Meta thoughts about social justice conversations
I was just writing a comment in a friend's journal, where he was expressing frustration at the common experience of having someone in a discussion demand either you do extensive work to prove your point,* and/or that you do extensive work to see their point.** They're pretty disingenuous discussion techniques-- people who engage in that kind of thing aren't trying to participate in a discussion or learn. They're trying to tire out their conversational opponent and stop a conversation that they don't like. Or maybe they just get off on feeling smarter than everybody else, which is a certain tonal thing I've seen in a specific type of participant.***
This is even more frustrating when most of the participants are fairly up on social justice terminology. So everybody knows what you mean when you say, for instance, "intersectional." But then there's inevitably that one argument-hungry friend-of-a-friend who doesn't know what you mean when you say "privilege" in this context and want to tell you all about why you're wrong, and no they will not try to understand why you're intentionally using the sociological definition of "racism" in this case because you're just wrong, and Webster's Dictionary says so. It's just... exhausting. Especially when these people see themselves as the smartest one in the thread, and not the person who's failing to grasp the entry-level terms.
And say you DO spend the time and energy to explain? Well then they just shift to critiquing your tone, because anything that makes them feel the least bit defensive is not civil**** or rude. It's the kind of thing that wearies you to having these conversations at all because it happens damn near every time.
But anyway, I got off on a tangent in my thinking about WHY this happens so often. Last night, Jason and I were chatting over dinner. He is something of a unicorn- a gamer that doesn't spend much time online. He's reasonably up on the basic facts of GamerGate, so we were discussing the day's developments, like the doxxing of Felicia Day. And something occurred to me-- for all its faults, the internet has given rise to a generation of young people that, thanks to platforms like Tumblr, now have the templates and words to have conversations around social justice that previous generations did not have so accessibly in their teens and early 20's.
Tumblr can get kind of ridiculous, but there is also a core concern about social justice for many, many of its users. Especially its young users. At the very least, it hosts a constant conversation about social justice, which means that young people are talking about privilege. They're talking about anti-racism (Ferguson is still lighting up my dash daily). They're talking about feminism and homophobia and ableism. They know what intersectionality is. Even if no person has a complete understanding about social justice, they have the basic tools to confront oppressive attitudes when they see or hear them. I mean, not saying it's utopia or anything-- I see a lot of bullshit dressed up in social justice language over there. But it does mean that the youth have the tools and platforms to learn and to have conversations much more widespread than ever before.
So a lot of the conversations that frustrate me so much are indicative of a kind of a culture shock-- here we have this generation of younger folk (particularly and most frequently younger women*****), coming up against people who have felt secure in their right-ness because their POV has been the default for as long as anyone can remember. These people have never before had to consider that the some of the attitudes they have and hold are not especially valid if you don't come from a privileged paradigm.
And I have found that it's even a bit more tenaciously ingrained if the person sees themselves as progressive-- there's an attitude of, "well, I'm smart, and I'm open-minded, and I treat people in my life well-- how could my perspective on this possibly be incomplete?" Rather than listen to what other people on the flip side of the coin are saying about things they have actually experienced, they instead smugly argue about hypotheticals. Because the only real thing at stake for them is ego and the sense that their judgment remains unerring. It's an exercise in debate to them. It's not something they actually live.
Which is why there's so much "EXPLAIN ME EVERYTHING, PROVE TO ME YOUR LIVED EXPERIENCE IS VALID" going around. It's a lot of dudes (and some women, but mostly dudes) doing anything and everything to hold on to that illusion.
Understanding it doesn't ultimately make it less frustrating-- there's still at least one of these types in every single discussion I see centered around social justice issues, intentionally or unintentionally derailing and taking up way too much of everybody else's time and energy. But in a way, I can see their presence (and the more and more frequent occurrence of their being pushed back) as a silver lining that things are moving in the right direction.
* Dude, if every lady you know says she's experienced street harassment and/or you are looking at a ridiculously long thread/hashtag where women are detailing their experiences with street harassment, that means it's common. Just because you haven't personally seen it doesn't make that not true. Just because you don't engage in it doesn't negate that LOTS of other people do, and that yes, it is an actual problem.
** Read this novel-length study that I am mis-applying to this conversation!
*** I get condescendingly called 'sweetheart' a lot by white dudes who don't like having their views challenged by a woman, because they know best about all things, obviously. ETA: These are often also the dudes who labor under the delusion their "devil's advocate" positions or "but have you considered?" musings are in some way logically ground-breaking, and not the groan-inducingly common dren that those of us who engage on these topics frequently have encountered over and over and over again. They want the illusion of being the smartest one in the thread while at the same time parroting the oldest, most moth-holed counter-arguments in the book.
**** A group of women (including me) discussing the Felicia Day thing were called uncivil yesterday for pointing out to a dude that that he doesn't get to dictate how someone who's dealt with stalking, rape threats, and harassment deals with potential threats when she's feeling especially vulnerable, and that attempting to say "well, she should have done X instead" is generally regarded as crappy behavior. Felicia Day crossing to the other side of the street wasn't letting the bad guys win, it was self-care. And if you want to ding her for not being more like Brianna Wu, that's your problem, not hers. ETA: I just learned what a Sea Lion is, and considering this guy repeatedly said that he wanted "thoughtful discussion" but took offense when presented with critical engagement, I'm pretty sure he was a sea lion.
***** Anecdotally, I have also seen more younger women willing to engage critically, and refuse to back down for the sake of male attention, which makes me so freakin' happy. Fly, you little baby feminists, fly!
This is even more frustrating when most of the participants are fairly up on social justice terminology. So everybody knows what you mean when you say, for instance, "intersectional." But then there's inevitably that one argument-hungry friend-of-a-friend who doesn't know what you mean when you say "privilege" in this context and want to tell you all about why you're wrong, and no they will not try to understand why you're intentionally using the sociological definition of "racism" in this case because you're just wrong, and Webster's Dictionary says so. It's just... exhausting. Especially when these people see themselves as the smartest one in the thread, and not the person who's failing to grasp the entry-level terms.
And say you DO spend the time and energy to explain? Well then they just shift to critiquing your tone, because anything that makes them feel the least bit defensive is not civil**** or rude. It's the kind of thing that wearies you to having these conversations at all because it happens damn near every time.
But anyway, I got off on a tangent in my thinking about WHY this happens so often. Last night, Jason and I were chatting over dinner. He is something of a unicorn- a gamer that doesn't spend much time online. He's reasonably up on the basic facts of GamerGate, so we were discussing the day's developments, like the doxxing of Felicia Day. And something occurred to me-- for all its faults, the internet has given rise to a generation of young people that, thanks to platforms like Tumblr, now have the templates and words to have conversations around social justice that previous generations did not have so accessibly in their teens and early 20's.
Tumblr can get kind of ridiculous, but there is also a core concern about social justice for many, many of its users. Especially its young users. At the very least, it hosts a constant conversation about social justice, which means that young people are talking about privilege. They're talking about anti-racism (Ferguson is still lighting up my dash daily). They're talking about feminism and homophobia and ableism. They know what intersectionality is. Even if no person has a complete understanding about social justice, they have the basic tools to confront oppressive attitudes when they see or hear them. I mean, not saying it's utopia or anything-- I see a lot of bullshit dressed up in social justice language over there. But it does mean that the youth have the tools and platforms to learn and to have conversations much more widespread than ever before.
So a lot of the conversations that frustrate me so much are indicative of a kind of a culture shock-- here we have this generation of younger folk (particularly and most frequently younger women*****), coming up against people who have felt secure in their right-ness because their POV has been the default for as long as anyone can remember. These people have never before had to consider that the some of the attitudes they have and hold are not especially valid if you don't come from a privileged paradigm.
And I have found that it's even a bit more tenaciously ingrained if the person sees themselves as progressive-- there's an attitude of, "well, I'm smart, and I'm open-minded, and I treat people in my life well-- how could my perspective on this possibly be incomplete?" Rather than listen to what other people on the flip side of the coin are saying about things they have actually experienced, they instead smugly argue about hypotheticals. Because the only real thing at stake for them is ego and the sense that their judgment remains unerring. It's an exercise in debate to them. It's not something they actually live.
Which is why there's so much "EXPLAIN ME EVERYTHING, PROVE TO ME YOUR LIVED EXPERIENCE IS VALID" going around. It's a lot of dudes (and some women, but mostly dudes) doing anything and everything to hold on to that illusion.
Understanding it doesn't ultimately make it less frustrating-- there's still at least one of these types in every single discussion I see centered around social justice issues, intentionally or unintentionally derailing and taking up way too much of everybody else's time and energy. But in a way, I can see their presence (and the more and more frequent occurrence of their being pushed back) as a silver lining that things are moving in the right direction.
* Dude, if every lady you know says she's experienced street harassment and/or you are looking at a ridiculously long thread/hashtag where women are detailing their experiences with street harassment, that means it's common. Just because you haven't personally seen it doesn't make that not true. Just because you don't engage in it doesn't negate that LOTS of other people do, and that yes, it is an actual problem.
** Read this novel-length study that I am mis-applying to this conversation!
*** I get condescendingly called 'sweetheart' a lot by white dudes who don't like having their views challenged by a woman, because they know best about all things, obviously. ETA: These are often also the dudes who labor under the delusion their "devil's advocate" positions or "but have you considered?" musings are in some way logically ground-breaking, and not the groan-inducingly common dren that those of us who engage on these topics frequently have encountered over and over and over again. They want the illusion of being the smartest one in the thread while at the same time parroting the oldest, most moth-holed counter-arguments in the book.
**** A group of women (including me) discussing the Felicia Day thing were called uncivil yesterday for pointing out to a dude that that he doesn't get to dictate how someone who's dealt with stalking, rape threats, and harassment deals with potential threats when she's feeling especially vulnerable, and that attempting to say "well, she should have done X instead" is generally regarded as crappy behavior. Felicia Day crossing to the other side of the street wasn't letting the bad guys win, it was self-care. And if you want to ding her for not being more like Brianna Wu, that's your problem, not hers. ETA: I just learned what a Sea Lion is, and considering this guy repeatedly said that he wanted "thoughtful discussion" but took offense when presented with critical engagement, I'm pretty sure he was a sea lion.
***** Anecdotally, I have also seen more younger women willing to engage critically, and refuse to back down for the sake of male attention, which makes me so freakin' happy. Fly, you little baby feminists, fly!