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What I don't much care for is what looks like on-line bullying. Regardless of how dreadful poster X's opinions are, it seems, to me anyway, always worth remembering that poster X is perhaps a lonely guy stuck in a bedroom, possibly his mother's, whose opinions are unlikely to be changed courtesy of a pasting on Barbelith. That if anything, they'll be hardened.
Okay, this might offer a handy jumping-on point for some reasoned engagment, were one actually up for it. The problem with this stance is that it assumes that re-educating the "lonely guy stuck in a bedroom" is the tip-top priority, one which trumps all else. I beg to differ. I think posters who offer up dubious material--in Calvin's case, the "my religion is more grown-up than your religion" essay he linked to and his accompanying assertion that Roman Catholicism was the only rational choice for a spiritual path--should be pulled up on it. When challenged what he'd written, Calvin became increasingly hostile, deliberately going out to cause unmitigated effronty and offense with the use of ethnic slurs on the public board and then abusive PMs to Haus and myself, which definately needed to be challenged.
These behaviours need to be challenged not just in the faint hope of changing the posters' veiws, but for the benefit of all the other people who have to read what they've written. I experience genuine irritation with religious intolerance, a genuine distress response when I read racist slurs on the board; neither do I much like being called a twat, a cunt, a fridgid fuckstain of a human being, or having my words dismissed as "wankstains." (Sorry, "WANKSTAINS!")
I think I was reasonably courteous to Calvin under the circs, I certainly did him the courtesy of responding to his arguments with as much clarity as I can muster. When stuff like this happens, it's good to see it being challenged, not just because Poster X might change his ways but because it fucking sucks to have to read it and it's good to have an acknowledgement of that.
If you, AG, are seeing bullying in these kinds of interactions, I think a more productive response would be for you to lay out your concerns in clear and sincere manner. General poking and winding up in this kind of context does not make me think "hmm, perhaps I was too harsh on X, I'll be nicer in future." It makes me think "what the Hell is AG's problem? Why is he defending a guy who's acted like this?"
I'm also seeing the support of Calvins and Calvinesque behaviour framed as a-political. I'm sorry but this is confusing for me; how can one support the intolerant actions of another poster without supporting that intolerance? There are gentler, easier-going, more politically hands-off posters on the board, people who will work pretty hard to come up with more generous interpretations and offer more patient handling than I sometimes can. I respect that, even though it makes me a little impatient at times.
You know what, though? They know when to step off. They can recognise active abuse when they see it, and don't need to try and undermine the people challenging it.
I'd also point out that the "I don't like bullying, that's all" position is only relevant wrt situations involving material generated by posters on the board. In situations where the material under discussion originates elsewhere and no board member is under scrutiny, telling people that [prejudice] is not being expressed or is not important for whatever reason could be mistaken, by an ungenerous reader, as originating with a certain sneaking sympathy for [prejudice]. |
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