I just tweeted a bunch of stuff about intra-left fights and people’s fear of being shunned because they say or believe the wrong thing. Briefly, while a lot of attacks on “PC” are actually cover for real and important political disagreements, I also recognize that some folks who honestly do want to do the right thing — by whatever definition — are scared to death of making some sort of misstep that will bring the wrath of the just down upon their heads.
I’ve written before about how getting yelled at isn’t the end of the world, and about how folks can recover if they find themselves on the receiving end of public condemnation, but right now I’d like to open up a space for people who experience those kinds of fears to talk about them, and to ask questions.
If you want to talk about this stuff, let’s talk. If you haven’t commented here before, I’ll have to manually approve your first message, but after that everything will go through automatically. I promise I’ll reply to everyone, and I promise not to be mean.
Oh, and anyone who wants to can comment anonymously, too.
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February 26, 2015 at 2:16 pm
neil
No, getting yelled at is not the end of the world. But being placed on a blacklist, or having your name linked with horrible accusations on the internet, can certainly have a major impact on your career. When weighed against that, expressing your problematic opinions is probably not worth it — you’d have to feel strongly enough about the opinions that you’re willing to risk those things, which means most people who do are advocates rather than students, which can form a vicious circle.
February 26, 2015 at 2:25 pm
Angus Johnston
Honest question, Neil — are you thinking of specific examples of people being blacklisted or publicly pilloried for expressing problematic opinions? Because I think that one of the big issues here is that the fears people have aren’t always grounded in reality.
In my experience, it takes a long list of really unusual conditions to come together for an internet dispute to blow up into something with lasting repercussions for someone’s life, and I think that exploring what those conditions are would be a useful thing to do.
February 26, 2015 at 2:40 pm
Perr5
I have had and still have this fear. But if I am trying to say the right thing in order to avoid people yelling at me instead of in order to avoid excluding, marginalizing, or otherwise harming my co-conversationalists, then I think my motivations are . . . not in the most optimal place?
And frankly, when someone has yelled at me, it’s been a tremendous favor, because they are expending energy on me instead of just walking away. Which is why I try to do my homework before speaking up, especially when it’s an issue that affects other people more directly than it does me.
February 26, 2015 at 3:04 pm
neil
Yes, I am thinking of specific examples, and I don’t think the conditions are exceptional at all — other than that they took place on the Internet, where it’s much easier to be found by people searching for heretics to punish than it is in a classroom.
February 26, 2015 at 3:19 pm
neil
To cite my personal example, though it’s quite minor, I was added to the Block Bot because somebody searching for keywords found a civil discussion on a prohibited topic I was having with somebody who wasn’t bothered. This led to the minor but lasting repercussion that I lost the ability to read some people on Twitter whose voices I value. Now I feel like I’m transgressing by so much as reading about certain topics, and I know I’ll get yelled at if I engage with them in any way, so I don’t.
But maybe this is right, and the fear of being yelled at is not only justified but a good thing.
February 26, 2015 at 3:38 pm
Murranon
This offer to “help low-profile people” (or “these people” as you call them in one tweet) all seems a bit patronizing. The implication seems to be that people who are “scared to death of making some sort of misstep that will bring the wrath of the just down upon their heads” are simply ignorant, and just need a bit of “help” from you in order that their views can be corrected and they won’t need to be scared any more.
What I don’t see you acknowledging is the reality of the dynamic so neatly analyzed by Julian Sanchez in one of the more interesting responses to Chait (http://www.juliansanchez.com/2015/01/27/chait-speech/).
I don’t agree with everything Sanchez says, but on his basic point, I think he’s correct that – as he puts it, with reference to an accusation of racism, sexism, or whatever – it’s very easy to “end up with team ‘x is the problem’ and team ‘x is not a problem,’ and ever fewer people prepared to say ‘x is a problem, but maybe not the most useful lens through which to view this particular disagreement.'”
Low profile people in the latter group don’t need “help” to understand anything better. They are simply judging – correctly – that making the argument that “x is a problem, but maybe not the most useful lens through which to view this particular disagreement” is likely to see them grouped together along with those who argue that “x is not a problem” at all, and therefore ostracized and condemned existentially (as an “x-denialist”).
I’ve certainly made that exact judgement plenty of times. For an admittedly extreme instance, take the “Jacobinghazi” mess that was all over left twitter last June. Anyone pointing out any of the misrepresentations of what others were saying was liable to be classed immediately as a “rape apologist.” That’s an extraordinarily damaging albatross to have hanging around your neck, however utterly ridiculous and unjustified the accusation might be. In those circumstances, why put your head above the parapet and risk “the wrath of the just” as you put it? It’s much safer to stay silent.
February 26, 2015 at 4:51 pm
Angus Johnston
Neil, it’s possible to appeal to be removed from the block bot, and if the reason you were put on was as you described, it seems like you’d have a good case for removal. Several of the people who run the bot are Twitter-friends of mine, so if you’d like to show me (here or privately) the tweets in question, I’d be happy to help you make the case.
I don’t know how you get from there to “I feel like I’m transgressing by so much as reading about certain topics,” though. I’d be surprised if anyone involved with the block bot would be upset at someone just reading stuff.
February 26, 2015 at 5:03 pm
Angus Johnston
Murranon, I never said or implied that all fears of being attacked for what you say are unfounded. In fact, I’ve repeatedly said the opposite — that sometimes people do get called out unfairly.
Turning to Sanchez’s piece, his first example of an inappropriate social norm is “under no circumstances express any skepticism about any claim of sexual assault.” That strikes me as wildly overstated, in my personal experience. And his complaint that “You end up having to explain and justify yourself to all these folks whose good opinion you care about” strikes me as a little frivolous, too — isn’t explaining (and even justifying) yourself an intrinsic part of any debate, particularly with people who don’t already know you?
His next argument, that this kind of social pressure leads to objections increasingly being raised by members of out-groups, is one that I agree with, and one that I made on Twitter myself this afternoon. And yes, that means you have to do more throat-clearing to make sure you won’t be associated with the assholes, but again, I’m not sure why that’s such a bad thing.
Which brings me to where I disagree with you, I guess. I think it’s useful to learn how to do the throat-clearing effectively, and useful to brainstorm how to carve out more space for the middle-ground voices he’s worried about seeing squelched. That’s what I’m trying to do here right now, and what I was trying to foster in my earlier comments on Twitter.
I agree with you that Jacobinghazi was a total shitshow, but I don’t see it as representative of left-liberal discourse generally, and I certainly think that it’s something we can strategize around avoiding in the future. I’m game for hearing your ideas about how we might do that if you’re game for sharing them.
February 26, 2015 at 8:03 pm
"Bob Roberts"
Have you followed the Winterfox / Requires Hate debacle? Admittedly that was in the F/SF fandom community, which is its own peculiar rabbit hole, rather than the activist community.
February 27, 2015 at 12:59 pm
Angus Johnston
Bob, I followed it as well as I could, being totally outside that community. Such a weird, horrible, fascinating story.
February 27, 2015 at 3:31 pm
"Bob Roberts"
So, I just wonder if you’re underestimating the degree to which groupthink can lead to shutting people down / ostracizing people from communities, and how that can be worse than simply “getting yelled at.” I dunno, maybe the lesson is “don’t get too emotionally involved in Internet communities because the Internet is filled with assholes.”
February 28, 2015 at 8:13 am
Angus Johnston
I’m not trying to say that there are never unsurmountable problems, Bob. I think the extent to which people get ostracized over “groupthink” is exaggerated, and I think it’s important to note that one person’s linguistic quibble is another’s ideological divide, but yeah, sometimes this stuff blows up bigger than it should, and maybe that’s inevitable.
But honestly, I’m not all that interested in discussing the stuff that’s inevitable. I want to talk about what can be changed, and how to change it.
And in 2015, encouraging people not to take internet communities seriously, or not to get emotionally involved with what happens online, seems utterly unrealistic. Huge political and social movements start online these days. Relationships that culminate in marriage and children start online. People find their deepest friendships and their most meaningful work online. And that’s only going to happen more in the future.
We can’t just write online spaces off.
February 28, 2015 at 1:40 pm
LifeofMisAdventure (@JlnFrancisco)
“That’s an extraordinarily damaging albatross to have hanging around your neck”
I reject your assertion. I do not see wherever I look any great stigmatization of rapists or rape apologists. They are still perfectly able to interact with others freely and their history is ignored rather than being brought up.