I'm not sure if I have time to respond properly to this thread right now, but the next few days are looking pretty busy and so...
I find fred e.'s reading useful, and I don't completely mind being a stand-in for a "camp" but I want to be clear that I'm trying pretty hard not to put the flag in the ground for any kind of rallying point. I want no army. (I just wanna dance!)
In this thread, I'm trying to explain how I see my own style and how my style (and others who take a "calmer" tactic--the icy calm of grant, say, or the calm rationality of Lurid A.) function systemically, here.
[psst...I accept this attention, I understand that my name's become a kind of short hand, but can I tell you, just between you and me and the Internet: it does feel a little weird--like I am a stand in for a whole cluster of things. (Is this what transference feels like, Ganesh?, if you're out there?) ]
However, taking a broader view of my presence here, I realize that I was, also, not ready to ban SS and have gone publicly on record stating that. So I suppose to that extent I have made a kind of overtly "camp"-ifiable stance. But what I've been saying here has been as an apologia--not an apology--for my own actions; I have not wanted to be understood AT ALL as equivalent to "this is how I'm hoping all of Barbelith decides to work with ShadowSax. We all need to be like me." I'm willing to consider that someone like SS does threaten the kind of community/ goals we want to have.
Haus summarized my position in this thread very accurately: As alas says above, the position of nice, respectful, reasonable interlocutor involves complexities of its own. One of those complexities . . . is that the work of active and passionate disapproval has to be located elsewhere. That's pretty much what I'm saying I'm aware of. I don't always want to be the "good cop."
Illimatic and I have found a peculiar value to the F4J thread, and judging from the PM responses I got from that thread, I sense that many people find it a kind of fascinating thread: but is it the fascination of a car wreck? What did you all get out of reading all whatevernumber of pages of it? Those are honest questions.
I find Illimatic's description of hir process quite similar to what I've been trying to articulate: What I found it interesting when reading his posts was to note how he constructed his worldview, selected his evidence and fed his biases which made me think of the way in which I do the same...
Unlike reading the daily mail, I could see this process more in action. As a teacher, I can try different kinds of arguments: does this get through? How would this work? Can I see subtle shifts? Arguers can leave room for gracious bowing out or we can help lock people into a corner by giving them no place for a dignified, ego-intact shift. It's a dance. I am fascinated by the logistics of it, and that thread topic was kind of a perfect pitch for me--up my alley, very close to my heart, but not so close to my identity that I couldn't maintain enough of a critical distance to keep trying different arguments and approaches.
I do not want all of Barbelith to be like that, however. To what degree does the presence of someone like ShadowSax threaten the viability of, say, the femme identity thread, that fred e. mentioned, in the quiet of the headshop, where complex and interesting issues were explored from page one, from paragraph one--although the thread itself took quite awhile to get moving? Could Barbelith be more like that without the lurking presence of .... ?
I'm mulling those questions. I know that in the old "Perceptions of Bias," thread, where it was Nina who was made--unfairly in my mind--into a kind of stand in for a mode of argumentation, I argued pretty strongly against the old "free market of ideas" canard that all potential perspectives need to be represented in order to make better arguments. I said,
often precisely the opposite is true: you can't have a higher standard of debate if you continually have to rehash weak arguments or ones that have been discredited. E.g., one of the reasons it's wrong to teach Christian-inflected creationism in science classrooms is that, by the same logic, scientists should have to acknowledge and dispute EVERY creation story ever written, which is the Flying Spaghetti Monster argument. Nothing that is recognizeably "science" could be taught in such an atmosphere.
The same problem arises in areas like Women's Studies classes, especially if its an advanced women's studies course, when there's someone who questions the entire premise of the course. While in theory it can seem like a great idea, the effect is often to ensure that the complexity of Women's Studies as discipline can never be explored because the class becomes devoted to reacting to the problem student and defending the course's existence, rather than exploring the [course] content....
Me? My flip was switched more by whoever the asshole Qwik is, who entered the feminism thread on page 1, dove us immediately into an "Andrea-Dworkin-hates-yer-porkin' " level of discourse ("but I have a lovely wife!")...sucking us into a maelstrom of stupidity and blundering that it took pages to recover from, and he never came back to even attempt to respond.
I take on board everything that Haus has said, that MC has said, esp. about SS's "non-engagement engagement," the possibility that he's just a troll, but that Qwik asshole dropped a fucking a-bomb and walked away, no apology, nothing, possibly never even read the thread. (Does he post somewhere else on the 'Lith?) That's the action that puts me into "airlock" mode.
Again, I really don't want my words to be taken as some kind of policy-agenda. Years of dealing with students like S. who I can't readily "ban" from my classroom or cease teaching have pushed me into modes of behavior that serve one context but may not serve equally in this one. I accept that, and am listening to your voices. |
