At least someone gets it: why if person X – let’s call him Merelyatruck – is a sexist shit at blog Y – let’s call it ARF – a woman Z – let’s call her OB – wouldn’t want him commenting on her blog (let’s call it B&W) no matter how fake-civil he pretended to be while there.
Said eigenperson:
#87 Justicar:
I think it’s very clear what Ophelia is saying there. She’s saying that if you are good in Location 1 and bad in Location 2, then you may act well sometimes, but you are not a good person, because a good person tries not to act badly anywhere.
I would agree with that. While it is entirely appropriate to adapt one’s behavior to the local community standards, there are also global standards by which one ought to govern oneself everywhere, or at least anywhere public. What those standards are is, of course, debatable.
For example, I know of one prominent scientist (now deceased) who was an absolutely raging sexist while he was at work. He did a lot of harm with his sexism in that context. But, in other contexts, he was not a sexist at all; in fact, he was very respectful to women in every location except his own office at the university, where he would recommend rejecting their applications (if they were grad students) or denying them tenure (if they were professors), or if they showed up in person, verbally abusing them until they went away.
I am not willing to say that he was a good person, even though in so many contexts he acted according to standards I would be okay with. Because there was one context in which he consistently did not, even after it was explained to him that his behavior in that context was very harmful. This wasn’t just a case of “Oh, gee, I didn’t realize I had that bias!” No, it was very deliberate.
If Ophelia thinks that the way you act on ERV is willful and harmful, it’s entirely rational for her to say that you are not a good person, even though you behave like one on her blog.
Why yes, that’s it exactly. Thank you, eigenperson.
Very true and neatly done.
I believe it was Dave Barry who said: “Someone who is nice to you but not nice to the waiter is not a nice person.”
Damn, they really have a thing for you Ophelia. Sorry you have to be the target of so much of this shit.
Oh well it’s all right, Justin tells me it’s only on this one post.
Because they’ll just stop? Merely because his future posts won’t be about them? God is he dreaming.
Plus it’s not actually ok on this one post. Thanks a lot Justin.
Justicar is a slimy bastard – no ifs or buts- and Justin is an idiot for hosting him. Laden was totally out of line in the way he behaved towards Griffith but I wouldnt go towards Griffith’s corner of the FTB anytime soon, if ever.
And not just hosting him but laughing when they talk about kicking me between the legs. I’ll be giving him a wide berth too. #deeprifts
I know Justin thinks he’s doing a good thing, and I can kinda of sympathize – I was a vile little 4chan troll myself once, though I never had a taste for trolling soft targets. That said, I think he’s being way too optimistic and I’m not exactly happy about there still being a slimepit colony here.
I’m reminded of Stewart Lee’s line “If political correctness has done one thing, it’s to make the Conservative party cloak it’s inherent racism behind more creative language.” Sure, it would be real nice of them to stop talking about kicking people in the cunt but even if they do are we all just supposed to kiss and make up? If the sentiment is still there does their diction really matter?
Might you want to credit the speaker over the blockquoted text? At first I thought it was denoted to mean JUSTICAR had said that and my brain just about exploded. I mean, I figured out after the first paragraph I must have interpreted the formatting wrong, and then I checked the link to read it at its source to make sure I got it right…but, DAYUMN, you had me there for a second!
As a side note, Justicar is one of the most willfully disingenuous, unethical people it has ever been my displeasure to read. Someone who thrives on misrepresentations, faux reasonableness (only when it suits his ends) and faux outrage for others he wishes to smear is just not a toxin I care to deal with…If you have a 6-paragraph comment, and I can find more than three (3) things that are privileged, clueless, or outright strawmen in your first two sentences, I simply refuse to put up with your shit.
Very much this.
Made the suggested improvement.
dysomniak –
Well, yeah, the diction matters.
I get what you’re saying. Generations of Southern women have been raised to say “Bless your heart” as a social fiction to cover the intended meaning “Die, bitch, die”. (And then of course, to pat themselves on the back for always keeping the discussion ladylike). Does it really hurt less to be the recipient of “Bless your heart” when you’re aware of the true hatred behind it ?
I don’t know, but I do think so.
I think that adding the extra hateful slur of “cunt” or “bitch” does make the attack more hurtful. I think it’s the salt in the wound. Stings.
And I think it’s bad even for the people who are dishing out the language. I figure that the mental process of restraining your diction is a literal restraint on your level of hatred. Maybe not much, but a little restraint at least. I think that when you release yourself, give yourself permission to throw around “cunt” or other essential slurs it reinforces your own perception that your opponent is not really a person, but an object. It’s neuro feedback; just as you hear yourself dropping all social fiction of politeness and restrained diction, you reinforce the concept that you’re talking to someone less-than-human who doesn’t deserve any share of social niceties.
I perceive that it works that way in my head when I give in to the impulse to say worse and worse things. I hate more because I’m getting more hateful sounding. That’s how it seems to me, at any rate.
So, yeah, let’s not expect miracles, that if Rush Limbaugh were reigned in by his sponsors, he suddenly would stop being a hate-filled creature because he was no longer saying hateful words. But let’s not go to the other extreme and say that there’s no difference if he calls Sandra Fluke a “sexworker” or a “whore”.
It doesn’t mean we’d kiss and make up with someone who still is filled with disgusting sexist ideas. It would just be a breathing space to – maybe – stop feeling so threatened and harmed by the casual unrestrained contempt always showing right on the surface.
@hotshoe #11
Thanks for articulating that.
@hotshoe: Sorry, I didn’t mean to minimize the effect of slurs. I just meant that policing their language alone wouldn’t constitute some kind of slimepit “redemption” like Justin seems to be hoping for.
dysomniak –
No worries. I didn’t think you were minimizing, I just started from your sentence to riff on why words mean something important (contra Justicar’s narcissistic stupidity that they’re inherently unimportant just because they’re meaningless to him, or just because he can get away with pretending they’re meaningless to him in his guise of an internet chill boy)
I like Justin about as much as any other Ft blogger and I love the work he’s doing for atheists in the US military. But he’s plain off base on this one. I don’t buy into any of that “redemption” crap that Justin seems to think he can facilitate. I don’t buy into “can’t we all just get along” when all includes John Welch and his filthy filthy delight in his wife triggering other women into vomiting. I will probably forget all the details of these conversations – if I live long enough – but I can’t imagine that I will ever forget the little rush of revulsion I feel whenever I see Justicar’s name on a post.
I especially don’t buy that the slimepit strategy of forgoing slurs and Twatson etc (to be “better” than FtB) is any sign that I should trust any one of them individually or collectively. So, yeah, they could improve to the point where at least Ophelia didn’t have to constantly hear “cunt” from them – which I figure would be a big relief. But for me – and I’m not the target here – that relief from them still won’t be enough for me to let any of them pretend to be my allies.
I can’t imagine what Justin sees that makes him think they can ever be trustworthy. Much less why he’d want to bother.
What’s to lose with just writing them all off ? There are plenty of people who will never ever ever be my friends, and it’s not a list limited to the slimepitters. I’m not crying over the loss as long as I’m not forced to be in proximity with any of ’em.
@Ophelia
Well, I’m glad you copied that comment before it got deleted with the rest of that thread. It’s a good explanation, one that anyone should be able to follow with ease and find unobjectionable.
hotshoe (#11)
For me, hearing veiled hatred sometimes (but not always) provokes a less intense emotional response, but it’s not actually less hurtful anymore than a mild headache that lasts for a day is less painful than stubbing my toe hard enough to bring on nausea.
I would say the constant pretense of civility wrongly reinforces the perception of oneself as a caring and considerate person towards those one is demeaning in a non-explicit way. It’s very hard to get people to see their nastiness if they’ve convinced themselves the veneer of niceness is itself niceness. And while they might scrupulously acknowledge the personhood of their victims (and even pat themselves on the back for doing so), they still utterly discount anyone who spares the social niceties in response to their poison.
A. Noyd –
Good points. Now that you point it out, I have to agree with “they’ve convinced themselves the veneer of niceness is itself niceness.” I’ve seen that in action – it doesn’t describe me, of ourse, because I don’t have any niceness to convince myself with. But I’ve had a few bosses/co-workers/aunts who fit that description.
Dunno. Maybe some people are one way, maybe some people flip flop between the two facets of experience we’ve each described.
Hi.
Kinda glad to see my post got rescued from the thread deletion, because I thought it was pretty good.
Yes, I was also confused by the formatting at first, but the upside was I had to read more to get it that I might not have otherwise and I learned something from that (not all of it nice).
It won’t matter for the assholes themselves, but it matters for the rest of the world.
Because of brains.
Every time you hear cunt, nigger, dyke of faggot thrown around, your brain changes. The more often you hear it the wider the path is trodden.
Kids grow up, little girls grow up having nasty smelling unclean inferior engraved into their brains. Or they grow up with just a distant memory that this word actually exists.
http://images.4chan.org/b/src/1341228599270.jpg
Oh man, I thought Ophelia was being charmingly silly by referring to the commenter as an “eigenperson”. It didn’t strike me that it could be that individual’s nom de plume until I saw them comment. Whoops.
On-topic: excellent comment, and you guys have certainly have my support. I’d love to see an amicable resolution come out of all of this (obviously without abandoning the positions espoused to improve the inclusivity and acceptance of the movement), and I hope it can still happen without causing an irrevocable schism.
For me, it’s the opposite. Polite, reasonable-sounding hatred makes me sicker than blunt angry insults. Probably because I know from long, unfortunate personal experience that politeness gets conflated with harmlessness no matter how hateful the actual message.
(This will be teaching many of you to suck eggs, I know – this is mainly for lurkers and newbies, especially newbie lurkers. Apologies in advance for the tl;dr)
The idea that each pocket of cyberspace should be a clean slate for somebody with no reference to what they are known to do elsewhere is an old page dusted off from the old USENet alt.syntax.tactical playbook, as is the uber-purist semantic-hacktivist stance that objecting to having one’s argument misrepresented by poo-flinging howler monkeys *really* means that one knows one’s position will not withstand a “rigorous logical challenge”. These faux-purists in fact know very well that it’s not only possible but appallingly easy to rhetorically sandbag *any* line of argument no matter how rigorously supported it may actually be.
This is achieved largely by exploiting the phenomenon summed up as “a lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on” e.g. their new spin on the meaning of “slimepit”, the year-long lie that “RW cried Rape on EG” etc etc etc. They combine these lies with their other favourite tactic (from the old alt.tasteless playbook) that *nothing should be exempt from being “joked” about*, aiming to provoke an emotional response that buys into their lie instead of scorning it as it deserves.
Repeating the lies and slurs derails any progress in the discussion by diverting the targets’ resources and time to yet again countering the lie/challenging the slur instead of moving the conversation forward, and *that’s exactly what it’s designed to do* (allegedly just for the LULZ of watching yet another thread erupt into a flamewar, which is actually just re-framing getting one’s jollies from bullying and vandalism – disruption for the sake of disruption).
One of the reasons they hate Pharyngula so much is that there are a lot of ‘net veterans there amongst the regulars (largely because PZ is also an old ‘net vet), and the vets see very clearly what is happening when the lies start being told and spoil the LULZ-fun by flatly identifying a comment as a lie without getting sucked into a derailing defence. Denied their jollies there, the LULZers have decided to target the rest of FtB because many of the other blog-owners and their commentariats have not yet become sufficiently acquainted with the LULZ playbook to cut the thread-derails off at the knees i.e. the LULZers are *relying* on their behaviour elsewhere not being known on the target blog, and thus being given more leeway than they deserve.
Ophelia’s Rule 9 spoils the LULZ-fun, thus they’ve added her to their special extra-shitpiling list. Accusing her of “intellectual dishonesty” for refusing to let them fling shit all over her cybersalon is just the cherry on the top of the LULZers’ cake of pointless bile.
Anyone who comes onto an FtB blog and starts repeating the LULZer lies and slurs as part of their oh-so-noble groupthink challenge has already identified themselves as intellectually dishonest. Checking to see whether they’ve actually misbehaved using the same nym elsewhere before banhammering is actually extending them a benefit of the doubt that is IMO excessively generous.
Which is why such comments disappear so quickly! (Except when they come in overnight, drat them.)
That’s why I used enhanced moderation plugins on my blog, Ophelia!
As neither lurker nor newbie, but one who does not belong to the subculture described, I found tigtog’s explanation lucid, even if it only confirms what either quickly or slowly becomes obvious to anyone who actually follows a thread in which these characters participate (just in case anyone was wondering why my rare contributions to them are almost always very brief and not invitations to argue or sling further mud). Also helpful was the post that incorporated comment #24 on HAT (http://hoydenabouttown.com/20120703.11979/on-not-buying-into-the-lulzer-playbook-at-ftb-or-anywhere/). While I don’t think Justin’s intentions were bad, there’s a lot he obviously hasn’t grasped yet and I am disappointed he chose to delete the whole thread prior to his closing comment.
Thanks for dropping by HaT to read the extension/annex, Stewart.
I don’t think Justin has fully grokked that many of the LULZers really do just want to intimidate and traumatise people, and their supposed dedication to the LULZ is simply a veneer of plausible deniability for their silencing campaigns.
The thing is, you don’t have to be any kind of internet geek or 4chan veteran or whatever to detect bad faith in an argument. It’s something that’s done all the time in real life, too (though cyberspace contains more people who are anonymous and have no fear that the most repellent behaviour will have any effect on their real lives).
It seems rather axiomatic to me that one cannot deliberately jerk other people around by accident. I can accept that one can regret having behaved badly, especially if one was chronologically immature when one began. But there’s a big difference between really changing one’s behaviour for the long term and simply popping up and saying “no, here I’m being serious, unlike all the other places you see me post.” At the risk of doing someone an injustice, what happens with me is that if I see a clear case of deliberate bad faith in an argument, I pretty automatically make a judgement about the perpetrator that is, to all intents and purposes, permanent. I have learned that that is how that person behaves (stupidity is, of course, also a possibility, but I can’t cure that by reasoning with them either) and will never stoop to an argument with them that I know in advance will be a waste of my time and bring them a great deal of pleasure [only because it is] at my expense.
Thus, in my perception, there is a clear difference between the case of Greg Laden, whose anger, I think, pushed him over certain boundaries without there being a prior malicious intent and the cases of certain slimepit denizens who simply get their jollies from flitting around and sniping while pretending to be advocates of free speech. They are precisely the ones trying to push the message that Greg is at least as bad as they are, if not worse. The probably overly simplistic comment I think I made in the thread Justin deleted was quickly swamped by the nitpicking of slimepitters (as I was subscribed, I still have all the comments subsequent to mine), but I see it as a completely valid take on the situation: if all your energies are going on elaborate justifications for incessantly making brutal insults, then, regardless of your year of birth, you do not qualify in my eyes as an adult. Being grown up means, among other things, that you are capable of letting such things go. To focus for a moment only on FTBers, as the smear campaign is trying to make them all out to be bullies, yes, several of them are capable of losing their online tempers under sufficient provocation and letting insults fly that they would not otherwise. There is a world of difference between that and phenomena like Hoggle or Geoff Falk, where the very first glance at a “normal” post tells you you are dealing with someone whose main purpose is invective, the more shocking the better, for its own sake and one prefers not even to speculate on what the parts of their psyche not yet online must look like.
Of course, I didn’t mean to imply that. Just that net arguments tend to have certain conventions, and the longer one has been observing and participating the better one’s spidey sense becomes for whether someone is merely ignorant of them or maybe just having a bad day or vexatiously circumventing them, and how to most appropriately respond.
I try to be a bit careful on this. Given how many fallacious arguments abound in politics, pop science and entertainments, it’s charitable to assume ignorance rather than malice much of the time.
Mind you, it’s always fun when somebody attempts a more sophisticated rhetorical technique while perpetrating a logical fallacy themselves. Either they’re deliberately trying to trigger the common cognitive biases, or they’ve hoist themselves on their own petard. Either way, it’s a giveaway.
No disagreements. I can usually navigate my way to what someone really means, because of said conventions.
“I try to be a bit careful on this.”
Me too; don’t misunderstand. I’m not quick to assume someone is yanking my chain (or that of other thread participants); I do give lots of room for factors like ignorance. But there are times when you can no longer doubt that that is what is going on; then there’s a kind of automatic penny-dropping that takes place and everything else coming from that person is seen in a different (yes, obviously less charitable) light.
(Already tried to post this twice earlier but failed – internet dodgy, apparently due to damage from Saturday night’s spectacular lightning strikes in Berlin, which I wasn’t even back yet to enjoy. All supposed to be well by tomorrow p.m.)
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