The Cost of Call Out Culture
August 18, 2022 10:48 AM Subscribe
We cannot afford to lose more voices In their newsletter “Things that Don’t Suck” Andrea Gibson writes “I am a poet and author who has been speaking on social justice issues for the past two decades. Since social media became a thing, messing up and accounting for my mess-ups publicly is a part of my daily life, and I am intimate with the ways non-stop public criticism can erode any individual's wellness. Below are ten of my personal perspectives that support me when navigating call-out culture. My hope is that this will reach people whose feedback tactics are detrimental to the wellbeing of others, as well as those who have grown so afraid of making a mistake they have decided to make nothing instead. We cannot afford to lose more voices in the fight against facisim. To take down systems of oppression, we must stop taking down each other––so let’s chat this through.”
6. Being happy doesn't mean you don’t care about the world. I was hosting a writing workshop for youth when a girl raised her hand and said she didn’t feel her life had been hard enough to be a writer. I saw this as a failure of my generation. I wish we could erase every single thing we did to convince young people that pain is the only thing worthy of art. Similarly, no one needs to be unhappy to truly care about the world. Empathy actually increases one’s capacity for joy. Feeling into another’s pain wakes us to the love in our hearts and our connection with others. I share this fact each time someone suggests anyone’s care for our world could be measured by their online displays of grief.
7. Call-out culture is breeding an environment where people are afraid to thrive. One of the most devastating things I see call-out culture creating is an idea that one can be protected by their pain. Though the concept is terrifying, it’s not entirely far-fetched. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a year ago and since I announced it publicly I have seen an enormous decrease in the amount of raging criticism that comes my way from the left. Some may say people are simply being kind. But if they can be kind now, why not always? What I find literally sickening about this shift is that I have a large youth following who pays attention to such things. Their cells are still deciding what they want to become. If you are someone whose feedback tactics are so vicious they make young people think cancer looks more survivable, or if you’re someone who condones such tactics in others, your apology is the one to be most concerned about.
6. Being happy doesn't mean you don’t care about the world. I was hosting a writing workshop for youth when a girl raised her hand and said she didn’t feel her life had been hard enough to be a writer. I saw this as a failure of my generation. I wish we could erase every single thing we did to convince young people that pain is the only thing worthy of art. Similarly, no one needs to be unhappy to truly care about the world. Empathy actually increases one’s capacity for joy. Feeling into another’s pain wakes us to the love in our hearts and our connection with others. I share this fact each time someone suggests anyone’s care for our world could be measured by their online displays of grief.
7. Call-out culture is breeding an environment where people are afraid to thrive. One of the most devastating things I see call-out culture creating is an idea that one can be protected by their pain. Though the concept is terrifying, it’s not entirely far-fetched. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer a year ago and since I announced it publicly I have seen an enormous decrease in the amount of raging criticism that comes my way from the left. Some may say people are simply being kind. But if they can be kind now, why not always? What I find literally sickening about this shift is that I have a large youth following who pays attention to such things. Their cells are still deciding what they want to become. If you are someone whose feedback tactics are so vicious they make young people think cancer looks more survivable, or if you’re someone who condones such tactics in others, your apology is the one to be most concerned about.
These critiques have been around ... and they don't seem to have had any real effect...
OK, so does anyone have any ideas about how to make a real difference in this area? Things to do, perspectives to use, ways to connect with people, ways to convince using persuasive information, formats to try? Ways to open a discussion that will invite people to engage with the issue instead of feeling attacked or dismissed?
posted by amtho at 11:24 AM on August 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
OK, so does anyone have any ideas about how to make a real difference in this area? Things to do, perspectives to use, ways to connect with people, ways to convince using persuasive information, formats to try? Ways to open a discussion that will invite people to engage with the issue instead of feeling attacked or dismissed?
posted by amtho at 11:24 AM on August 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
OK, so does anyone have any ideas about how to make a real difference in this area? Things to do, perspectives to use, ways to connect with people, ways to convince using persuasive information, formats to try? Ways to open a discussion that will invite people to engage with the issue instead of feeling attacked or dismissed?
If you feel this line of argument is compelling, you can certainly work on changing your own feedback methods without the expectation that it will result in systemic change, and you can be more attuned to the ways that a destructive pileon can form without deliberate intent on the part of the participants. You can also withdraw your participation from technological platforms that deliberately encourage and monetize the kind of virality that inflames pileons. And if you have influence, you can model more productive forms of engagement (although platforms make that difficult--e.g. on twitter you can subtweet, screenshot, or QT someone you disagree with but each of these has the potential to drive bad engagement towards your target as well as potentially other people). More generally, I think cultivating smaller, more closed communities with heavier moderation and strong metadiscursive norms is a good way to go.
posted by derrinyet at 11:31 AM on August 18, 2022 [22 favorites]
If you feel this line of argument is compelling, you can certainly work on changing your own feedback methods without the expectation that it will result in systemic change, and you can be more attuned to the ways that a destructive pileon can form without deliberate intent on the part of the participants. You can also withdraw your participation from technological platforms that deliberately encourage and monetize the kind of virality that inflames pileons. And if you have influence, you can model more productive forms of engagement (although platforms make that difficult--e.g. on twitter you can subtweet, screenshot, or QT someone you disagree with but each of these has the potential to drive bad engagement towards your target as well as potentially other people). More generally, I think cultivating smaller, more closed communities with heavier moderation and strong metadiscursive norms is a good way to go.
posted by derrinyet at 11:31 AM on August 18, 2022 [22 favorites]
OK, so does anyone have any ideas about how to make a real difference in this area? Things to do, perspectives to use, ways to connect with people, ways to convince using persuasive information, formats to try? Ways to open a discussion that will invite people to engage with the issue instead of feeling attacked or dismissed?
There aren't any. Witness our own humble site: the #1 most commonly given problem with the site in the many, many, many MetaTalk threads on the topic (including the most recent user survey) is people expressing that they are uncomfortable in what they feel they can post here due to site culture.
Inevitably what happens are responses along the lines of, "Sorry you can't come here and be a Nazi", for the reasons derrinyet gives above: people feel they are only acting righteously, the only people who could possibly be against righteousness are bad actors, so why listen to them? The people expressing discomfort push back, usually angrily, the discussion goes round and round, and nothing gets solved. Repeat ad infinitum.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:36 AM on August 18, 2022 [41 favorites]
There aren't any. Witness our own humble site: the #1 most commonly given problem with the site in the many, many, many MetaTalk threads on the topic (including the most recent user survey) is people expressing that they are uncomfortable in what they feel they can post here due to site culture.
Inevitably what happens are responses along the lines of, "Sorry you can't come here and be a Nazi", for the reasons derrinyet gives above: people feel they are only acting righteously, the only people who could possibly be against righteousness are bad actors, so why listen to them? The people expressing discomfort push back, usually angrily, the discussion goes round and round, and nothing gets solved. Repeat ad infinitum.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:36 AM on August 18, 2022 [41 favorites]
Getting to know the people you do political work with and not getting so wrapped up in opinions by/about everyone else is helpful. Rising rents and the internet make this difficult - far fewer radical spaces and far fewer places to hang out in person on one hand and the nature of internet organizing on the other.
Try not to have charged conversations with a large audience unless there is some really good reason - if you're talking to one or two other people, it is much easier to be frank and much easier to hear criticism than when you are de facto performing for a large group or for the whole internet.
Seek out age-mixed groups - these have many, many other advantages too. I have been around activist spaces off and on for about thirty years now, which is hard to believe. So old!!! While older activists can also be insecure, status-seeking assholes, and while there are definitely specific problems that come from years and years of activism*, youth-dominated groups can be victims of the insecurity and fledgling organizing skills that come with being young. Also, when you're really young, you're working very hard on becoming yourself so you're in your own head a lot. If you're lucky, you get some confidence and have more headspace for empathy as you get older.
*Cynicism, always-done-it-this-way-ism, too much burnout, too many memories making it difficult to respond to subtle changes in the now, thinking you deserve respect just for existing as an Old, etc.
posted by Frowner at 11:40 AM on August 18, 2022 [36 favorites]
Try not to have charged conversations with a large audience unless there is some really good reason - if you're talking to one or two other people, it is much easier to be frank and much easier to hear criticism than when you are de facto performing for a large group or for the whole internet.
Seek out age-mixed groups - these have many, many other advantages too. I have been around activist spaces off and on for about thirty years now, which is hard to believe. So old!!! While older activists can also be insecure, status-seeking assholes, and while there are definitely specific problems that come from years and years of activism*, youth-dominated groups can be victims of the insecurity and fledgling organizing skills that come with being young. Also, when you're really young, you're working very hard on becoming yourself so you're in your own head a lot. If you're lucky, you get some confidence and have more headspace for empathy as you get older.
*Cynicism, always-done-it-this-way-ism, too much burnout, too many memories making it difficult to respond to subtle changes in the now, thinking you deserve respect just for existing as an Old, etc.
posted by Frowner at 11:40 AM on August 18, 2022 [36 favorites]
I'd be curious to hear from people who were in the feminist movement when that Jo Freeman essay was published thought that the impact of it was then. Her other very famous essay, The Tyranny of Structurelesness, continues to shape conversations around governance in anarchist and anarchist-adjacent circles to this day, and I know people who have changed the way they try to build organizations in response to it. I would be surprised if Trashing had no impact on people's thinking at the time, though it certainly seems to have had a less enduring impact than The Tyranny of Structurelesness.
I don't think the fact that the problems described in it have not been solved in the past 45 years inherently means that the essay was ineffective — the internet and social media have been a major accelerant to the problems described in that essay, so it's only fairly recently that we've actually had to grapple with these problems at the scale they currently exist at.
posted by wesleyac at 11:43 AM on August 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
I don't think the fact that the problems described in it have not been solved in the past 45 years inherently means that the essay was ineffective — the internet and social media have been a major accelerant to the problems described in that essay, so it's only fairly recently that we've actually had to grapple with these problems at the scale they currently exist at.
posted by wesleyac at 11:43 AM on August 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
Social connections do seem to be key, for good or for ill. But I'm still mulling it over because connections are also an analogue to access to power and authority (by default of seniority or actual material resource), and while they mitigate the ferociousness of the callouts certainly I'm not alone in witnessing how they defang criticism.
But overall i agree some wrongheaded lessons are being perpetuated, coupled with this notion that all your consumption is a moral act (meaning you can good-consumer your way into an ethical position) - which makes sense how they become pervasive because how else can you perform community in social media space?
posted by cendawanita at 12:00 PM on August 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
But overall i agree some wrongheaded lessons are being perpetuated, coupled with this notion that all your consumption is a moral act (meaning you can good-consumer your way into an ethical position) - which makes sense how they become pervasive because how else can you perform community in social media space?
posted by cendawanita at 12:00 PM on August 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Please note as in the post - Gibson uses they/them pronouns not she/her.
posted by Bottlecap at 12:03 PM on August 18, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Bottlecap at 12:03 PM on August 18, 2022 [10 favorites]
this is a bit orthogonal, but in the vein of callout culture being self-destructive, there's also this Intercept piece from earlier in the summer highlighting the ways which, since 2020 and the George Floyd protests, various progressive non-profits have crippled themselves based on fundamental differences over what the work should be: "how to use the resources and audience of the non-profit to drive change in society" or "how to use the reckoning to make the non profit a better place to work" ? I did not work at any of the companies profiled, but it definitely resonates with some of my own non profit work during 2020 and 2021.
This work is hard. It's often driven by consensus, but consensus is hard to get and maintain -- and if you choose not to use consensus, you're going to alienate people who disagree with your approach, who might then call you out. Trust is fundamental towards building productive relationships but the way that volunteer and non-profit organizing is so ephemeral makes trust fragile and precious. You find the few people that you can work well with, and can rely on, and you try to build up that relationship so that it can actually achieve things, but then you get called out as a clique by others who want some of your power and influence. It's exhausting. I sometimes wish power was a physical thing that I can loan and track and divide and share in fair ways, but it doesn't work that way.
posted by bl1nk at 12:05 PM on August 18, 2022 [11 favorites]
This work is hard. It's often driven by consensus, but consensus is hard to get and maintain -- and if you choose not to use consensus, you're going to alienate people who disagree with your approach, who might then call you out. Trust is fundamental towards building productive relationships but the way that volunteer and non-profit organizing is so ephemeral makes trust fragile and precious. You find the few people that you can work well with, and can rely on, and you try to build up that relationship so that it can actually achieve things, but then you get called out as a clique by others who want some of your power and influence. It's exhausting. I sometimes wish power was a physical thing that I can loan and track and divide and share in fair ways, but it doesn't work that way.
posted by bl1nk at 12:05 PM on August 18, 2022 [11 favorites]
You find the few people that you can work well with, and can rely on, and you try to build up that relationship so that it can actually achieve things, but then you get called out as a clique by others who want some of your power and influence.
Really recommend Freedom is an Endless Meeting on these questions, especially on the question of whether consensus is a viable form of decisionmaking.
posted by derrinyet at 12:07 PM on August 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Really recommend Freedom is an Endless Meeting on these questions, especially on the question of whether consensus is a viable form of decisionmaking.
posted by derrinyet at 12:07 PM on August 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Also in the “what to do about it” category, the 2013 essay ”Calling IN: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable” by Ngọc Loan Trần is indispensable reading (in my opinion).
posted by eviemath at 12:19 PM on August 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 12:19 PM on August 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
I've generally discovered that, if you start being cancelled, and you ask about why, and people tell you, and you absorb that information, acknowledge it, change your opinion slightly, and then go "I'm sorry for what I said. I know better now and I will be better in the future" and then (important) actually DO that, sincerely and all... it's generally not so bad, people will go "All right then, ok" and "thanks for listening" and "I appreciate it".
Note this is not the same as doubling down, throwing insults around, and screaming about being oppressed yourself.
posted by The otter lady at 12:20 PM on August 18, 2022 [24 favorites]
Note this is not the same as doubling down, throwing insults around, and screaming about being oppressed yourself.
posted by The otter lady at 12:20 PM on August 18, 2022 [24 favorites]
These critiques have been around at least sinceThe article is not just critique, but also technique.
2) people adding their voices to those of the first category out of a desire to be seen as being on the right team .... people in category 2 will not be persuaded because social pressure, especially in a hyper-impulsive environment like social media, tends to cloud judgment on metadiscursive issues.Counterpoint: essays like this can serve to lower the social pressure that pushes Category 2 followers into being the foot soldiers of cancel campaigns. you can't have a cancel movement without those folks' buy-in.
Sometimes people just have to be given permission to disengage.
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:24 PM on August 18, 2022 [14 favorites]
If you want an example of how the only way to win is to not play, I remember the day of the Roe vs. Wade decision seeing simultaneous opinions that were "Men need to shut up and let women talk." and "Why aren't men speaking up? We need their voices now."
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 12:27 PM on August 18, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 12:27 PM on August 18, 2022 [16 favorites]
I remember the day of the Roe vs. Wade decision seeing simultaneous opinions that were "Men need to shut up and let women talk." and "Why aren't men speaking up? We need their voices now."
Both of these positions are defensible. In situations like this, it's always in one's best interest to remain silent until either a consensus has been reached or one of the two sides has been eliminated (or made impossible) and only one defensible position remains. Never take a side until you are absolutely certain that side is correct.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:35 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Both of these positions are defensible. In situations like this, it's always in one's best interest to remain silent until either a consensus has been reached or one of the two sides has been eliminated (or made impossible) and only one defensible position remains. Never take a side until you are absolutely certain that side is correct.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:35 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
To me, this is the line that illustrates why I find the piece ultimately unconvincing:
The reality is that the left is finally being forced to deal with historical inequities, and this has been a bitter pill to swallow for many people who saw themselves on the right side of history.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:47 PM on August 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
I’m not suggesting anyone should remain silent about microaggressions as there is commonly no micro-ness to the pain they cause. I’m saying we will have more necessary voices in our movements if we begin interacting with people with more understanding.On first glance, this seems like a simple argument for more compassion. But when you look at it, the unidirectionality of the statement becomes clear - there should be more understanding of people who commit microaggressions (because they haven't unlearned them), but having a converse expectation on those people to actively learn is seen as harmful. It ultimately comes off as "don't shut up about microaggressions...but actually do shut up about microaggressions" because all the obligations are put on one side.
The reality is that the left is finally being forced to deal with historical inequities, and this has been a bitter pill to swallow for many people who saw themselves on the right side of history.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:47 PM on August 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
Mod note: First comment and subsequent reply deleted. Let's try to engage with what people (and the article) are saying rather than just dismissing it. Also, the author of the linked essay uses they/them pronouns, please respect that.
posted by loup (staff) at 12:51 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by loup (staff) at 12:51 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Sorry probably a derail but:
I remember the day of the Roe vs. Wade decision seeing simultaneous opinions that were "Men need to shut up and let women talk." and "Why aren't men speaking up? We need their voices now."
I didn't see this happening so maybe I'm getting this wrong, but these are not contradictory statements.
"Men need to shut up and let women talk" (in this conversation, here on this thread, or other spaces where women are trying to make their voices heard. )
"Why aren't men speaking up?" ( in the world, why aren't they adding their voices, influence and power in the fight for women's rights?)
posted by Zumbador at 12:54 PM on August 18, 2022 [25 favorites]
I remember the day of the Roe vs. Wade decision seeing simultaneous opinions that were "Men need to shut up and let women talk." and "Why aren't men speaking up? We need their voices now."
I didn't see this happening so maybe I'm getting this wrong, but these are not contradictory statements.
"Men need to shut up and let women talk" (in this conversation, here on this thread, or other spaces where women are trying to make their voices heard. )
"Why aren't men speaking up?" ( in the world, why aren't they adding their voices, influence and power in the fight for women's rights?)
posted by Zumbador at 12:54 PM on August 18, 2022 [25 favorites]
This made me think "I should be more aware of classism in my interactions" so while it's the kind of high-minded let's-all-be-kinder utopianism that doesn't play too well online, maybe, who knows, it might make a few people stop and think, and do some good.
posted by signsofrain at 1:01 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by signsofrain at 1:01 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've generally discovered that, if you start being cancelled, and you ask about why, and people tell you, and you absorb that information, acknowledge it, change your opinion slightly, and then go "I'm sorry for what I said. I know better now and I will be better in the future" and then (important) actually DO that, sincerely and all... it's generally not so bad, people will go "All right then, ok" and "thanks for listening" and "I appreciate it".
I've seen this happen, but I've also seen it not. In particular, it doesn't work great when you're dealing with people who are are primed/incentivized to jump on the worst-faith interpretation of your words, because (a) if you don't completely accept thei interpretation, you're "not really apologizing" because you're not taking responsibility, and (b) if you do completely accept their interpretation, you're "not really apologizing" because someone like you couldn't do so genuinely.
I've noticed this increasingly in fandom spaces as fandom has moved to algorithm-driven social media platforms like Twitter, where calling out others is heavily rewarded with attention/engagement, and there are mutually-reinforcing cliques of people who come up with ever more and more stringent more standards for people's behavior/art/etc. This incentivizes bad faith call-outs that just cause a lot of mess all around.
Many people have expressed this sentiment, but: There is a substantial number of people whose politics are about finding the right people to hurt.
People whose motivation in calling you out is to genuinely to better the communities they're in? Yeah, usually they'll accept a genuine apology because a recognition of the harm done and a change in behavior is their goal. But if it's someone who's out to hurt the right people, to be a bully, that's just not their goal. That's just not what they want from you.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:05 PM on August 18, 2022 [41 favorites]
I've seen this happen, but I've also seen it not. In particular, it doesn't work great when you're dealing with people who are are primed/incentivized to jump on the worst-faith interpretation of your words, because (a) if you don't completely accept thei interpretation, you're "not really apologizing" because you're not taking responsibility, and (b) if you do completely accept their interpretation, you're "not really apologizing" because someone like you couldn't do so genuinely.
I've noticed this increasingly in fandom spaces as fandom has moved to algorithm-driven social media platforms like Twitter, where calling out others is heavily rewarded with attention/engagement, and there are mutually-reinforcing cliques of people who come up with ever more and more stringent more standards for people's behavior/art/etc. This incentivizes bad faith call-outs that just cause a lot of mess all around.
Many people have expressed this sentiment, but: There is a substantial number of people whose politics are about finding the right people to hurt.
People whose motivation in calling you out is to genuinely to better the communities they're in? Yeah, usually they'll accept a genuine apology because a recognition of the harm done and a change in behavior is their goal. But if it's someone who's out to hurt the right people, to be a bully, that's just not their goal. That's just not what they want from you.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:05 PM on August 18, 2022 [41 favorites]
“ 9. Don’t apologize if you are not sorry. When someone makes a mistake in public, the demand to apologize with immediacy can make a person feel like they’re inside a moral pressure cooker, and if they don’t hit the “POST” button fast enough, their career and life will burn to a crisp. If you’re someone demanding lightning-quick apologies, please ask yourself if you’re truly invested in accountability, as genuine accountability takes time. If I don’t know what my response is, I give myself breathing room––even if it appears that no one else is willing to. If I still have some curiosity about what I may not be understanding, I might say something like, “I’ve been spending a lot of thoughtful time with this feedback and I am not able to offer an honest apology. That could very well change with more learning, which I’m committed to doing, but right now I’m unwilling to disrespect your life or mine by making up an apology that doesn’t yet resonate with me as truthful.” Harming others is painful, and authentically accounting for wrongdoing is as vital to the person apologizing as it is to the person who was hurt. We all knew by kindergarten that, “Say you’re sorry or you’re grounded!” wasn’t the path to true healing for either party.
10. Leave communities in which it has been collectively decided that cruel feedback is cool. This was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. I am no longer willing to be active in communities that show up to watch the failures and missteps of others like sports games. If you don’t believe people can change for the better, you do not belong in movements working to change things for the better. Additionally, the amount of times I have witnessed people who were causing a great deal of pain in the world brutally call out folks who were for the most part living thoughtful and compassionate lives, has been deeply disturbing. If you can’t see the humanity in others it is very likely you are struggling to see it in yourself. Put liking yourself on the top of your to-do list and you’ll be far less interested in tearing others apart, and far more invested in what we can create together.”
posted by Bottlecap at 1:38 PM on August 18, 2022 [15 favorites]
10. Leave communities in which it has been collectively decided that cruel feedback is cool. This was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. I am no longer willing to be active in communities that show up to watch the failures and missteps of others like sports games. If you don’t believe people can change for the better, you do not belong in movements working to change things for the better. Additionally, the amount of times I have witnessed people who were causing a great deal of pain in the world brutally call out folks who were for the most part living thoughtful and compassionate lives, has been deeply disturbing. If you can’t see the humanity in others it is very likely you are struggling to see it in yourself. Put liking yourself on the top of your to-do list and you’ll be far less interested in tearing others apart, and far more invested in what we can create together.”
posted by Bottlecap at 1:38 PM on August 18, 2022 [15 favorites]
The post is addressed to people on the left, but I'm speaking as someone who's not exactly left or right-- I consider myself a harm-reduction libertarian. That is, I specialize in injuries by the government which violate libertarian principles, like the war on drugs, or the general sloppiness and cruelty of the justice system.
I see the addiction to cruelty on the left, and the result is that I still hold some views which overlap the left, but it's in spite of the left, not because of it.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:45 PM on August 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
I see the addiction to cruelty on the left, and the result is that I still hold some views which overlap the left, but it's in spite of the left, not because of it.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:45 PM on August 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
Certainly one of the difficulties in discussing online any issues around call-outs in leftist spaces is the folks who come into the conversation simply to call out leftist spaces or leftism in general.
In other words, if you’re really opposed to this sort of behavior, perhaps drive by comments about circular firing squads or “the addiction to cruelty on the left” aren’t super productive?
posted by eviemath at 2:21 PM on August 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
In other words, if you’re really opposed to this sort of behavior, perhaps drive by comments about circular firing squads or “the addiction to cruelty on the left” aren’t super productive?
posted by eviemath at 2:21 PM on August 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
Reminder that they the term callout culture/cancel culture”was invented by bad-faith critics to frame the issue using the term “culture” to suggest something intangible, endemic, and irrational
posted by Jon_Evil at 2:28 PM on August 18, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 2:28 PM on August 18, 2022 [16 favorites]
Times like this, I wish that sociology was a required 10th grade class.
I do wish the author would distinguish face to face contexts from social media contexts (or lack of contexts). any ideological path and moral judgement is subject to its social and political context. are we encouraging electoral strategies in urban areas, or in states without voting rights? are we aggressively pursuing changes in rural areas that just receive cultural changes in norms more slowly, by definition, because there are fewer people?
Social media has enabled communication without social context, which is an awesome power for increasing what is empathetically possible, but rarely do we stop and think about the social context(s) of our audiences, especially on a site like this.
CARA had a good 10-point list for folks who wanted to assist survivors of sexual abuse /harrassement, and although it's from the Bush administration, it's a good list to refer to to make sure you are centering a victim's needs over veering into the individualist Puritanism that is the base of US culture.
I cannot find a pdf link right now, but i think it was published by INCITE! Women of Color against violence, perhaps in this book?
I always return to listening to this piece on 'non-defensive communication' again and again.
Don't despair, kids. luv ya.
posted by eustatic at 2:42 PM on August 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
I do wish the author would distinguish face to face contexts from social media contexts (or lack of contexts). any ideological path and moral judgement is subject to its social and political context. are we encouraging electoral strategies in urban areas, or in states without voting rights? are we aggressively pursuing changes in rural areas that just receive cultural changes in norms more slowly, by definition, because there are fewer people?
Social media has enabled communication without social context, which is an awesome power for increasing what is empathetically possible, but rarely do we stop and think about the social context(s) of our audiences, especially on a site like this.
CARA had a good 10-point list for folks who wanted to assist survivors of sexual abuse /harrassement, and although it's from the Bush administration, it's a good list to refer to to make sure you are centering a victim's needs over veering into the individualist Puritanism that is the base of US culture.
I cannot find a pdf link right now, but i think it was published by INCITE! Women of Color against violence, perhaps in this book?
I always return to listening to this piece on 'non-defensive communication' again and again.
Don't despair, kids. luv ya.
posted by eustatic at 2:42 PM on August 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
This link from the thread about creative writing workshops also seems relevant here: Three Words You Need for Your Next Hard Conversation (“Oops,” “ouch,” and “whoa.”)
posted by eviemath at 2:44 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 2:44 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
(Getting farther afield (focused on interpersonal violence, which can be on a spectrum with but can also have important differences from microaggressions and online interactions) but somewhat related to the work of INCITE! Is the Creative Interventions Toolkit.)
posted by eviemath at 2:52 PM on August 18, 2022
posted by eviemath at 2:52 PM on August 18, 2022
This isn’t a secret, but sometimes feel like it is: ignoring almost all criticism is a universal trait of successful people, and many successful people will never, ever concede or apologize in the face of critics. If you aren’t a literal criminal, you can only be canceled if you allow yourself to be.
posted by MattD at 2:55 PM on August 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by MattD at 2:55 PM on August 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
Oh hey, everything I’ve been reading in other venues is relevant to this thread. So, there’s quite a lot of critique of how we define “success” (or “leadership”) within a white supremacist colonialist patriarchal context, such that if one isn’t careful, one can end up narrowly re-defining these two traits as being synonymous with the particular versions of them promoted by that context. A good counterpoint would be to read up on feminist concepts of (and critiques of the patriarchal model of) leadership, or conceptions of success from eg. Indigenous (Native American, First Nations, Inuit, etc.) cultures or from different class backgrounds.
posted by eviemath at 3:07 PM on August 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 3:07 PM on August 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
But when you look at it, the unidirectionality of the statement becomes clear - there should be more understanding of people who commit microaggressions (because they haven't unlearned them), but having a converse expectation on those people to actively learn is seen as harmful. It ultimately comes off as "don't shut up about microaggressions...but actually do shut up about microaggressions" because all the obligations are put on one side.
I agree with this.
I also think that there's a not-insignificant number of privileged folks on the left that lean real hard into callouts and they would do well to heed the advice. At minimum cool their jets and listen to what the folks who've been harmed are saying. Critiques like this article are necessary but I think can miss the mark somewhat if they don't discuss or think through the different positions of the folks the're talking to.
I'll note too to bring it back to the article that the above quote comes from a section on how we interact with folks from other classes and backgrounds, including specifically the formerly incarcerated. It's not meant as a broad prescription.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:25 PM on August 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
I agree with this.
I also think that there's a not-insignificant number of privileged folks on the left that lean real hard into callouts and they would do well to heed the advice. At minimum cool their jets and listen to what the folks who've been harmed are saying. Critiques like this article are necessary but I think can miss the mark somewhat if they don't discuss or think through the different positions of the folks the're talking to.
I'll note too to bring it back to the article that the above quote comes from a section on how we interact with folks from other classes and backgrounds, including specifically the formerly incarcerated. It's not meant as a broad prescription.
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:25 PM on August 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Thanks to Bottlecap for posting. I've only heard right wingers and comedians criticize call-out culture, and really appreciate hearing a different perspective.
Some of Andrea's points that have not been mentioned resonate with me because they apply to both the conservative evangelical community that raised me and the more progressive communities I chose for myself.
For example, 1. Be wary of a pressure to homogenize your thinking. I started thoughtcrimin' about the same time I got my first library card and never really stopped. Demands to toe the line still set off the warning bells even when the line seems objectively CORRECT and RIGHT.
posted by lumpy at 4:25 PM on August 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
Some of Andrea's points that have not been mentioned resonate with me because they apply to both the conservative evangelical community that raised me and the more progressive communities I chose for myself.
For example, 1. Be wary of a pressure to homogenize your thinking. I started thoughtcrimin' about the same time I got my first library card and never really stopped. Demands to toe the line still set off the warning bells even when the line seems objectively CORRECT and RIGHT.
posted by lumpy at 4:25 PM on August 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
I remember the day of the Roe vs. Wade decision seeing simultaneous opinions that were "Men need to shut up and let women talk." and "Why aren't men speaking up? We need their voices now."
Because it's a classic "heads I win l, tails you lose" bullying tactic. The cancellation of Lindsay Ellis is instructive here for an example of a malicious, bad faith harassment campaign done in this manner. "Why aren't you saying anything?" was deployed immediately in response to a fairly innocuous tweet. When she responded, "Listen to x" (x in this case being Southeast Asians) was immediately weaponized as a response (by white progressives completely disregarding the actual thoughts and opinions of actual Southeast Asians).
you can only be canceled if you allow yourself to be.
Bingo. That's the takeaway here. Ellis opened herself up to attack because she actually cared. Meanwhile someone like Steven Crowder can be as racist as the day is long but he'll never be cancelled because he and his fans couldn't care less.
posted by Ndwright at 4:32 PM on August 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
Because it's a classic "heads I win l, tails you lose" bullying tactic. The cancellation of Lindsay Ellis is instructive here for an example of a malicious, bad faith harassment campaign done in this manner. "Why aren't you saying anything?" was deployed immediately in response to a fairly innocuous tweet. When she responded, "Listen to x" (x in this case being Southeast Asians) was immediately weaponized as a response (by white progressives completely disregarding the actual thoughts and opinions of actual Southeast Asians).
you can only be canceled if you allow yourself to be.
Bingo. That's the takeaway here. Ellis opened herself up to attack because she actually cared. Meanwhile someone like Steven Crowder can be as racist as the day is long but he'll never be cancelled because he and his fans couldn't care less.
posted by Ndwright at 4:32 PM on August 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
Because it’s a classic “heads I win |, tails you lose” bullying tactic.
You… you know the internet is made up of multiple people, who don’t all coordinate everything with each other all the time, right?
Like, when I get student evaluations on my teaching that include both “pace of the course was too fast” and “pace of the course was too slow”, those comments are coming from different individuals, and most likely are not in fact some sort of coordinated campaign by the students in the course to drive me crazy or something.
posted by eviemath at 4:50 PM on August 18, 2022 [24 favorites]
You… you know the internet is made up of multiple people, who don’t all coordinate everything with each other all the time, right?
Like, when I get student evaluations on my teaching that include both “pace of the course was too fast” and “pace of the course was too slow”, those comments are coming from different individuals, and most likely are not in fact some sort of coordinated campaign by the students in the course to drive me crazy or something.
posted by eviemath at 4:50 PM on August 18, 2022 [24 favorites]
These critiques have been around at least since Jo Freeman's "Trashing"
But they still need to be repeated because new people keep coming into the space without having heard these perspectives before!!!!
Twitter is particularly bad because you can't discuss a callout without spreading it. For example, someone like Ana Mardoll where the message is both "maybe don't be a wokescold if you work for an arms dealer" and also "why are we helping kiwifarms to cancel a trans person" with a side of "Ana Mardoll did not orchestrate the cancellation of Isabelle Fall, his involvement was peripheral at best".
But there's not a good way on twitter (or tumblr, insta... any site where you add commentary via reblogs) to get those different perspectives or or add your own commentary without spreading the callout to your own space and your own followers. Of course it will snowball, it snowballs even without anyone doing anything maliciously. And there's no good public square where everyone can put in their thoughts into the ring and the group can reach a consensus, all of that happens in private discord servers or on the few remaining PUBLIC discussion boards like this one or some subreddits.
But to get back to my point, we still desperately **do** need to be talking about the need for compassion, kindness, and nuance because the new generation desperately needs to hear these messages which many of them have never heard before, or heard but not believed before (until it happens to them or someone they know)!!!
posted by subdee at 4:58 PM on August 18, 2022 [12 favorites]
But they still need to be repeated because new people keep coming into the space without having heard these perspectives before!!!!
Twitter is particularly bad because you can't discuss a callout without spreading it. For example, someone like Ana Mardoll where the message is both "maybe don't be a wokescold if you work for an arms dealer" and also "why are we helping kiwifarms to cancel a trans person" with a side of "Ana Mardoll did not orchestrate the cancellation of Isabelle Fall, his involvement was peripheral at best".
But there's not a good way on twitter (or tumblr, insta... any site where you add commentary via reblogs) to get those different perspectives or or add your own commentary without spreading the callout to your own space and your own followers. Of course it will snowball, it snowballs even without anyone doing anything maliciously. And there's no good public square where everyone can put in their thoughts into the ring and the group can reach a consensus, all of that happens in private discord servers or on the few remaining PUBLIC discussion boards like this one or some subreddits.
But to get back to my point, we still desperately **do** need to be talking about the need for compassion, kindness, and nuance because the new generation desperately needs to hear these messages which many of them have never heard before, or heard but not believed before (until it happens to them or someone they know)!!!
posted by subdee at 4:58 PM on August 18, 2022 [12 favorites]
Also Kutsuwamushi hit the nail on the head with what's happening in fandom with bullying. You can only hope that the genuinely thoughtful kids in those spaces will read critiques like this one and grow out of it.
posted by subdee at 5:11 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by subdee at 5:11 PM on August 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's useful to remember that unless you are Jorts, social media isn't organizing. Unless your social media stuff is in the service of something specific (even something that is in fact just posting, like "I am working in a structured way to make information about, eg, prison abolition accessible") it's not political work, and the people who are building you up or tearing you down or calling out or boosting various total strangers are not doing political work either. Idling around on twitter or metafilter, etc, can be extremely informative or fun or build your sense that you are not alone - it can be pretty useful! it can lead to real stuff! - but it's not actual organizing.
I say this because we use up a lot of our political energy getting het up about strangers on the internet and when we think of "leftism" a lot of people think about left spaces on social media, and then everyone is like "circular firing squad" or whatever.
It is unusual to encounter social media-like behavior in physical activist spaces, even though there is all kinds of fucked up behavior in physical spaces. Especially once you are in relatively diverse groups that are not essentially "ten friends at a small college".
If anything, I think that the OP is good because it describes real, physical things that can happen in real physical space rather than OUTRAGEOUS!! internet examples.
I have seen on multiple occasions real problems with class and communication, for one thing. Not the best but the easiest example I can think of: it can be really difficult to tell a guy that he can't make basically polite, innocuous comments about (but not to, or within the hearing of) a pretty girl who walked by your volunteer space when he grew up with the feeling that making a polite, innocuous comment about a girl passing by is actually fine and that what is bad is cat-calling, insulting, following, intrusiveness, etc. It is not the norm in white middle class radical spaces that you sit there and take note when a pretty girl goes by, and indeed, I am not up for that - but when you are a white middle class person talking to a smart, right-on, woman-respecting, working class man of color it is very difficult not to make the guy feel scolded when he already feels out of place and when he doesn't feel confident enough to criticize you if you do something that is rude to him. And so you really, really would not want someone to be a condescending or rude asshole to the guy.
It's that kind of thing, where basically well-meaning, decent people have norm-collisions that are overdetermined by inequality, that people just have to figure out ways to be smarter and nicer. That is what often happens on the ground, and that is where "assume that people on all sides mean well and are trying to support each other rather than assuming that we all need to scold each other into conformity" is so important.
Like, the dude was a great guy and god's own gift to our project and loved by all who knew him and obviously meant nothing but to share with me that hey, that age-approriate pretty girl sure was pretty!
posted by Frowner at 5:14 PM on August 18, 2022 [34 favorites]
I say this because we use up a lot of our political energy getting het up about strangers on the internet and when we think of "leftism" a lot of people think about left spaces on social media, and then everyone is like "circular firing squad" or whatever.
It is unusual to encounter social media-like behavior in physical activist spaces, even though there is all kinds of fucked up behavior in physical spaces. Especially once you are in relatively diverse groups that are not essentially "ten friends at a small college".
If anything, I think that the OP is good because it describes real, physical things that can happen in real physical space rather than OUTRAGEOUS!! internet examples.
I have seen on multiple occasions real problems with class and communication, for one thing. Not the best but the easiest example I can think of: it can be really difficult to tell a guy that he can't make basically polite, innocuous comments about (but not to, or within the hearing of) a pretty girl who walked by your volunteer space when he grew up with the feeling that making a polite, innocuous comment about a girl passing by is actually fine and that what is bad is cat-calling, insulting, following, intrusiveness, etc. It is not the norm in white middle class radical spaces that you sit there and take note when a pretty girl goes by, and indeed, I am not up for that - but when you are a white middle class person talking to a smart, right-on, woman-respecting, working class man of color it is very difficult not to make the guy feel scolded when he already feels out of place and when he doesn't feel confident enough to criticize you if you do something that is rude to him. And so you really, really would not want someone to be a condescending or rude asshole to the guy.
It's that kind of thing, where basically well-meaning, decent people have norm-collisions that are overdetermined by inequality, that people just have to figure out ways to be smarter and nicer. That is what often happens on the ground, and that is where "assume that people on all sides mean well and are trying to support each other rather than assuming that we all need to scold each other into conformity" is so important.
Like, the dude was a great guy and god's own gift to our project and loved by all who knew him and obviously meant nothing but to share with me that hey, that age-approriate pretty girl sure was pretty!
posted by Frowner at 5:14 PM on August 18, 2022 [34 favorites]
eviemath: "You… you know the internet is made up of multiple people, who don’t all coordinate everything with each other all the time, right? "
Phalene: "No, coordination and deliberate amplification is part of the experience."
It's both.
Getting pushed in two contradictory directions is a thing that happens all the time and is always frustrating. Knowing that it is frustrating, some people do it on purpose.
Whether or not a particular case is one of "there are people who want me to do A and other people who want me to do NotA" or one of "There are people who say they want me to A, and then when I do A, they say they want me to do NotA" depends entirely on the specifics of the particular case.
posted by Bugbread at 5:49 PM on August 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
Phalene: "No, coordination and deliberate amplification is part of the experience."
It's both.
Getting pushed in two contradictory directions is a thing that happens all the time and is always frustrating. Knowing that it is frustrating, some people do it on purpose.
Whether or not a particular case is one of "there are people who want me to do A and other people who want me to do NotA" or one of "There are people who say they want me to A, and then when I do A, they say they want me to do NotA" depends entirely on the specifics of the particular case.
posted by Bugbread at 5:49 PM on August 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
> But when you look at it, the unidirectionality of the statement becomes clear - there should be more understanding of people who commit microaggressions (because they haven't unlearned them), but having a converse expectation on those people to actively learn is seen as harmful.
This is true but there's a reason for it: there is no widely-agreed-upon concrete definition for what counts as "actively learning". So yeah it IS harmful to place an expectation on someone that we refuse to elucidate for them, and then use their failure to meet secret expectations as our excuse to continue punishing them.
The transgression is well defined. The pile on gets triggered because people feel justified in piling on, precisely because the wrongdoing is obvious.
The apology? The learning? Amends? The retraction? Contrition? Remorse?? None of these are concretely defined, and the definitions of them are not widely agreed upon, so there's no way to trigger the stoppage of the pile-on.
One of the things I'm coming to learn is that it's irresponsible for me to participate in any type of rebellion, stand in opposition, call someone out out, etc. unless the movement as a whole has (or in more personal situations, just I have) a concrete demand from specific entities, and the demand is reasonable, realistically within the capacity of the entity to do, AND it's possible for the entity to *perform* whatever that work is in public for all to see (because otherwise it would be reasonable to accuse them of faking it).
Otherwise it's just venting spleen i.e. putting out more toxicity in the world, sound and fury, exhausting ourselves for worse than nothing.
We can hold ourselves to this standard: no realistic list of demands = no protest. No realistic outcome we can loosely but broadly agree on = no participation in the call out.
For internet call outs, yeah, this is going to require coordination. But if we can build a culture that makes coordinated callouts possible and easy, we can build this too. At least try. At least personally, each of us, refuse to participate until we have a semblance of it.
posted by MiraK at 6:20 PM on August 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
This is true but there's a reason for it: there is no widely-agreed-upon concrete definition for what counts as "actively learning". So yeah it IS harmful to place an expectation on someone that we refuse to elucidate for them, and then use their failure to meet secret expectations as our excuse to continue punishing them.
The transgression is well defined. The pile on gets triggered because people feel justified in piling on, precisely because the wrongdoing is obvious.
The apology? The learning? Amends? The retraction? Contrition? Remorse?? None of these are concretely defined, and the definitions of them are not widely agreed upon, so there's no way to trigger the stoppage of the pile-on.
One of the things I'm coming to learn is that it's irresponsible for me to participate in any type of rebellion, stand in opposition, call someone out out, etc. unless the movement as a whole has (or in more personal situations, just I have) a concrete demand from specific entities, and the demand is reasonable, realistically within the capacity of the entity to do, AND it's possible for the entity to *perform* whatever that work is in public for all to see (because otherwise it would be reasonable to accuse them of faking it).
Otherwise it's just venting spleen i.e. putting out more toxicity in the world, sound and fury, exhausting ourselves for worse than nothing.
We can hold ourselves to this standard: no realistic list of demands = no protest. No realistic outcome we can loosely but broadly agree on = no participation in the call out.
For internet call outs, yeah, this is going to require coordination. But if we can build a culture that makes coordinated callouts possible and easy, we can build this too. At least try. At least personally, each of us, refuse to participate until we have a semblance of it.
posted by MiraK at 6:20 PM on August 18, 2022 [17 favorites]
These critiques have been around ... and they don't seem to have had any real effect...
I feel like it did, though: on Tumblr, around 5 years ago. Everyone sort of realized the points outlined in this and many other articles and chilled out. There's still pockets, of course, but the call outs died way down. It's a common meme that Tumblr history keeps getting repeated on Twitter--maybe this will happen there too?
That said, I've also heard that Tumblr chilled out because everyone left for Twitter. So I'm not sure if it's people changing or the population who does this going somewhere else. I do know that my own behavior in this arena changed as I grew older and less angry (more tired?). Certainly not perfect, still, but greatly improved overall. I saw the same thing happen to a lot of my friends as well. So it is possible.
posted by brook horse at 7:18 PM on August 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
I feel like it did, though: on Tumblr, around 5 years ago. Everyone sort of realized the points outlined in this and many other articles and chilled out. There's still pockets, of course, but the call outs died way down. It's a common meme that Tumblr history keeps getting repeated on Twitter--maybe this will happen there too?
That said, I've also heard that Tumblr chilled out because everyone left for Twitter. So I'm not sure if it's people changing or the population who does this going somewhere else. I do know that my own behavior in this arena changed as I grew older and less angry (more tired?). Certainly not perfect, still, but greatly improved overall. I saw the same thing happen to a lot of my friends as well. So it is possible.
posted by brook horse at 7:18 PM on August 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
I like that right out of the gate the commentary is discourse is hopeless and we can't expect any better. It's like... we're all people. People can change, but it requires work on their part and the space to allow them to do that work. It seems like a priority should be given to trying to create that kind of space. But sure, dismiss any attempt out of hand as unworkable and it surely will be.
posted by Aleyn at 10:27 PM on August 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Aleyn at 10:27 PM on August 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Only a guess, but I both don't think it's hopeless and I'm not sure that work will make the difference. Calling out or whatever you want to call it might end because enough people get tired of it. "Oh, that's so 2015."
This being said, essays like the initial post do give heart to people who don't like the nastiness and can feel very isolated.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:55 AM on August 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
This being said, essays like the initial post do give heart to people who don't like the nastiness and can feel very isolated.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:55 AM on August 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
@Frowner : your comment comes off as super cringe and conflates being a pile-on using social media and the genuine efforts of internet organizing and calling it not organizing, while also invalidating how many of us marginalized people talk and organize online to meet together while isolated in spaces, and build community and have fun on social spaces (not unlike a website called Metafilter). There is a huge and long tradition of disability justice organizers using the internet for effective activism, along with countless other movements that are almost too numerous to name, along with several fellowships and funding efforts to support digital organizing. Can you please clarify what you are trying to state?
posted by yueliang at 2:58 AM on August 19, 2022
posted by yueliang at 2:58 AM on August 19, 2022
Frowner says great words there, and I'd like to add a label: are we seeking power or seeking responsibility?
Nobody seeking power wants responsibility.
It's worse than that: if we're fighting ourselves, not injustice, then that is a great way for injustice to win out. It's almost like the conversation gets derailed by trolls saying "let's you and them fight." Twitter and the status-based power structures that exist are things we replicate when we fight over in-groups and out-groups.
On responsibility, you can't really take responsibility for another grown adult's words or actions. You might claim you're taking responsibility for how we talk about an issue, but that's likely not taking responsibility for the issue itself.
If I'm taking responsibility -- say for ending UK use of food banks (we shouldn't have people living in poverty in a top-10 economy) or ending the UK's Hostile Environment for migrating workers (seasonal fruit is rotting on trees and the NHS is understaffed because people coming to the UK to work are dissuaded from doing so) or reconnecting UK to nearest trading neighbours (reversing Brexit) -- then I want partners and collaborators.
posted by k3ninho at 3:00 AM on August 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
Nobody seeking power wants responsibility.
It's worse than that: if we're fighting ourselves, not injustice, then that is a great way for injustice to win out. It's almost like the conversation gets derailed by trolls saying "let's you and them fight." Twitter and the status-based power structures that exist are things we replicate when we fight over in-groups and out-groups.
On responsibility, you can't really take responsibility for another grown adult's words or actions. You might claim you're taking responsibility for how we talk about an issue, but that's likely not taking responsibility for the issue itself.
If I'm taking responsibility -- say for ending UK use of food banks (we shouldn't have people living in poverty in a top-10 economy) or ending the UK's Hostile Environment for migrating workers (seasonal fruit is rotting on trees and the NHS is understaffed because people coming to the UK to work are dissuaded from doing so) or reconnecting UK to nearest trading neighbours (reversing Brexit) -- then I want partners and collaborators.
posted by k3ninho at 3:00 AM on August 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
@Frowner : your comment comes off as super cringe
I don't think I said what I was trying to say clearly at all and I apologize!
Two things that I hope might align our views a little bit:
The big one is that I was trying to distinguish between the feeling of exhaustion and effort that people get from, eg, following difficult to parse twitter conflicts/character of the day stuff and activism. I have often observed (and experienced) situations where people feel that it's lazy or immoral not to "participate" in this stuff, not to follow it, not to have an opinion, because keeping up with it is a kind of political responsibility. I was trying to convey this by specifying "idling around", meaning doomscrolling, "keeping up", etc, but didn't make a good distinction.
What I was trying to say is that it's easy to exhaust yourself just "keeping up" because you feel like it's morally necessary somehow, but if you feel like you need to be doing political work, you can release yourself from the obligation of doomscrolling or having a position on the issue of the morning because that is not political work.
Second, IME, a lot of people conflate keeping up with things on twitter, etc, with "the left", so that they look at public conflicts on social media as a sign that activists/organizing/"the left" is mostly about pile-ons and reading each other's work as unkindly and limitedly as possible in order to put it down. "Cancel culture" as it plays out across social media does not reflect, to my mind, how people who are actually working on projects together or even talking seriously together tend to interact - even when they interact badly. (This includes when people are working together online with some kind of intentionality, whether that is "we are making a zine" or "this discord is for trans women to support each other" - basically any kind of intentional interaction.)
I definitely did not mean to suggest either that no worthwhile political work happens online and through social media or that spending time online is stupid/pointless/bad - even aside from specific projects, growing communities, etc, there are lots of things that are important, sustaining and worthwhile but not organizing and I apologize that I made such a hash out of my comment!
posted by Frowner at 6:45 AM on August 19, 2022 [9 favorites]
I don't think I said what I was trying to say clearly at all and I apologize!
Two things that I hope might align our views a little bit:
The big one is that I was trying to distinguish between the feeling of exhaustion and effort that people get from, eg, following difficult to parse twitter conflicts/character of the day stuff and activism. I have often observed (and experienced) situations where people feel that it's lazy or immoral not to "participate" in this stuff, not to follow it, not to have an opinion, because keeping up with it is a kind of political responsibility. I was trying to convey this by specifying "idling around", meaning doomscrolling, "keeping up", etc, but didn't make a good distinction.
What I was trying to say is that it's easy to exhaust yourself just "keeping up" because you feel like it's morally necessary somehow, but if you feel like you need to be doing political work, you can release yourself from the obligation of doomscrolling or having a position on the issue of the morning because that is not political work.
Second, IME, a lot of people conflate keeping up with things on twitter, etc, with "the left", so that they look at public conflicts on social media as a sign that activists/organizing/"the left" is mostly about pile-ons and reading each other's work as unkindly and limitedly as possible in order to put it down. "Cancel culture" as it plays out across social media does not reflect, to my mind, how people who are actually working on projects together or even talking seriously together tend to interact - even when they interact badly. (This includes when people are working together online with some kind of intentionality, whether that is "we are making a zine" or "this discord is for trans women to support each other" - basically any kind of intentional interaction.)
I definitely did not mean to suggest either that no worthwhile political work happens online and through social media or that spending time online is stupid/pointless/bad - even aside from specific projects, growing communities, etc, there are lots of things that are important, sustaining and worthwhile but not organizing and I apologize that I made such a hash out of my comment!
posted by Frowner at 6:45 AM on August 19, 2022 [9 favorites]
Also with social media it can feel like there's an obligation to fight over "sides" in situations where things are not clear at all - like, sometimes it's pretty clear that someone is an abuser or a Nazi and good people understand that, but sometimes there's a big blow-up over two people's difference of opinion about, eg, how best to describe their group's experience. People can feel obliged to pick a side when they basically don't have enough expertise and can't really glean an accurate understanding of the disagreement because it is happening at high velocity by tweet, and I have noticed time and again that this stuff can really sap people's energy that they want to direct toward intentional work.
posted by Frowner at 6:51 AM on August 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 6:51 AM on August 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
We cannot afford to lose more voices
It could also mean votes and elections.
posted by Brian B. at 7:39 AM on August 19, 2022
It could also mean votes and elections.
posted by Brian B. at 7:39 AM on August 19, 2022
This is true but there's a reason for it: there is no widely-agreed-upon concrete definition for what counts as "actively learning". So yeah it IS harmful to place an expectation on someone that we refuse to elucidate for them, and then use their failure to meet secret expectations as our excuse to continue punishing them.
Except that when we're talking about microaggressions, the demand is pretty clear - stop committing them. The expectation is far from secret - the whole reason they get brought up is to get people to a) realize that these actions cause harm, and thus b) people need to stop doing them. Which is the whole problem with the original line - no matter how well meaning the call for understanding might be, there is definitely an underlying sense of "take one for the team" there. There is a point where the people being actively harmed are going to point out that they have a right to not be hurt, and that if people want to be allies, they need to stop stepping on the toes of others.
I agree that you can't hold someone to a standard without telling them that standard - that's why the first thing I did at work with the people I'm mentoring is to go over what the expectations were for them. What I disagree with, however, is the argument that these aren't being stated, because in the majority of these cases the argument is "action X is causing harm because of Y, so please stop doing X."
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:05 AM on August 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Except that when we're talking about microaggressions, the demand is pretty clear - stop committing them. The expectation is far from secret - the whole reason they get brought up is to get people to a) realize that these actions cause harm, and thus b) people need to stop doing them. Which is the whole problem with the original line - no matter how well meaning the call for understanding might be, there is definitely an underlying sense of "take one for the team" there. There is a point where the people being actively harmed are going to point out that they have a right to not be hurt, and that if people want to be allies, they need to stop stepping on the toes of others.
I agree that you can't hold someone to a standard without telling them that standard - that's why the first thing I did at work with the people I'm mentoring is to go over what the expectations were for them. What I disagree with, however, is the argument that these aren't being stated, because in the majority of these cases the argument is "action X is causing harm because of Y, so please stop doing X."
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:05 AM on August 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wonderful explanation, thank you so much Frowner! I wondered but I figured I would ask to clarify, because I was definitely getting mixed messages off your initial comment and it could easily be taken the other direction unfortunately, so very glad you took the time to write!
posted by yueliang at 12:26 PM on August 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by yueliang at 12:26 PM on August 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
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There's nothing wrong with these critiques but the kinds of commitments of mutual care and kindness and fairness that they posit as the alternative to callout culture can only be made in the context of a community where people know each other and where there are real interpersonal stakes to aggressive critique. As a whole, people on twitter will not change their behavior, especially when that behavior is both fun and low-stakes for them.
posted by derrinyet at 11:17 AM on August 18, 2022 [29 favorites]