contextually, these posters are talking about movements with a specific context, and exclusively among younger people who would earnestly tell you they are working for social justice and mean it, while in practice espousing gatekeeping access to community resources, pushing heavily for more respectable-seeming positions, and emphasizing purity in thought (and often denouncing the potential corruption inherent in deliberately choosing to consuming "problematic" media). The parallels to the Bush-era authoritarian fear-mongering are actually pretty strong, particularly when you consider known examples of power consolidation in the space such as Winterfox/Benjanun Sridankeuw--known bad actors who can and do use spaces like this to amass considerable personal power, usually at the expense of the most marginalized people in that space.
This is not necessarily a group of people who use the rhetoric of social justice with a cynical smirk of owning the libs with their own language, and I think it's dangerous to assume that this is what the conversation in the linked FPPs is about.
I'm telling you, it is absolutely possible to tailor poison to your own sensibilities and values--or mine. We can't rely solely on our values in order to keep ourselves from hurting other people; we need to be able to pause and interrogate our reflexive emotional reactions as we think and respond to make sure that our initial reaction are in keeping with our values. TERFism is probably the most well-known version of this which might be palatable to MeFites, which is the other reason I often use it as an example. In this context, where I think we by and large agree that privileged people have a responsibility to stop and listen carefully to marginalized people in the event of any conflict, I think it's a more interesting and difficult question to pause and ask ourselves how we can prevent ourselves being suckered in by pitches that are actively marketing to us.
posted by sciatrix at 12:56 PM on April 11, 2022 [17 favorites]
sciatrix: Mildly, one question I would ask is whether it always makes sense in these contexts to boil everything down to a zero-sum privileged vs marginalized, or abuser vs. abused, dynamic. Rushing to frame morality in binaristic yes/no terms without reference to specifics leaves people very vulnerable to whoever can successfully wrestle the framing such that they sit in the "correct" position.
This is exactly the sort of thing I've been going on in regards to nuance and gray areas. Let's focus on TERFism for a bit. One major way that TERFs radicalize cis women by playing to women's fear of sexual assault by men. This is a valid fear, but the TERF uses that valid fear and stretches it to say that trans women are secretly violent rapist men in sheep's clothing. Therefore, to protect yourself from being sexually assaulted, you must keep trans women out of our safe, women's only spaces. That is the narrow end of the wedge: taking a valid fear and giving that fear a specific, visible source of danger. It's no different than an anti-Semite saying "Those Jewish bankers are taking your money" or a homophobe going "Those gays want to molest your children." There is no gray area in these statements, no space where one can push back—and if you find a space to push back, the fully radicalized person will often choose to ignore it.
Fear being used to radicalize people into dehumanizing others does not negate the validity of that fear. As a trans woman (well, AMAB trans person who presents in a way that often reads as a woman), I fear sexual assault as much as any cisgender woman. Trans women and cisgender women have a common fear, and a common risk of being sexually assaulted by men. It should be possible to address that fear, find the common ground of "Hey, we're both worried about getting sexually assaulted!" rather than treating all trans women as potential wolves in sheep's clothing. It is entirely possible to do this, but by the time someone is unironically RTing J.K. Rowling, bashing trans athletes, or donating to the LGB Alliance, it's often too late.
This is what honest people mean when they talk about finding "common ground" with the opposing side, with the caveat that the most hardcore of the opposing side have no interest in common ground, as Sartre so correctly identified. But those who have yet to be fully radicalized, those who are still open to contrary ideas, those who are honestly asking questions—not in the Joe Rogan sense, but are actively seeking to learn about things they don't understand and potentially fear—they are the ones that can be saved by discourse and understanding. They're the people who get left to the dogs when social media discussions about these issues turn into rapid-fire polarized argument that seek not to influence thought but to gain credibility through followers, likes, and shares—and this is something both sides do.
posted by SansPoint at 1:44 PM on April 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
This is exactly the sort of thing I've been going on in regards to nuance and gray areas. Let's focus on TERFism for a bit. One major way that TERFs radicalize cis women by playing to women's fear of sexual assault by men. This is a valid fear, but the TERF uses that valid fear and stretches it to say that trans women are secretly violent rapist men in sheep's clothing. Therefore, to protect yourself from being sexually assaulted, you must keep trans women out of our safe, women's only spaces. That is the narrow end of the wedge: taking a valid fear and giving that fear a specific, visible source of danger. It's no different than an anti-Semite saying "Those Jewish bankers are taking your money" or a homophobe going "Those gays want to molest your children." There is no gray area in these statements, no space where one can push back—and if you find a space to push back, the fully radicalized person will often choose to ignore it.
Fear being used to radicalize people into dehumanizing others does not negate the validity of that fear. As a trans woman (well, AMAB trans person who presents in a way that often reads as a woman), I fear sexual assault as much as any cisgender woman. Trans women and cisgender women have a common fear, and a common risk of being sexually assaulted by men. It should be possible to address that fear, find the common ground of "Hey, we're both worried about getting sexually assaulted!" rather than treating all trans women as potential wolves in sheep's clothing. It is entirely possible to do this, but by the time someone is unironically RTing J.K. Rowling, bashing trans athletes, or donating to the LGB Alliance, it's often too late.
This is what honest people mean when they talk about finding "common ground" with the opposing side, with the caveat that the most hardcore of the opposing side have no interest in common ground, as Sartre so correctly identified. But those who have yet to be fully radicalized, those who are still open to contrary ideas, those who are honestly asking questions—not in the Joe Rogan sense, but are actively seeking to learn about things they don't understand and potentially fear—they are the ones that can be saved by discourse and understanding. They're the people who get left to the dogs when social media discussions about these issues turn into rapid-fire polarized argument that seek not to influence thought but to gain credibility through followers, likes, and shares—and this is something both sides do.
posted by SansPoint at 1:44 PM on April 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
Why do I hate America? Because 74 million people voted for an absolutely vile person who indulged in blatantly criminal activities, at best barely concealed bigotry, racism, hatemonging and bullying/abuse, encouraging violence and suppressing legitimate protest, and trying to burn many of the systems I value to the ground...
I'm not sure this is a reason to hate America, specifically. It seems to me there are considerable numbers of people in every country who would do the same. Unfortunately, appeals to tribalism and fear can be quite effective.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:21 PM on April 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm not sure this is a reason to hate America, specifically. It seems to me there are considerable numbers of people in every country who would do the same. Unfortunately, appeals to tribalism and fear can be quite effective.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:21 PM on April 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is what honest people mean when they talk about finding "common ground" with the opposing side, with the caveat that the most hardcore of the opposing side have no interest in common ground, as Sartre so correctly identified. But those who have yet to be fully radicalized, those who are still open to contrary ideas, those who are honestly asking questions—not in the Joe Rogan sense, but are actively seeking to learn about things they don't understand and potentially fear—they are the ones that can be saved by discourse and understanding.
Yes. More and more, I'm coming to the conclusion that there's simply no other choice. There is no better, more enlightened group of people that our fellow citizens are going to be replaced with at some point in the future. The people we share the country with now are, by and large, the ones we're going to be stuck with.
Sure, some will die off; some new people will be born or immigrate. But it's a mistake to pin our hopes on the new people being automatically or inherently more virtuous than the old ones. We have to do the very hard work of persuading at least some of the people who disagree with us... which requires figuring out how to connect with them. Those who would lure them down darker paths certainly aren't going to quit.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:29 PM on April 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
Yes. More and more, I'm coming to the conclusion that there's simply no other choice. There is no better, more enlightened group of people that our fellow citizens are going to be replaced with at some point in the future. The people we share the country with now are, by and large, the ones we're going to be stuck with.
Sure, some will die off; some new people will be born or immigrate. But it's a mistake to pin our hopes on the new people being automatically or inherently more virtuous than the old ones. We have to do the very hard work of persuading at least some of the people who disagree with us... which requires figuring out how to connect with them. Those who would lure them down darker paths certainly aren't going to quit.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:29 PM on April 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
I think the original tumblr post is making an analogy between the sense post 9/11 that you just COULDN'T get a hearing for positions like: let's not go to war, let's pay attention to what the UN weapons inspectors say, let's not be hasty taking away civil liberties, let's not normalize torture of detainees, etc., without a gaslighting browbeating of: WHY DO YOU HATE OUR COUNTRY AND FREEDOM?
Making an analogy between that and advocates of Social Justice browbeating their opponents as hateful?
I think some commenters here are turning it around and saying the proper analogy reversed: that in the drumbeat to war, the detainees we would torture were dehumanized, and the opponents of Social Justice advocates are seeking to dehumanize.
I have that old person's sense of disorientation reading about the generation that grew up with 9/11 already a thing. I was already a college professor on 9/11.
One big difference with the immediate post 9/11 climate was that the browbeating and gaslighting was coming from the GOVERNMENT. Government officials were saying "You better watch what you say!" And on most contentious issues now you can find popular media venues that will take whichever side you have. But even liberal outlets were all in for war. MSNBC fired Phil Donahue. Nobody really knew what was in the PATRIOT act, and how the government was going to respond to anti-war speech.
It was a surreal time that will always in some way feel to me as the PRESENT. It deeply shaped my life. I was in terrible mental health for a large portion of the W. years. I was hopping mad watching the tepid response to W. stealing the 2000 election, knowing if all the facts had been reversed the Republicans would have fought tooth and nail. I think of myself at core as a thoughtful person and W. and his response to 9/11 was all about freeing himself and the country from the kind of self-doubt that comes with thoughtfulness and leads to self-improvement. It was a swaggering aggression, an appeal to cartoonish images, Rambo and John Wayne images of war and not the historical reality. I loathed the apparent JOY with which much of the country anticipated war as if it was a sporting event.
posted by Schmucko at 2:59 PM on April 11, 2022 [21 favorites]
Making an analogy between that and advocates of Social Justice browbeating their opponents as hateful?
I think some commenters here are turning it around and saying the proper analogy reversed: that in the drumbeat to war, the detainees we would torture were dehumanized, and the opponents of Social Justice advocates are seeking to dehumanize.
I have that old person's sense of disorientation reading about the generation that grew up with 9/11 already a thing. I was already a college professor on 9/11.
One big difference with the immediate post 9/11 climate was that the browbeating and gaslighting was coming from the GOVERNMENT. Government officials were saying "You better watch what you say!" And on most contentious issues now you can find popular media venues that will take whichever side you have. But even liberal outlets were all in for war. MSNBC fired Phil Donahue. Nobody really knew what was in the PATRIOT act, and how the government was going to respond to anti-war speech.
It was a surreal time that will always in some way feel to me as the PRESENT. It deeply shaped my life. I was in terrible mental health for a large portion of the W. years. I was hopping mad watching the tepid response to W. stealing the 2000 election, knowing if all the facts had been reversed the Republicans would have fought tooth and nail. I think of myself at core as a thoughtful person and W. and his response to 9/11 was all about freeing himself and the country from the kind of self-doubt that comes with thoughtfulness and leads to self-improvement. It was a swaggering aggression, an appeal to cartoonish images, Rambo and John Wayne images of war and not the historical reality. I loathed the apparent JOY with which much of the country anticipated war as if it was a sporting event.
posted by Schmucko at 2:59 PM on April 11, 2022 [21 favorites]
There's absolutely something going on with the younger folks on Tumblr - at least with a certain group of them - that is very concerning. They're trapped themselves in a extreme echo chamber in order to avoid the taint of anything sexual. The community norms of this group include casually using very loaded terms like "cp" and "pedo" in situations where they don't apply, passing along call out posts without bothering to check whether they are true, and automatic distrust of anyone over the age of 25 who might be able to point out that all of this is madness.
People in this group are sometimes seeking safety from an overly sexualized internet, sometimes looking for peer approval which they can get by joining pile-ons, sometimes trying to feel powerful online, sometimes trying to eliminate rivals in the shared social space to increase their own social capital, and sometimes genuinely of the belief that the people they are mob-bullying MUST have done something to deserve it, therefore participating in the bully-mob is genuinely social justice.
It is like Gamergate, but among mostly AFAB people who would consider themselves progressive. Sciatrix has it exactly right that this is targeted recruitment, like Gamergate was, but just focused on a different group of teenagers.
posted by subdee at 6:12 PM on April 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
People in this group are sometimes seeking safety from an overly sexualized internet, sometimes looking for peer approval which they can get by joining pile-ons, sometimes trying to feel powerful online, sometimes trying to eliminate rivals in the shared social space to increase their own social capital, and sometimes genuinely of the belief that the people they are mob-bullying MUST have done something to deserve it, therefore participating in the bully-mob is genuinely social justice.
It is like Gamergate, but among mostly AFAB people who would consider themselves progressive. Sciatrix has it exactly right that this is targeted recruitment, like Gamergate was, but just focused on a different group of teenagers.
posted by subdee at 6:12 PM on April 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
I keep a collection of links on this topic on are.na, scroll to the oldest links to see the most WTF???? Arguments:
Https://www.are.na/subdee-subdee/tumblr-twitter-fanwars
For better or for worse, I think the most toxic parts of this culture have moved from Tumblr to Twitter, YouTube and TikTok.
Also, you will have to go to the oldest posts to see the worst of it because in addition to everything else, seeing a lot of these types of posts on Tumblr is a sign that you are a newer user, and haven't yet learned how to spot the signs that you are following a member of this cult group. Or that it is better to unfollow and ignore them, and visibly have a great time with your own much better group of friends, than to try to reason them out of the cult mindset they are trapped in.
posted by subdee at 6:23 PM on April 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
Https://www.are.na/subdee-subdee/tumblr-twitter-fanwars
For better or for worse, I think the most toxic parts of this culture have moved from Tumblr to Twitter, YouTube and TikTok.
Also, you will have to go to the oldest posts to see the worst of it because in addition to everything else, seeing a lot of these types of posts on Tumblr is a sign that you are a newer user, and haven't yet learned how to spot the signs that you are following a member of this cult group. Or that it is better to unfollow and ignore them, and visibly have a great time with your own much better group of friends, than to try to reason them out of the cult mindset they are trapped in.
posted by subdee at 6:23 PM on April 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is relevant here, not to the question of parallels with the reaction to 9/11, but in support of not engaging with bigoted speech:
Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.posted by Schmucko at 9:16 PM on April 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
I want to emphasize and emphatically nod at what sciatrix said:
Winterfox (Benjanun Sriduangkaew) did significant and lasting damage to people (in particular her competitors) and to at least one progressive initiative through targeted harassment and through convincing progressive people that this harassment was okay. There are more demagogues, right now, using the same propaganda strategy, using the same playbook, in progressive spaces. And none of us are immune to their propaganda.
posted by brainwane at 3:34 AM on April 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
Contextually, these posters are talking about movements with a specific context, and exclusively among younger people who would earnestly tell you they are working for social justice and mean it... The parallels to the Bush-era authoritarian fear-mongering are actually pretty strong, particularly when you consider known examples of power consolidation in the space such as Winterfox/Benjanun Sridankeuw--known bad actors who can and do use spaces like this to amass considerable personal power, usually at the expense of the most marginalized people in that space.....Which is why I think it's useful to read the first post I linked to in concert with the second, on improving our resistance to being recruited into cults.
I'm telling you, it is absolutely possible to tailor poison to your own sensibilities and values--or mine. We can't rely solely on our values in order to keep ourselves from hurting other people; we need to be able to pause and interrogate our reflexive emotional reactions as we think and respond to make sure that our initial reaction are in keeping with our values.... In this context, where I think we by and large agree that privileged people have a responsibility to stop and listen carefully to marginalized people in the event of any conflict, I think it's a more interesting and difficult question to pause and ask ourselves how we can prevent ourselves being suckered in by pitches that are actively marketing to us.
Winterfox (Benjanun Sriduangkaew) did significant and lasting damage to people (in particular her competitors) and to at least one progressive initiative through targeted harassment and through convincing progressive people that this harassment was okay. There are more demagogues, right now, using the same propaganda strategy, using the same playbook, in progressive spaces. And none of us are immune to their propaganda.
posted by brainwane at 3:34 AM on April 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
The problem is that interrogation has been weaponized against us - we are routinely told that we are obligated to break bread and give consideration to the abuser, the bigot, the Nazi out of a need to be "open-minded" and "fair", because "we're not always right". We need safeguards against causing harm, yes - but what gets too often ignored is that one of them is having the confidence in our worldview to tell those who would argue that there is an obligation to keep an open mind to people espousing harmful views to kindly go fuck off.
You bring up Requires Hate, but I would point out that part of how she managed to gain clout was the fact that she rejected performative Broderism - and that spoke to a lot of people for very good reason. And that is not to say that she didn't do genuine harm (because she very much did) - but it's to point out that how cults recruit is by addressing unmet needs and unheard positions. This is why I brought up the Yale Law protest earlier, where people are in arms about students vocally protesting...that a member of an actual hate group was invited to speak - and yet it's the protestors who are in the wrong. As one student pointed out in an article about it:
In summary, we do need to be open minded, yes - but not so much that our brains fall out. We should interrogate our beliefs, but we should also remember that we hold those beliefs for a reason (and this is why the "tribalism" argument needs to die in a fire.) The principle of charity is important - but when applied unilaterally can easily become a tool for enabling harm.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:21 AM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
You bring up Requires Hate, but I would point out that part of how she managed to gain clout was the fact that she rejected performative Broderism - and that spoke to a lot of people for very good reason. And that is not to say that she didn't do genuine harm (because she very much did) - but it's to point out that how cults recruit is by addressing unmet needs and unheard positions. This is why I brought up the Yale Law protest earlier, where people are in arms about students vocally protesting...that a member of an actual hate group was invited to speak - and yet it's the protestors who are in the wrong. As one student pointed out in an article about it:
“The First Amendment is complicated and it protects both sides of an argument,” AJ Hudson LAW ’23 said in an interview early last week. “But it seems like it’s only ever used as a tool to tell students of color, queer students, or female students to shut up.”I'd also point out that the euphemistic language in that last link (specifically, "rooting out the “bad” people in the world") I find very problematic because it's routinely used to dismiss those very arguments by covering up the actual complaints people have. As I've pointed out elsewhere, phrases like "speech you don't like", "difference of opinion", "offense" (in the popular interpretation where it's viewed as inherently negative), and so on are inherently built in bad faith, with their intent being to shut down deeper analysis because that could bring up the reality that well worn cultural beliefs have become (or worse, were always) tools for enabling harm. We live in a culture that has for decades argued that the marginalized need to take abuse out of an obligation to the "greater good", and it turns out that people are rejecting that for good reason - and ignoring that is just going to enable bad actors.
In summary, we do need to be open minded, yes - but not so much that our brains fall out. We should interrogate our beliefs, but we should also remember that we hold those beliefs for a reason (and this is why the "tribalism" argument needs to die in a fire.) The principle of charity is important - but when applied unilaterally can easily become a tool for enabling harm.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:21 AM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
NoxAeternum: In summary, we do need to be open minded, yes - but not so much that our brains fall out. We should interrogate our beliefs, but we should also remember that we hold those beliefs for a reason (and this is why the "tribalism" argument needs to die in a fire.) The principle of charity is important - but when applied unilaterally can easily become a tool for enabling harm.
Which, to get back on my hobby horse, is where nuance and gray areas come in. There is a fundamental difference between a foaming at the mouth Nazi, an otherwise decent acquaintance who sometimes says bigoted things. You treat each differently. The Nazi gets a fist to the face. The otherwise decent acquaintance gets a conversation that tries to understand where the casual bigotry comes from and why it's bad to express it. Now, it may turn out that your acquaintance is, in fact, far more awful and bigoted than you thought, and that will change the calculus of how you deal with them... but if they are truly decent and ignorant of the harm they cause, they might learn and change.
To see the Nazi and the (hopefully) clueless bigot as identical means you treat both the same, and that can cause the clueless bigots of the world to run into the open arms of the Nazis of the world. There are multiple reasons why that can happen (backfire effect, confirmation bias, belief perseverance, etc.) and it's important to keep that in mind when engaging with someone who is still open to being engaged with.
Of course, engaging with those people who are still open to it is fucking hard. It's especially hard if you're in a marginalized group and need to defend yourself, your identity, your humanity, from being denied. Even when the people asking questions are coming from a good place and want to know more to help, it's still hard. I don't blame anyone who pushes people off--well meaning or not--by telling them to Google it.
As a data point, I have an acquaintance and former co-worker who is deep into Joe Rogan land. He is polite and respectful of my gender transition and identity, but has asked (when invited) questions that could easily have been answered by Googling. As far as I can tell, he's well-meaning, but I do worry if he's developing the sort of brainworms that hardcore Rogan fans have in regards to trans people, since he's already expressed similar brainworm-infested ideas around COVID and vaccines. (Thankfully, we don't interact in the real world at all these days.) I'm hoping that by being informative he'll avoid the brainworm infestation that could turn him from a potential ally into a legitimate threat to trans rights. Fingers crossed.
But to get back to your point, it absolutely is contextual. There is a line between the people sincerely asking questions and trying to learn, the people who are ignorant but open minded, and the people who have "chosen to be impervious" as per Sartre. And, of course, in online spaces, dealing with strangers hiding behind screen names, you can never be sure which is which.
posted by SansPoint at 7:11 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Which, to get back on my hobby horse, is where nuance and gray areas come in. There is a fundamental difference between a foaming at the mouth Nazi, an otherwise decent acquaintance who sometimes says bigoted things. You treat each differently. The Nazi gets a fist to the face. The otherwise decent acquaintance gets a conversation that tries to understand where the casual bigotry comes from and why it's bad to express it. Now, it may turn out that your acquaintance is, in fact, far more awful and bigoted than you thought, and that will change the calculus of how you deal with them... but if they are truly decent and ignorant of the harm they cause, they might learn and change.
To see the Nazi and the (hopefully) clueless bigot as identical means you treat both the same, and that can cause the clueless bigots of the world to run into the open arms of the Nazis of the world. There are multiple reasons why that can happen (backfire effect, confirmation bias, belief perseverance, etc.) and it's important to keep that in mind when engaging with someone who is still open to being engaged with.
Of course, engaging with those people who are still open to it is fucking hard. It's especially hard if you're in a marginalized group and need to defend yourself, your identity, your humanity, from being denied. Even when the people asking questions are coming from a good place and want to know more to help, it's still hard. I don't blame anyone who pushes people off--well meaning or not--by telling them to Google it.
As a data point, I have an acquaintance and former co-worker who is deep into Joe Rogan land. He is polite and respectful of my gender transition and identity, but has asked (when invited) questions that could easily have been answered by Googling. As far as I can tell, he's well-meaning, but I do worry if he's developing the sort of brainworms that hardcore Rogan fans have in regards to trans people, since he's already expressed similar brainworm-infested ideas around COVID and vaccines. (Thankfully, we don't interact in the real world at all these days.) I'm hoping that by being informative he'll avoid the brainworm infestation that could turn him from a potential ally into a legitimate threat to trans rights. Fingers crossed.
But to get back to your point, it absolutely is contextual. There is a line between the people sincerely asking questions and trying to learn, the people who are ignorant but open minded, and the people who have "chosen to be impervious" as per Sartre. And, of course, in online spaces, dealing with strangers hiding behind screen names, you can never be sure which is which.
posted by SansPoint at 7:11 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm also going to add--I brought up Requires Hate specifically because she is an example of an abuser who is weaponizing values and beliefs that people in this community hold. I think it's really easy to go "yeah, but what about those people, who are saying no but they're RIGHT and they are getting pushback!" in a space where we're all inclined to agree with the people saying no. What I think is important is learning to identify places where you are inclined to agree with the position being espoused and can still identify that is poison. Which, again, is what brainwane is discussing in the linked thread.
If we're not inherently immune to propaganda by virtue of our values, it's important to figure out how to recognize a trap even when it's baited with values we share. I feel like what I'm seeing in the comparison to the alt-right wailing about cancel culture is an immediate rush to say "yes, but we are immune to traps baited with OTHER people's values/unmet needs/biases/inarticulated beliefs," especially when that comes twice in response to examples that have shared baits.
Basically, I think that to keep ourselves safe, we gotta control our automatic kneejerk threat reactions well enough to see a wide variety of pathways out of conflict, or we become vulnerable to people who will exploit those reactions. That doesn't mean that we gotta both-sides everything around us or hold hands with Nazis or say that actually transphobes got a point in there. Nah. That's bullshit. What I'm trying to say is that it's harder to identify toxic shit when it's tuned to appeal to you, so I'm looking for examples of toxic shit that is tuned to me to use as an example.
What I'm seeing and reacting to is a kind of black and white framing of people as either basically on the side of truth and justice or alt-right threats who want to come for all of us. I recognize in myself the same emotional impulses especially when I deal with anything I've found traumatic in the past, and I find it useful to think about how to control my emotional reactions because I see a lot of places where my traumatic "not-that!" impulse leaves me vulnerable, just as someone who outsources their decision making to always choosing the middle path is vulnerable to manipulation.
I got a question, for communication's sake. Is there any kind of fucked up, abusive person whose ideology you find kind of compelling? Have you ever been tricked by a person like that, or can you imagine being tricked? Do you think those are compelling questions to ask ourselves, or are they threats in their own right?
posted by sciatrix at 8:10 AM on April 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
If we're not inherently immune to propaganda by virtue of our values, it's important to figure out how to recognize a trap even when it's baited with values we share. I feel like what I'm seeing in the comparison to the alt-right wailing about cancel culture is an immediate rush to say "yes, but we are immune to traps baited with OTHER people's values/unmet needs/biases/inarticulated beliefs," especially when that comes twice in response to examples that have shared baits.
Basically, I think that to keep ourselves safe, we gotta control our automatic kneejerk threat reactions well enough to see a wide variety of pathways out of conflict, or we become vulnerable to people who will exploit those reactions. That doesn't mean that we gotta both-sides everything around us or hold hands with Nazis or say that actually transphobes got a point in there. Nah. That's bullshit. What I'm trying to say is that it's harder to identify toxic shit when it's tuned to appeal to you, so I'm looking for examples of toxic shit that is tuned to me to use as an example.
What I'm seeing and reacting to is a kind of black and white framing of people as either basically on the side of truth and justice or alt-right threats who want to come for all of us. I recognize in myself the same emotional impulses especially when I deal with anything I've found traumatic in the past, and I find it useful to think about how to control my emotional reactions because I see a lot of places where my traumatic "not-that!" impulse leaves me vulnerable, just as someone who outsources their decision making to always choosing the middle path is vulnerable to manipulation.
I got a question, for communication's sake. Is there any kind of fucked up, abusive person whose ideology you find kind of compelling? Have you ever been tricked by a person like that, or can you imagine being tricked? Do you think those are compelling questions to ask ourselves, or are they threats in their own right?
posted by sciatrix at 8:10 AM on April 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
That doesn't mean that we gotta both-sides everything around us or hold hands with Nazis or say that actually transphobes got a point in there. Nah. That's bullshit.
The problem is that we live in a society that has been marinating for decades in that. As I've said in other threads, we as a society literally hold up allowing Nazis marching in force to terrorize Holocaust survivors as a symbol of our dedication to free speech.
That's fucked up - and yet if you were to say so, then you would be the one denounced for being against freedom, because that's what people have been taught for years. And because of that, the marginalized have been told to accept abuse out of an obligation to the "greater good".
Is it any surprise that "no, you don't have to accept being abused" is a viewpoint that gets a lot of takers? And this comes to why the link about cult resilience falls flat to me - it's all about what the individual can do, and nothing about how communities should respond. And it's the community failing to respond to that abuse is what opens the doors to abusers.
What I'm seeing and reacting to is a kind of black and white framing of people as either basically on the side of truth and justice or alt-right threats who want to come for all of us.
The problem that I'm seeing is that there's more than a grain of truth in that view. Again, look at what happened with the Yale Law protest - you had the Federalist Society (which as we're seeing more and more is about supporting the reactionary movement in American jurisprudence) chapter invite a representative from the Alliance Defending Freedom - an actual hate group that is actively seeking to criminalize homosexuality - to speak. And yet when the protestors pointed out the simple fact that allowing people who want to literally turn people into criminals for their sexual orientation ran counter to the mission of the school - it was the protestors who were attacked for "violating academic freedom."
So yeah, I can see why someone would see people who are not actively pushing to protect the rights of the marginalized as threats. And it's not a trap or a misreading - it's people looking and trends in our culture and seeing how they are being used as tools to harm. And the answer to that is to address the issues.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:11 AM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
The problem is that we live in a society that has been marinating for decades in that. As I've said in other threads, we as a society literally hold up allowing Nazis marching in force to terrorize Holocaust survivors as a symbol of our dedication to free speech.
That's fucked up - and yet if you were to say so, then you would be the one denounced for being against freedom, because that's what people have been taught for years. And because of that, the marginalized have been told to accept abuse out of an obligation to the "greater good".
Is it any surprise that "no, you don't have to accept being abused" is a viewpoint that gets a lot of takers? And this comes to why the link about cult resilience falls flat to me - it's all about what the individual can do, and nothing about how communities should respond. And it's the community failing to respond to that abuse is what opens the doors to abusers.
What I'm seeing and reacting to is a kind of black and white framing of people as either basically on the side of truth and justice or alt-right threats who want to come for all of us.
The problem that I'm seeing is that there's more than a grain of truth in that view. Again, look at what happened with the Yale Law protest - you had the Federalist Society (which as we're seeing more and more is about supporting the reactionary movement in American jurisprudence) chapter invite a representative from the Alliance Defending Freedom - an actual hate group that is actively seeking to criminalize homosexuality - to speak. And yet when the protestors pointed out the simple fact that allowing people who want to literally turn people into criminals for their sexual orientation ran counter to the mission of the school - it was the protestors who were attacked for "violating academic freedom."
So yeah, I can see why someone would see people who are not actively pushing to protect the rights of the marginalized as threats. And it's not a trap or a misreading - it's people looking and trends in our culture and seeing how they are being used as tools to harm. And the answer to that is to address the issues.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:11 AM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
TBH what you see a lot of on tumblr is marginalized people attacking other marginalized people and using identity to calculate the amount of damage their attacks are doing, "like a pokemon type effectiveness chart" as we say on Tumblr.
The basic argument is that since the attackers are young, queer, trans, mentally ill, poor, and/or a racial minority (choose whatever fits you best), "by definition" they can't be a troll or an asshole because they can't "really" hurt the other people they attack online, who are often in similar situations to them. They will argue that because their opponents are rich, white, adults, cis and/or straight that they cannot be harmed by any bullying online. And that anyone who is being bullied online is being bullied because they deserve to be, a form of victim blaming.
It is the Benjanun Sridankeuw argument that because BS was Thai, and her opponents were white, any amount of toxicity was acceptable and in fact, was a form of social justice. Nevermind that BS was the heir to a large hotel fortune in Thailand...
Like yes, exaggerating the harm you experience from being being mean to you on twitter is a thing people do. But the harm people experience from being piled on and forced out of online spaces by the online mob is also real. And young people who AREN'T sure in their opinions yet, and seeking peer acceptance and approval, are more vulnerable to it, and there are a lot of people on tumblr who see this culture of harassment in progressive spaces and see the issues with it, and who also suspect there are outside actors coming and making it worse.
posted by subdee at 11:03 AM on April 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
The basic argument is that since the attackers are young, queer, trans, mentally ill, poor, and/or a racial minority (choose whatever fits you best), "by definition" they can't be a troll or an asshole because they can't "really" hurt the other people they attack online, who are often in similar situations to them. They will argue that because their opponents are rich, white, adults, cis and/or straight that they cannot be harmed by any bullying online. And that anyone who is being bullied online is being bullied because they deserve to be, a form of victim blaming.
It is the Benjanun Sridankeuw argument that because BS was Thai, and her opponents were white, any amount of toxicity was acceptable and in fact, was a form of social justice. Nevermind that BS was the heir to a large hotel fortune in Thailand...
Like yes, exaggerating the harm you experience from being being mean to you on twitter is a thing people do. But the harm people experience from being piled on and forced out of online spaces by the online mob is also real. And young people who AREN'T sure in their opinions yet, and seeking peer acceptance and approval, are more vulnerable to it, and there are a lot of people on tumblr who see this culture of harassment in progressive spaces and see the issues with it, and who also suspect there are outside actors coming and making it worse.
posted by subdee at 11:03 AM on April 14, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'd like to get one thing clearly stated, because I think it is table stakes in this discussion that I assume we all agree on. (That is those of us participating in the thread.) That thing is this:
Counter-speech is protected, free speech.
When it comes to situations like the Alliance Defending Freedom speaking on a college campus, I often think that what schools should do, in cases like this, is encourage another organization to bring in a speaker espousing the opposite view. Put one up, then the other, and let students decide which speaker they want to hear. If "academic freedom" is truly at the heart of the issue with the protestors, why not actually give the opposing side a university-sponsored platform as well?
But of course, that doesn't happen. Protest of controversial speakers is the closest we get, but that protest is still protected counter-speech.
The entire "cancel culture" discourse, of course, is predicated on the idea that counter-speech is not protected, free speech. A speaker on a college campus is not guaranteed an audience, and if a bunch of people protesting outside the venue keep people from attending that speaker's presentation, it's still protected counter-speech. (And, to be clear, if the protesters are physically preventing people from entering the space, or actively dragging people away from the doors, that is not protected. That is assault.)
Similarly, one's free speech is not violated because someone has blocked them on Twitter, in much the same way as turning off Fox News on a TV you control is not violating Tucker Carlson's free speech.
posted by SansPoint at 11:23 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Counter-speech is protected, free speech.
When it comes to situations like the Alliance Defending Freedom speaking on a college campus, I often think that what schools should do, in cases like this, is encourage another organization to bring in a speaker espousing the opposite view. Put one up, then the other, and let students decide which speaker they want to hear. If "academic freedom" is truly at the heart of the issue with the protestors, why not actually give the opposing side a university-sponsored platform as well?
But of course, that doesn't happen. Protest of controversial speakers is the closest we get, but that protest is still protected counter-speech.
The entire "cancel culture" discourse, of course, is predicated on the idea that counter-speech is not protected, free speech. A speaker on a college campus is not guaranteed an audience, and if a bunch of people protesting outside the venue keep people from attending that speaker's presentation, it's still protected counter-speech. (And, to be clear, if the protesters are physically preventing people from entering the space, or actively dragging people away from the doors, that is not protected. That is assault.)
Similarly, one's free speech is not violated because someone has blocked them on Twitter, in much the same way as turning off Fox News on a TV you control is not violating Tucker Carlson's free speech.
posted by SansPoint at 11:23 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
When it comes to situations like the Alliance Defending Freedom speaking on a college campus, I often think that what schools should do, in cases like this, is encourage another organization to bring in a speaker espousing the opposite view. Put one up, then the other, and let students decide which speaker they want to hear.
This is a horrible idea - Paul Campos of LGM lays the matter out:
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:34 AM on April 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is a horrible idea - Paul Campos of LGM lays the matter out:
You can’t “nurture a thriving intellectual environment” if you’re also required to treat people who are implacably opposed to thriving intellectual environments as a matter of their own first principles — such as for example theocratic fascists to take a totally not random example — with “mutual respect.” This is an oxymoron: these people don’t respect you, and indeed want to destroy you.Putting people's humanity up for debate never leads anywhere good.
Yale Law School’s position ought to be that theocratic fascists are not welcome to speak at Yale Law School, because theocratic fascism is fundamentally incompatible with both the intellectual mission of the institution, and its political commitment to the maintenance of some semblance of liberal democracy, now that the latter is under full frontal attack by the theocratic fascists who have gained control of the Republican party, several key members of which who happen to be graduates of Yale Law School — a fact which ought to give the place a little more pause than it apparently does. ETA: You shouldn’t be aiming to imbue your theocratic fascist students with “idealism and intelligence.” Assuming they can’t be converted, it’s obviously better that they should remain stupid and venal, as that will render them less dangerous than the intelligent and idealistic kind.
This, by the way, would be a perfectly legal thing for YLS to do. It’s not a public institution, so it’s not bound by any constitutional obligation to offer fora to religious bigots like the good folks at the Alliance Defending Freedom. Indeed YLS would be free as a legal matter to eject the Federalist Society from campus, and in fact should do so, given that organization’s transformation into what it is now, i.e., a staging ground for the legal attack wing of America’s nascent theocratic fascism.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:34 AM on April 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
NoxAeternum: You're absolutely right, and the actual solution is for the schools to not allow fascists (theocratic or otherwise) to speak on campus. My thought is more a waggish "Well, if you're going to insist on promoting this point of view, shouldn't you offer an alternative?" rather than an endorsement of debating people's humanity. It's more meant to poke at the hypocritical bullshit that "academic freedom" is in practice. Clearly I didn't make that come across, and that's on me.
posted by SansPoint at 11:46 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by SansPoint at 11:46 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
So yeah, I can see why someone would see people who are not actively pushing to protect the rights of the marginalized as threats. And it's not a trap or a misreading - it's people looking and trends in our culture and seeing how they are being used as tools to harm. And the answer to that is to address the issues.
Okay, so in a community like the one subdee and I are part of and have personal experience with, and are sharing with you, what are the issues? What are the trends in that subculture, and can those subcultural trends move in ways that put people within those subcultures at risk in ways orthogonal to the issues happening in the dominant culture?
Do you think it is possible for people who are sincerely trying to protect the rights of the marginalized to buy into ideologies that wind up hurting marginalized people down the road?
posted by sciatrix at 12:44 PM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
Okay, so in a community like the one subdee and I are part of and have personal experience with, and are sharing with you, what are the issues? What are the trends in that subculture, and can those subcultural trends move in ways that put people within those subcultures at risk in ways orthogonal to the issues happening in the dominant culture?
Do you think it is possible for people who are sincerely trying to protect the rights of the marginalized to buy into ideologies that wind up hurting marginalized people down the road?
posted by sciatrix at 12:44 PM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
While I agree some left social justice commenters get carried away I reflexively recoil from making an issue of it after seeing so many tiresome and ingenuous takes by NY Times editorialists (Brett Stephens, Bari Weiss, etc.), Bill Maher, etc., about Cancel Culture on college campuses.
Could also be that those on the vanguard of these justice movements just see the obvious rightness of certain stances that the rest of the culture is slow to catch up with.
If someone casually advocates slavery and genocide most of us aren't going to lose sleep over that person being made to feel unwelcome in the community, and if we respond with strong words from an emotional place instead of engaging on the level of abstract disengaged argument, or responding first with "empathy" for wherever the Nazi is coming from, that's appropriate.
On gay and trans issues, the culture (outside of theofascist circles) has been moving quickly. Those of us who are kind of old grew up in a world in which homophobic and transphobic speech and rules were normal and advocated by people everyone accepted. I expect young people not to be so tolerant of intolerance.
I imagine 19th century Abolitionists might have seemed pretty intolerant of Slavery advocates; they might have seem cultish in their fervor.
posted by Schmucko at 1:29 PM on April 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Could also be that those on the vanguard of these justice movements just see the obvious rightness of certain stances that the rest of the culture is slow to catch up with.
If someone casually advocates slavery and genocide most of us aren't going to lose sleep over that person being made to feel unwelcome in the community, and if we respond with strong words from an emotional place instead of engaging on the level of abstract disengaged argument, or responding first with "empathy" for wherever the Nazi is coming from, that's appropriate.
On gay and trans issues, the culture (outside of theofascist circles) has been moving quickly. Those of us who are kind of old grew up in a world in which homophobic and transphobic speech and rules were normal and advocated by people everyone accepted. I expect young people not to be so tolerant of intolerance.
I imagine 19th century Abolitionists might have seemed pretty intolerant of Slavery advocates; they might have seem cultish in their fervor.
posted by Schmucko at 1:29 PM on April 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Do you think it is possible for people who are sincerely trying to protect the rights of the marginalized to buy into ideologies that wind up hurting marginalized people down the road?
Yes. And I also think that it's possible for worries over that to be weaponized as well. And I think that to build true resilience, you need to address both sides.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:55 PM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes. And I also think that it's possible for worries over that to be weaponized as well. And I think that to build true resilience, you need to address both sides.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:55 PM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
{sigh}...I still believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant. But what I'm hearing in this thread is that so many people just refuse to engage. People are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause they brook no dissent, because dissent is somehow equivalent to enabling the abusers, or legitimizing ugly worldviews.
Yes, yes, paradox of intolerance, and no, we are not obliged to platform those who would cause us harm. I grant you this. But, jeez, 74 million of them. You can't deplatform them all. And trying just makes martyrs out of them.
You can't win an argument if you refuse to make one.
posted by mtVessel at 4:53 PM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes, yes, paradox of intolerance, and no, we are not obliged to platform those who would cause us harm. I grant you this. But, jeez, 74 million of them. You can't deplatform them all. And trying just makes martyrs out of them.
You can't win an argument if you refuse to make one.
posted by mtVessel at 4:53 PM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
You can't win an argument if you refuse to make one.
And when the argument is about someone's humanity, the only winning move is not to play. As one RPG.net mod put it when they instituted their ban on Trump support:
And when the argument is about someone's humanity, the only winning move is not to play. As one RPG.net mod put it when they instituted their ban on Trump support:
No. You know what? Fuck that noise. Ethnic cleansing is not "different views." Racism is not "different views." White nationalism is not "different views." Dogwhistling that attacks against your political enemies will continue if the media doesn't stop saying things you don't like is not "different views." Putting children in cages is not "different views."posted by NoxAeternum at 5:05 PM on April 14, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is not an argument over tax rates or the proper role of government in education. This is an argument about who will be allowed to exist in America.
Mod note: Hey folks, now's a great time to re-direct our focus back to the intended discussion via the links provided. Please allow other folks to take up space and discuss their thoughts on this subject if you've been commenting frequently in here. thanks!
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 6:10 PM on April 14, 2022
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 6:10 PM on April 14, 2022
The thing that's maddening about (some of) the youth on tumblr is they think they are speaking truth to power and refusing to accept intolerance... but in a lot of cases their views are indistinguishable from the views of the religious culture warriors who think Lil Nas X is corrupting the children and leading them to Satanism.
They are indistinguishable from Qanon. There's an obsession among this particular group with finding and uncovering the secret pedophiles. There's an insistence (thankfully now mostly passed) that "queer is a slur" and anyone using "queer" to self-identify is harming others and should be at best educated, at worst shunned.
Last year a group of these types in Loki fandom were using "fantasizing about a difficult version of yourself is transphobic bc autogynephilia, look it up" to justify harassment of the fans of the central romance on that show, and the actor playing Sylvie, and the showrunner, on twitter. Julia Serano had to speak up on that one:
https://twitter.com/juliaserano/status/1431349974776770561?s=21
Overall the trend is really an uncomfortableness with open expressions of sexuality (and especially teen sexuality and queer sexuality), and going into the sex-positive queer fandom space to express to express that discomfort using the most loaded, emotionally-charged and serious-sounding words. For instance the current trend now is to accuse the fans of non-related adult characters of "supporting incest" because those characters, who didn't grow up together, "treat each other like family" (according to the accusers)...
There's a reason we call it "Protestantism with a gay hat" although it's really more of a Calvinist philosophy, since a big part of the appeal is that if you are one of the righteous elect, all your actions are righteous bc you are righteous. Which is a big deal when you're hanging out in an environment where you're constantly reminded of all the different ways you can be wrong and cause harm.
And if there was only a very small group doing these accusations and thy didn't line up so neatly with what the Qanons, etc are accusing, this group would be easy to ignore, but actually these trends are spreading (though at the same time, they are **diluting** and becoming, i think, less concentrated and toxic as they leave the tumblr echo chambers to seep into the wider fan culture).
posted by subdee at 8:06 PM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
They are indistinguishable from Qanon. There's an obsession among this particular group with finding and uncovering the secret pedophiles. There's an insistence (thankfully now mostly passed) that "queer is a slur" and anyone using "queer" to self-identify is harming others and should be at best educated, at worst shunned.
Last year a group of these types in Loki fandom were using "fantasizing about a difficult version of yourself is transphobic bc autogynephilia, look it up" to justify harassment of the fans of the central romance on that show, and the actor playing Sylvie, and the showrunner, on twitter. Julia Serano had to speak up on that one:
https://twitter.com/juliaserano/status/1431349974776770561?s=21
Overall the trend is really an uncomfortableness with open expressions of sexuality (and especially teen sexuality and queer sexuality), and going into the sex-positive queer fandom space to express to express that discomfort using the most loaded, emotionally-charged and serious-sounding words. For instance the current trend now is to accuse the fans of non-related adult characters of "supporting incest" because those characters, who didn't grow up together, "treat each other like family" (according to the accusers)...
There's a reason we call it "Protestantism with a gay hat" although it's really more of a Calvinist philosophy, since a big part of the appeal is that if you are one of the righteous elect, all your actions are righteous bc you are righteous. Which is a big deal when you're hanging out in an environment where you're constantly reminded of all the different ways you can be wrong and cause harm.
And if there was only a very small group doing these accusations and thy didn't line up so neatly with what the Qanons, etc are accusing, this group would be easy to ignore, but actually these trends are spreading (though at the same time, they are **diluting** and becoming, i think, less concentrated and toxic as they leave the tumblr echo chambers to seep into the wider fan culture).
posted by subdee at 8:06 PM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
Seriously you read some of these blog posts, by teens who are themselves LGBTQ+, and they read just like this:
Why do you people hate God? Why must you continue these behaviours? By writing fanfiction and drawing fan art of these despicable acts, you are condoning it in society. Homosexuality is a sin in the Bible, which is the literal word of God....This thus means that supporting Drarry and Wolfstar makes you a sinner and thus you are immoral. Same goes with pedophilia... This means that supporting Snape/Hermione is SINFUL AND MUST BE BANNED. Do you not realize how wrong it is to support a man and a girl being together? Have you lost any sense of morals? Then again, atheist perverts have no morality, so what stops them from committing murder?
And finally, incest... This means that supporting Harry/Hermione, Weasleycest, Malfoycest etc. makes you devoid of morals and thus hate God. Yes, I know that Harry and Hermione are not technically brother and sister. But they view each other as that, and thus to support them together is an act against God, and the values that moral Christians hold dear...How can you people even pair these people together? It is a Christian crime and sin and you will burn in hell for this, if you do not turn back to Jesus Christ Our Savior... I am declaring a holy HP fandom war in the name of Christ. You people have took my favorite characters, Harry, Hermione and Ron and made them do horrible things that poor JK Rowling must cringe at.
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Warriors_for_Innocence
Except they won't use the word "sin" and won't view homosexuality, without the sexual content, as a sin by itself. But they use almost the same arguments for everything else, and if you disagree it means you support pedophilia, incest and abuse... or at least don't care as much as you should about these very important issues. Don't you care about the children?
posted by subdee at 8:32 PM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
Why do you people hate God? Why must you continue these behaviours? By writing fanfiction and drawing fan art of these despicable acts, you are condoning it in society. Homosexuality is a sin in the Bible, which is the literal word of God....This thus means that supporting Drarry and Wolfstar makes you a sinner and thus you are immoral. Same goes with pedophilia... This means that supporting Snape/Hermione is SINFUL AND MUST BE BANNED. Do you not realize how wrong it is to support a man and a girl being together? Have you lost any sense of morals? Then again, atheist perverts have no morality, so what stops them from committing murder?
And finally, incest... This means that supporting Harry/Hermione, Weasleycest, Malfoycest etc. makes you devoid of morals and thus hate God. Yes, I know that Harry and Hermione are not technically brother and sister. But they view each other as that, and thus to support them together is an act against God, and the values that moral Christians hold dear...How can you people even pair these people together? It is a Christian crime and sin and you will burn in hell for this, if you do not turn back to Jesus Christ Our Savior... I am declaring a holy HP fandom war in the name of Christ. You people have took my favorite characters, Harry, Hermione and Ron and made them do horrible things that poor JK Rowling must cringe at.
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Warriors_for_Innocence
Except they won't use the word "sin" and won't view homosexuality, without the sexual content, as a sin by itself. But they use almost the same arguments for everything else, and if you disagree it means you support pedophilia, incest and abuse... or at least don't care as much as you should about these very important issues. Don't you care about the children?
posted by subdee at 8:32 PM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
As far as sciatrix's earlier comment about worrying that you are falling for something that's tailored to you... yes. I worry that some of the more outrageous of these types of posts are by trolls who are baiting the outrage reaction. Sometimes it's even true. Or I worry that some of the more outrageous of these posts are CIA/IRA-style operations to widen existing divisions by creating more polarized viewpoints on both sides of a controversial issue. The issue of sexual content online, of course it's very controversial, and as a society (in the USA and UK) we are struggling with issues of how to make sure we can keep kids safe online without sanitizing the entire internet or re-hiding all the gay content.
And there are, you know, plenty of reasonable teenagers, or unreasonable ones who'll grow out of this. It's a mistake to focus too much. But it's also a mistake to think that all of this is harmless and not at all worrying.
posted by subdee at 8:51 PM on April 14, 2022
And there are, you know, plenty of reasonable teenagers, or unreasonable ones who'll grow out of this. It's a mistake to focus too much. But it's also a mistake to think that all of this is harmless and not at all worrying.
posted by subdee at 8:51 PM on April 14, 2022
At the risk of running afoul of the moderators who don't want the usual suspects hashing this thread back and forth--
I actually have to revise a little bit my reaction to this. In that I'm not familiar with this particular tumblr subcommunity. I was only vaguely aware that tumblr was still a thing. On finding these posters may actually be promoting ideas I don't agree with, I pivot away from "they are blotting out contrary ideas because the contrary ideas, like those of Nazis, SHOULD be blotted out!"
Now it seems as if the accusation of cultish certainty, trying to shame and blot out speech, is being applied to a few posters who may have issues. But I'm not sure if this is a general problem, or even the kind of thing that can be generalized.
posted by Schmucko at 4:34 AM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
I actually have to revise a little bit my reaction to this. In that I'm not familiar with this particular tumblr subcommunity. I was only vaguely aware that tumblr was still a thing. On finding these posters may actually be promoting ideas I don't agree with, I pivot away from "they are blotting out contrary ideas because the contrary ideas, like those of Nazis, SHOULD be blotted out!"
Now it seems as if the accusation of cultish certainty, trying to shame and blot out speech, is being applied to a few posters who may have issues. But I'm not sure if this is a general problem, or even the kind of thing that can be generalized.
posted by Schmucko at 4:34 AM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Meanwhile the red States continue to pass law after law making transgender existence noticeably harder, more dangerous, more likely to end in suicide or murder; from criminalizing professional medical care to children, to government mandating forced reporting of people who might possibly have some sort of gender identity concerns going on.
posted by Jacen at 6:36 PM on April 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Jacen at 6:36 PM on April 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
sciatrix asked:
I got a question, for communication's sake. Is there any kind of fucked up, abusive person whose ideology you find kind of compelling? Have you ever been tricked by a person like that, or can you imagine being tricked?
Yes and yes, and if I were braver I would go into more detail here. I am pretty sure I am not alone.
Because your drug, your cult is out there...
I can't summon the vulnerability necessary to discuss, here, how certain kinds of dismissiveness have been dangerously appealing to me.
posted by brainwane at 7:13 PM on April 27, 2022
I got a question, for communication's sake. Is there any kind of fucked up, abusive person whose ideology you find kind of compelling? Have you ever been tricked by a person like that, or can you imagine being tricked?
Yes and yes, and if I were braver I would go into more detail here. I am pretty sure I am not alone.
Because your drug, your cult is out there...
I can't summon the vulnerability necessary to discuss, here, how certain kinds of dismissiveness have been dangerously appealing to me.
posted by brainwane at 7:13 PM on April 27, 2022
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LGBTQIA+ rights, worker and health protection, immigration, basic virus protection, sanity, election integrity, not letting a religion dictate personal freedoms, and of course, not trying coups, again. Not to mention actively burning down the planet I'm trying to live on.
Sure, each and every one of those voters has a family and friends and loves animals. Yes, they are subjects to insane propaganda and don't escape the compound. But at what point is it ok to call the people who vote for blatant evil, themselves evil? Immediately? Never? When people die from preventable causes? When policy is the direct cause of intentional suffering and loss and fear and again, deaths?
I don't hate them. I fear them, the actions and the people and politics they vote for. I'm afraid it's too late to stop the insanity. I wouldn't bet on free elections in ten years. I'd be shocked if gay rights and abortions last a year into the next republican president. At what point can we settle on any support for all of the above immediately disqualifies someone's position as utterly untenable as anything but completely self serving power grabs at the expense of literally everyone else?
And someone somewhere will both sides this and try to pretend good faith, basic disagreement, two points of view, don't hate and be tolerant for the sadists. Me, I think getting out of this country is now the sane option.
posted by Jacen at 9:24 AM on April 11, 2022 [24 favorites]