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General Headshop reflections

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12:44 / 24.05.06

2stepfan wrote here:

Forums I scarcely dare poke my nose in for fear of having it ripped off are principally Head Shop and Switchboard

As a Headshop mod and (sometimes) one of the more prolific posters there, I'd be interested to know more about your perceptions of the Headshop - in particular, if you have time, links to the kinds of things that make you think your head is in danger of being ripped off (rather than expanded/exploded).

I've heard people say that they find the Headshop scary because of the very high value that's placed on clarity of expression and, in particular, because (imo, though I may not be expressing this quite rightly) it's a place with slightly academic standards - there's a general feeling that we're not just having a conversation out of our own resources/heads/opinions, but engaging with subjects as they've already been constituted and thought about by other people, so research and references are expected to a much greater extent than in Spectacle fora and the Conversation. Some older threads that discuss this are here and here.

I can see why that might be scary, but I've never really thought of the Headshop as one of the more aggressive fora. That may just be me, though.

Beyond this particular question and answer, I'd like this to become a thread for general meta-discussion about how the Head Shop is going, as and when it becomes necessary (a companion thread to the current Music, Lab and G&G threads, I suppose).

For the sake of full disclosure (or something), I should say that in general my answer to the question 'what's wrong with the Headshop?' atm is 'Me': I'd like the threads to be a little more focussed and a lot quicker-moving, but since I've been contributing absolutely fuck-all for God knows how long, I have not one single leg to stand on.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

13:35 / 24.05.06

The discussions in there don't really interest me at the moment, I have no clue what the 'life-life' one is about, and I can't think of anything to start a discussion on. It's that last point that's the kicker, if I thought of something I'd start it no matter how stupid or ill-formed it was, I have no interest in this negative opinion that some people have put forward of it being a place for high-powered brain-snark...

Reclaim Barbelith!
Under the Head Shop, the beach!
(Well, technically, 'under the Head Shop, the Laboratory', but youknowwhatImean...)

Disco is My Class War

14:55 / 24.05.06

I'd be happy if there were more fast-moving threads and less of an academic feel about the Head Shop. I've said this before (I think) but you don't have to be an academic or be interested in anything academic to contribute to HS discussions. You just have to be prepared to debate things, and when one is challenged to think in more complex ways, to take up that challenge. (Much the same as the other threads.) I like how the 'Stupid theory questions' thread has made it a policy to carefully explain the vocabularies Head Shop posters use.

I also don't contribute threads or posts to the Head Shop nearly enough, and would like to do more, but at the moment I'm treating Barbelith as a sanitarium for my overly-taxed brain. Which means, I'm mostly silly and mostly in the Conversation at the moment. (As silly as I get, anyhow.)

And the Life-life thread -- that poster has been asked in a friendly way to explain hirself more fully. I really wish ze would. Barbelith is not the place to get essay style answers to essay questions. People musing on one's theoretical problems, yes.... But answers to essay questions, no.

17:15 / 24.05.06

I haven't been posting much in HS either, because I am so unfamiliar with the current thread topics I haven't anything to say. I think another factor is the various more philosophical debates elsewhere, like the freedom/determinism in the temple for example- if I'm getting my debate fix elsewhere I turn to HS less often. For weeks I've looked at it occasionally to keep up, out of a sense of mod-responsibility mostly, but don't have anything to contribute. I don't want to start posting for the sake of it, and I was hoping that the new influx of people would start a load of threads I could join but it seems not to have happened.

ORA ORA ORA ORAAAA!!

03:53 / 28.05.06

The HS, to me, looks really scary. A lot of the issues involved are so complex that a tiny misunderstanding at a low level can make you look like a complete prat, or someone who things the gays should all be locked into their own special dancing clubs and not talk to the straights, or whatever.

But that's always going to be a problem when you're dealing with identity issues, and cultural studies. It's easy to fall into just-very-slightly lazy thinking and then look back and realise you've been a horrible terrible excuse for a human being, in other people's eyes.

So that's a bit frightening.

But it's not something that can be changed, exactly, because it's an inherent part of IP and CS (erm, not the just-very-slightly lazy thinking, the ability to be a total prat without at all meaning to, etc)

Philosophy, similarly, has many opportunities for looking like a fool, but is less likely to result in someone accidentally being a bigot (or having their inherent bigoted-ness revealed).

I often have things I'd like to ask the HS (but I couldn't for the life of me give an example right now), but I often feel like I couldn't hold up the required standard of discourse. This may be the same fear that people have of the application process here, it's hard to engage until you are already engaged.

Anyway, most of this boils down to me being more worried about accidentally dismissing entire chunks of humanity, or being exposed for an ignorant fool, than I am interested in rectifying these (I'd like to hope imaginary) conditions. Which is problematic, but it's a problem for me, rather than the HS.

Also in general posting here is kind of intimidating, but it's brought to a much clearer focus in the Headshop.

04:45 / 28.05.06

You could try the 'Stupid Theory Questions' thread for things you'd like to ask, but worry fall short of the accepted level of discourse. Some STQ posts spin-off into new threads, and its a pretty non-threatening way to get into Head Shop discussion. I hope this doesn't sound patronising; it's not meant to.

I used to post in the Shop heaps, but lately I've been self-consciously trying to decompress my head, so I hardly look in there these days.

11:54 / 28.05.06

[offtopica]

It's nice to see you around in the other fora, though, JS - I know when I'm trying to 'make myself' post to the Headshop I end up not posting anywhere, because I should be posting good crunchy stuff in HS or Books and then I get guilty about posting anything else, and then omg.

[/offtopica]

I'd like the HeadShop to be generally quite low-snark and benefit-of-the-doubt-y, I think, but without losing the rigour and the willingness to really get into the assumptions and issues and conversations that need to be had. I don't know if that's possible.

I wonder if one of the problems is that the best threads are often those where people are making themselves quite vulnerable, and actively wanting to work on themselves/their heads. And that's difficult to do unless you've developed a level of trust of the other posters. Quite a high level. And you can't develop that without posting.

10:40 / 29.05.06

I wonder if one of the problems is that the best threads are often those where people are making themselves quite vulnerable, and actively wanting to work on themselves/their heads. And that's difficult to do unless you've developed a level of trust of the other posters. Quite a high level. And you can't develop that without posting.

Yes. I am a frequent visitor to HS but the above definitely reflects the way I often feel about HS posting.

Additionally, though, I need to own my slothfulness. I am actually quite willing to put myself out there and be vulnerable once in a while. However, I know that one way to take the edge off this vulnerability is to support ideas with evidence from other places*. And because I'm in the middle of other study, all of my 'well-conceived-thoroughly-corroborated-argument' energy is going in that direction - there isn't much left over for posting here.

Having said this, over the next few months I will need to start thinking about research etc and will be looking for places where I can put out new baby shoots of cultural ideas for discussion with other interested and critically-minded people. Headshop seems like that kind of place - is it? And out of interest, does anyone here have experience as using online debate as a taking-off point for doing academic work (not by appropriating the discussion, but more just as a less-formal place for collaborative thinking)? Any Barbe-ethics I'd need to keep in mind? [This last is here because it's something I've been wondering about HS in particular, but it could be more of a new thread - please let me know if so.]

* possibly because doing so makes a post that is less 'all about me' and more 'this is a cultural strand of experience that I have noticed'?

11:02 / 29.05.06

Any Barbe-ethics I'd need to keep in mind?

That's interesting. I don't think we've ever had to figure that out, actually: I've certainly used Barbelith discussions in my academic work, both informally and formally (I cited Nick's 'Fictive Body' essay in an academic piece [which is still waiting to see the light of day, five years on, btw, Nick - I'll let you know if it ever comes out]), and I think there's a few posters in the Headshop (and elsewhere) who use it to kick around ideas related to their academic and/or professional work. I don't think any ethical problems have come up as yet, but it might be an idea to check...

11:17 / 29.05.06

it might be an idea to check...
The main thought I'm having here is for participants in the thread to understand what they are participating in. So I'm thinking I could add something into the thread summary, or I could start an exploratory thread here when the time comes. Or both.

Disco is My Class War

15:13 / 29.05.06

Headshop seems like that kind of place - is it? And out of interest, does anyone here have experience as using online debate as a taking-off point for doing academic work (not by appropriating the discussion, but more just as a less-formal place for collaborative thinking)?

I don't reckon there's much need for discussion of ethical questions. But it's lovely to say why you want to discuss something, and maybe to report back on the solutions you found to particular questions. I've had great success with talking through research ideas/problems in the HS. Thanks to modern maenad and her friend Jamie, I got inspired to make my own research website -- et voila, it's helping me quite a lot.

(That's the sort of thing one should report back on. Hmmm. Off to find the thread, then.)

Goodness Gracious Meme

18:35 / 30.05.06

(off topic: does *everyone* know Jamie? I don't, but a friend has been prodding me to get in touch/read his stuff for a while now)

09:09 / 31.05.06

I know Jamie.

Disco is My Class War

12:07 / 31.05.06

Heh.

He should so join Barbelith.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:44 / 01.06.06

I've said this before (I think) but you don't have to be an academic or be interested in anything academic to contribute to HS discussions. You just have to be prepared to debate things, and when one is challenged to think in more complex ways, to take up that challenge.

I definitely agree with this. I think at some point in the last couple of years the idea developed that posts in the Head Shop needed to be "academic" (itself a deeply nebulous and problematic term) rather than "personal" (but the person is academical! - or something...). This strikes me as another one of those shorthands that seemed (and probably was) really useful at the time, because it's a simple concept to understand, but which has created its own problem (another example of a 'shorthand' being the idea of describing things-which-Barbelith-does-not-tolerate as things which are "offensive").

My memory is that this happened as a way to try to discourage a certain style of posting that used to crop up fairly regularly: there would be a Head Shop thread about, say, homosexuality and social structures among the British middle classes, which was going somewhere interesting and culture-theoretical, or historical, and then someone would write a very long post about "my gay friends and I" or "how I don't judge people on that basis" - totally out of left-field, giving every indication that they hadn't read the thread itself or just didn't have any interest in the discussion that had developed.

But in fact, there are lots of ways to talk about one's own experience, or one's own thoughts as they occur to you, which do address the discussion, respond to existing posts, and add value to the thread. Equally it has been shown that it is perfectly possible to post impenetrable references to Batty, The Loos and Gittery which don't do any of those things.

11:28 / 01.06.06

I think that Head Shop is for the people who post there a precious flower, though sadly one which is a little poisonous for me personally. I think the point about academic citation is a quite serious one; it looks to me like the people in HS have serious academic chops and deep knowledge.

However, I think it's possible that the very erudition which powers the HS contributes to its forbidding nature; I think it's not unfair to characterise HS as a "full-body-contact" intellectual contest. I think this crosses over into causticity - a personal coolness and judgementalism, combined with a little arrogance. There's a fair bit of unsupported assertion combined with vitriol in there which is unattractive but scarcely unknown in adstruse intellectual circles.

However - and I think this is crucial - I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, and if it is, I don't think it's necessarily something to worry about. Barbelith is what is and HS especially so. HS should perhaps be comfortable with identifying itself as being primarily for the intellectual hardcore, and unforgiving with it, outside of the designated "101" threads.

To argue by comparison, I wouldn't want Temple to go unpoliced by people like Gypsy or Haus or it would risk being capsized by inane half digested occultnik drivel. Sometimes patronisation is just what these people need.

While I think HS goes a bit too far this way, I would much rather it stays as it is rather than lose its edge. Of course, it's possible that too much edginess may be perceived as being a cause of other issues - low traffic, slow responses, low interest. But I don't know what the numbers are like so I wouldn't speculate.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:38 / 01.06.06

But in fact, there are lots of ways to talk about one's own experience, or one's own thoughts as they occur to you, which do address the discussion, respond to existing posts, and add value to the thread. Equally it has been shown that it is perfectly possible to post impenetrable references to Batty, The Loos and Gittery which don't do any of those things.

Absolutely. There is absolutely no problem with somebody drawing from their personal experience in the Head Shop, and many of our most valued posts and posters have done so extensively. It's like the idea that you aren't "allowed" to be emotional in the Head Shop - what is not encouraged is the substitution of emotion, or personal experience, for engagement with the subject or with other posters. This often takes the form either of a lengthy rendition of episodes from one's own life, without any attempt to tie that in to the subject under discussion, or a variant form in which it is stated early that nobody is allowed to disagree with what they are about to say, because of some autobiographical feature of theirs, followed by a sseriesof offten contentious statements.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:40 / 01.06.06

I think it's not unfair to characterise HS as a "full-body-contact" intellectual contest. I think this crosses over into causticity - a personal coolness and judgementalism, combined with a little arrogance. There's a fair bit of unsupported assertion combined with vitriol in there which is unattractive but scarcely unknown in adstruse intellectual circles.

I have no idea what you're basing this on, 2stepfan, so I'm not sure how we could as a board respond to it. I mean, it's an unsupported assertion, which makes personal attacks on unnamed Head Shop regulars, and sweepign statements about "abstruse intellectual circles". Where does one go with that?

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:04 / 01.06.06

2stepfan, I appreciate you've been very complimentary about other fora on Barbelith and in a way you probably think you're being complimentary about the Head Shop too. But this is the third time you've said quite provocative and arguably negative things about the Head Shop - on previous occasions it's been in passing and so I can understand why you might have wanted not to elaborate further and instead downplayed your views. But this is a thread about the Head Shop itself. Causticity, vitrol and even a little arrogance aren't grievous sins in my book unless they're unwarranted, but if you think there is "judgementalism", and "a fair bit of unsupported assertion" there, you need to say where.

13:13 / 01.06.06

2stepfan, can you point to any examples of unsupported assertion combined with vitriol? I'm not trying to say they don't exist, it's just that I really haven't noticed them.* But my pattern of interaction with the forum is bound to be very different from yours and I may be missing something.

Am trying to put some coherent words together about the academickalness of the Shop - the thing I like about it, I think, is the value that's placed on posters constructing an argument which cites and explains its sources, whether those sources are 'personal experience' or 1000 Plateaux. It's about showing your working, and being aware that thinking is a collaborative process aimed at elucidating some real thing, as opposed to 'having opinions', which is a way of subordinating the messy alterity and reality of the world to one's personal desire to look clever (or, really, usually cleverer).

*Um, okay, having said which, the top post on the last page of one of the top threads at the moment begins:

Because watching it is a tacit admission that your taste is that bad and your idea of a) sexuality and b) "the sexy" that retarded that you are not only able but willing to use the Red Shoe Diaries as a masturbatory aid?

which is pretty vitriolic (though not really 'unsupported assertion' or, indeed, abstruse). But it's also four years old, and I have a general feeling that the Headshop has become much less 'full-body-contact' in the last couple of years - which may, again, simply be a reflection of my own increasing comfort there.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:24 / 01.06.06

Well, it's also a hypothetical - the "you" in question is not a specific poster, but a hypothetical person who is being degraded by watching the Red Shoe Diaries. It was a response t a specific form of rude contrarianism, also, that we don't have in the Head Shop at present...

13:35 / 01.06.06

I've spoken about this before, and my feeling remains that we possibly put some valuable conrtributers off in the headshop by *appearing* to be forbidding, academic, acerbic or whatever. But I'd really like to go on a bit more than just a feeling (to be fair, it is a complaint I've heard more than once from people who are established members, still...). So is there any chance that we could get people who *do* feel somehow discouraged or intimidated to post in the HS to say something, and perhaps explain why, with the understanding that they won't necessarily be taken to task over this?

(I realise that I'm asking for criticism, and trying to undemine quite valid defences...but the HS regulars are established members who can deal with a a little poke, and I think it is valuable to get an idea of how the HS is perceived.)

13:37 / 01.06.06

Yes, I got the hypothetical 'you' - sorry, I should have made that clear. I do think in this case the vitriolic impression made by the post is vastly increased by the fact that it's the first thing you see when you click on the last page to look at the new, post-bump, 2006 content. Also, people may not be carefully reading the post's context - a longish discussion of the Red Shoe Diaries with (I think?) a now-departed poster - since the thread was bumped in order to take the discussion in a slightly different direction. So I kind of file it under 'ah, what can you do'.

All Acting Regiment

14:22 / 01.06.06

Just a thought. We don't like anecdotes in the headshop, do we? I'm fairly sure we don't, anyway. What strikes me, however, is that some people who haven't been lucky enough to read the books or learn the knowledge might be better able to relate to certain "hard" topics if they can link them to things in their own life. I know I've felt like that at times. But then, anecdotes can get messy/selfish...

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:31 / 01.06.06

We don't like anecdotes in the headshop, do we? I'm fairly sure we don't, anyway.

See, where did this come from? I don't think anecdotes are a problem. I think they become a problem when either a) they're used to justify spurious generalisations or dodgy attitudes ("I know that chavs exist and are scum because of the time I got mugged"), or b) when they have nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

17:30 / 01.06.06

Yes, I certainly did think I was being complimentary about Head Shop

. I'm sorry if the praise isn't sufficiently fulsome or unequivocal; it was certainly sincere. To reiterate - I don't think that the fact that I don't like Head Shop's style, or that it has a particular style, is necessarily a problem. In fact it could be a strength.

I don't know if I'd want to point to particular posts; I don't have time right now - kids to put to bed etc. - and I wouldn't want to offend or embarass anyone. I may do it over PM.

But FWIW I've formed an impression of Head Shop over a number of years; this isn't a knee jerk reaction. It's always looked pretty rough to me. Importantly, I think others here have expressed a similar sentiment.

Disco is My Class War

02:26 / 02.06.06

2stepfan, couldja wouldja pretty please supply some examples of what you mean? It would help a lot to know what 'roughness' you're talking about.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

03:32 / 02.06.06

Just a thought. We don't like anecdotes in the headshop, do we? I'm fairly sure we don't, anyway.

I'm pretty sure I've seen that expressed before, too. Maybe, as Fly says above, it was a couple of years ago, but I almost definitely remember reading that anecdotes were unwelcome.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:13 / 02.06.06

2stepfan, don't do it over PM. If you're not willing to back up criticisms of a forum in the thread devoted to discussing that forum, then don't post those criticisms in that thread - and don't then passive-aggressively play down your criticisms as being something other than criticisms.

09:49 / 02.06.06

Flyboy, I don't think I am being passive-aggressive. I'm trying to express a balanced view of HS: I don't like some aspects of that forum but I recognise what I perceive to be its strengths and its value nevertheless. In fact I've tried quite hard to be fair, reasonable and polite. I'm sorry I don't have time right now to pull out examples that will satisfy you, but it's an honest opinion.

Give me a break fella. I'm feeling intimidated by you.

All Acting Regiment

16:11 / 02.06.06

I'm pretty sure I've seen that expressed before, too. Maybe, as Fly says above, it was a couple of years ago, but I almost definitely remember reading that anecdotes were unwelcome.

Hmm. I think probably because it's very easy for anecdotes to lead to the kind of nastiness Fly talks about...

*

17:34 / 02.06.06

Here's a thread in Headshop that I think went well. The original poster was nervous about being taken as advancing prejudice. She overcame her nervousness and posted with bravery, and with a fairly unformulated jumping-off point. I have to admit that my first kneejerk response was to feel like there was some underlying prejudice there, and I felt not entirely comfortable with my decision not to address that, but I think it took the thread in a more productive direction. Haus says in this thread nobody needs to have a totally worked-out question before they hit something, and I think that's a good example of the apparently most Headshoppy of the Headshop being pretty laid back about intellectual rigor. I mean, it is a discussion forum, not a baccalaureate exam.

And here's an example of me being a jackass. Which, I might add, I felt inclined to do because I was irritated at the poster above me, I felt personally affronted because I thought ze was making sweeping assertions about a discipline which has actually been a help to me and others I know, and because I was in Headshop, where I thought (in that particular moment) that I had a right to inflict snark upon people who didn't measure up to my standard of argument. I rethought that position immediately after acting upon it. However, it may be worth thinking about why I might've had that idea. ("Because entity's just an arrogant prick" is a valid position.) At any rate, incidents like this may well make people feel insecure posting there, and I think that's a bit of a loss. It means we hear the same voices over and over, and these are mostly the voices of people privileged to have the kind of education which makes them feel at home with this particular form of having their ideas challenged.

So, I have just praised Headshop, and also criticised some aspect of it. Both my praise and my criticism are sincere.

*

17:45 / 02.06.06

Also, I continue to be a jackass further on in that thread, despite having regretted it the first time around. The second time my jackassery is more persistent.

Regrettable Juvenilia

20:58 / 02.06.06

I can't see any jackassery on your part by following that link, entity.

21:07 / 02.06.06

well, the F word was used.

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