Okay, Ive got thirty minutes of a lunchbreak, itchy fingers and a broken spacebar, lets roll.
Quickly, Haus- Do we need to recap recent bannings/near-bannings?
Didn't you do that on the last page? I'm sure I just read about that...
Right, if I may, I'd like to go back to the last page, because I read some of this stuff before bed last night, and it's still on my mind today, so I obviously care a little about it and would like to contribute, if you'll let me.
Firstly, I'd like to say that although I don't post all that much, I do read the board every day (which is what keeps me from posting, usually) and have been keeping up with these issues for the past few months like everyone else. I usually like to keep out of these discussions (apart from the ones I accidentally create), but I've kept my nose clean for a few months and would like to join in.
I think the problem here is not that we as a board argue, it's how we argue. Alex's aunt kicked this all off yesterday by complaining that the fights, amongst other things, just aren't entertaining enough. I realise ze retracted it but, speaking as another poster that prefers the spectacle fora, I kinda agree, but for different reasons. I'd also like to interject here, Barbelith is a bit like a dodgy car made up in a chopshop from a mini and a mercedes, seriousness and frivolity, head shop and the late shift. I think a lot of the conflict does come from different sides of this divide. I'll come back to this in a sec, and forgive me if I'm wrong (this is just my reading of it, after all), but Alex's post felt like a Spectacle resident saying "Come on, this is getting rather dull", whereas id's reply ("Alex's Relation, this makes me angry, so I'm going to go ahead and post angrily.") felt to me as if id was personally offended that Alex's aunt wasn't taking these issues as seriously as is needed. But isn't this just a case of two different people wanting (expecting) two entirely different things from the same place? And sometimess, these two things aren't exactly compatible. Like, we can't have fun in the Spectacle if everyone is over here arguing about Paranoidwriter's "riddims", can we? I freely admit that I'm not a fan of the 'serious' fora as for me, they are much too much like hard work and in my one hour an evening of internet time I want to have fun and not get a headache. But that's just me, and I'll bet there are many many posters who have the exact opposite opinion and want only seriousness and theory. That's okay, each to hir own, but I don't think posters (like id) should be so personally offended by the fact that some posters (such as myself) may have less interest in these issues than they do, especially when lots of these issues are ones that I ararely if ever come into contact with in the course of my 'real' life. That's not to say that everyone shouldn't have to toe the Barbelith 'party-line' (of non-bigotry), they should, but not everyone needs to be actively involved in.
It isn't so much the the fights keep happening, because as noted, they're about important issues that those of us without degrees in identity studies really should be thinking about (I know I've learnt a fuckload since I've been here, and am often annoying my friends with "You can't sayx about y, it's not cool", which is new for me). What I find hard is the almost constant repitition and how hard it is to remove yourself from one of the arguement spirals once you're locked into it. id's post continues with his list of stuff that you can't/shouldn't say if challenged about something dodgy you said:
1) I don't hate X
1a) I have X friends/coworkers/relatives
2) You're oversensitive/too angry/projecting/lying
3) Oppression is something done only actively by neonazis, and I am not one, ergo I am not in any way supporting oppression
4) Even if there was some underlying attitude of oppressive nature behind my post, it was a joke(.) and I should get a free pass because I'm a good person generally
5) Even if etc. it's not my fault because I was raised that way
6) Even if etc. there's no use in talking about it because we're all oppressors and nothing can ever be done about it
7) I'm oppressed too because of Y other things that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.
This is fair enough, it helps to have a list of no-nos. Although, I'm having a hard time thinking of other ways out of a corner (not counting unashamed apologising which obviously wouldn't work for something that you actually cared about or believed in).
Can you help me (and the rest of us non-perfect people that will occaisionally say very stupid stuff), Barbelith?
I just think that there has to be a way out of these fights that isn't a)having to retract what you said (and often, I fear, having to lie, just to get others off your back) or b) being banned. It seems to me that lots of threads like the -ism threads deal with some very heavy issues that might take months or years for someone to even be clear what they think about it. Shouting at someone or critising them harshly until they change their mind doesn't seem to be a very helpful way to go about this at all.
If the softly-softly approach isn't too popular, then I think we should ban much more quickly and readily. If, as is the case right now, displays of overt racism, homophobia, sexism et al are intollerable and will lead to 10-page long fights, why not just ban anyone and everyone who ever says anything dodgy on here? And yes, I'm well aware that would have included me too not so long ago as well (and, if I'm honest, probably in the future as well, I'm not too bright sometimes).
Nadezhda said just as much in hir post a page back-
It's time for us to pull ideas on what is and isn't acceptable here out of the hat and make a decision unless we want Barbelith to be just like the rest of the Internet because it cannot maintain the current way of dealing with this shit.
Anyway, this is just my first go at getting this down on-page. I hope to eleaborate further when I have more time. |
