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I'm in a tricky position here, because I'm going to attempt a limited defence of SS. Its tricky, because I am well aware of his behaviour and the reaction he causes, and this does put me somewhat at odds with MC and others. And I am thinking about Qalyn's point about principle too, though I'm not sure which particular examples he has in mind. So maybe I'm being an apologist for sexism on Barbelith, but I think I'd rather be wrong and be argued down than just keep silent. (I'm also something of a contrarian and the hostility that Ganesh has been facing makes me feel that there is some value in this.)
So, lets start with Shadow Sax's misogyny. I agree that he is sexist, and I think that one can call him a misogynist, though the application of this label seems to me to be a touch more complicated than people are allowing for. That is, I don't find it at all implausible that he is being entirely sincere when he says he loves women and that there may well be women who agree with him. His attitudes on rape and feminist and gender politics *are* offensive, but they aren't exclusively held by men. I have no real idea how widespread his views would be amongst women, but not entirely non-existent would be my guess. I've personally heard women argue that feminism has "gone too far" and whatever else you may think about that, it raises the possibility that SS may be causing his disruptions more because of his politics than his universal hatred of women (though, admittedly, there is an overlap). Would a cultural conservative, with mainstream conservative views on homosexuality, women, immigration and war, say, be banned for expressing those views on Barbelith? This is not a rhetorical question, by the way, nor do I think the answer is clear cut, though I do think that there is a tendency to frame these debates as apolitical which I'd like to confront.
This brings me to my next point which is that I can imagine a poster with views similar to SS being able to interact with Barbelith a good deal better, if his social and debating skills were somewhat superior. This is an odd point to make, I realise, since we are talking about SS as is, rather than some hypothetical alternative. But it does make me wonder if the main reason we are having this discussion is rather more to do with SS being intolerably stupid than simply intolerant. On reflection, though, being stupid with offensive views probably *is* reason enough to ban someone. (I have a mirror position to that of Qalyn, I think, in that I reckon that we ban for taste rather than principle - though its actually much harder to separate the two than people admit - but thats actually essential if you want to allow space for Barbelith to exist.)
Lastly, I think that there is the issue of where we are drawing the line and how clear that line is. I can honestly say that it isn't very clear to me. Leap was just as bad as Shadow Sax, and perhaps a good deal worse yet I don't think he was banned. jbsay (and his comments to Nina) was more obviously over the line than SS, but he never got banned (though I think that if he had stayed, I would have probably pushed for a ban eventually - he may have left when I told him this via PM, btw - though in retrospect I think we should have confronted him more strongly than we did). One thing I do notice about Shadow Sax comments is that they aren't straightforwardly abusive - dedi is more abusive than SS - so one is left with the clear impression of his odious views and his inability to interact intelligently, but the examples of him actually using hate speech are rather less convincing - at least to me. (As with all of this, feel free to point out things I have missed.) More importantly, the point of these comparisons is that it isn't clear what SS has expicitly done to get banned, in terms of pointing to some guideline in the wiki or somesuch. Now, I realise, that Barbelith is re-evaluating certain standards and thats good. But that surely means we need to try and formulate what counts as bannable behaviour and communicate it to newer members as explicitly as possible. Bearing this in mind I think that there is a strong case to be made for issuing a formal warning to Shadow Sax, telling him what the limits of acceptable speech are on Barbelith, and that his continued behaviour will lead to a ban, rather than a simple ban.
In the end, I think he will be banned and that will be a good thing, but dealing with it carefully may be useful for Barbelith as a whole. |
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