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I think that graphic description of violence, or the promotion of violence which originates in hatred of women (or homophobia, or racism) should both be inappropriate on the board, but that to some degree those factors can be analysed separately. Does that leave room for the promotion of violence against individuals not based on their gender, race, or sexuality? Well, I want to say yes here, although that space might not necessarily be very big, and perhaps preferably as small as possible. If we were to take the example of a woman generally detested by (I imagine) a large spectrum of the society, say Baroness Thatcher, that’s someone one could expect to attract expressions of violence not necessarily based on their gender, perhaps still not problematically, and where I think that the graphic description of violence could still be alarming for its own sake.
I’d also be interested in whether we’re more likely to tolerate the promotion of violence against public figures as opposed to fellow board members, though I don’t have an answer on whether we should, because while I suspect we are more likely to generally ignore the former, I’m not sure how we’d really justify that. Both, in slightly different ways, are usually going to be the promotion of actions which are likely never going to happen in real life – not that that necessarily makes them ok.
I’m going to assume for the moment that Yo! was being facetious here, but I was actually genuinely disturbed by Alex’s Grandma’s comments in this thread and the lack of challenge from others in the thread. So the one thing I would want to add is that if people are going to start moderating on the basis of an objection to violence, then that shouldn’t be applied unequally on the basis of their opinion on either the poster or the object of violence. That said, echoing Jack Fear a bit here, I’m sure I’ve made use of “rhetorical vehemence” before, probably more than once, and that leaves an uncomfortable taste of hypocrisy in criticising AG or indeed Mathlete for the same thing. I think Id raised a good point in terms of how a graphic description of violence possibly signifies more than just a sense of anger with a certain person or thing and strays into lurid fantasising, but I’d agree that defining graphic violence might be difficult. I’m much more uncomfortable with descriptions which dwell on violent acts (even if I could sympathise with their motivation), I agree with Id again that it’s not the sort of thing I want to read on Barbelith, than I am with the sort of instant response of *wanting* to make with the facestabbing rather than a prolonged description of it. Though possibly I’ve been guilty of that as well, previously. Certainly I’d agree that the promotion of violence towards either public individuals or other members of the board isn’t a practice that’s appropriate as a general method for interacting with those we disagree with or something that if sustained should be ignored. |
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