It's not Wrong when I do it

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I totally, totally agree on the effects of groupthink, and the way these very insular groups tend to cannibalize. They have already shut avenues of communication with anyone who might disagree with or question them; left with no one to attack who will actually engage with them, they're left to seek targets within their own group. The result is that while they may be highly visible, they are also increasingly marginalized and have a difficult time recruiting new members; for example, the core of the self-identified Atheist movement, which is doing a bang-up job of alienating women and people who may be atheist but are insufficiently antagonistic toward religious people or toward religion itself. Another example is the black community in America, which Jessica, the blogger I linked to earlier, has been tackling in her recent blog posts.

[Cain]

I can't help but wonder if that also has to do with how internet social networking has become a perpetual outrage machine, built on clickbait and manufactured drama.

The end results are broadly the same as groupthink, and it would explain a rational incentive to behave in such a fashion.  Attention becomes clicks becomes discussion becomes clicks becomes advertising revenue and influence.  A lot of this interaction is online, which makes me think that is likely a contributing factor to how this is occuring.  It happens IRL, of course, but in different ways and usually with less speed and viciousness.

Anyway, I found this cartoon on Tumblr, and thought it was relevant:








Which got this reply:

This is well intentioned, I know.

But let me make this clear: YOU do not get to decide whether or not your actions are oppressive. YOU do not get to decide whether or not you are a good ally. YOU benefit from homophobia and heteronormativity and transphobia every single day, whether you want to or not. You benefit from that and it is very likely that you are complicit in those systems without even realizing it. This is normal, but it is true.

If you look at LGBTQIAP+ who don't play nice with you, you don't cry about how mean they are being. For many of us, treating cis hetero people with default distrust is a survival mechanism. You need to understand that. You want to be an ally? Then you don't start crying when the people you want to help don't treat you like a delicate flower.

Being a good ally is listening. Posts like this? Aren't listening. Posts like this are busting onto the stage and trying to make it about you, bargaining for your support.

Which I think rather sums up everything Cainad was saying in the OP in a nice, easy to understand example of how this plays out.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Uuugh yeah standard Tumblr... that's even fairly tame and reasoned, relatively speaking.

"Survival mechanism" is a typical fallback, as if constantly posting "FUCK ALL CISHET PEOPLE" is somehow equivalent to protecting yourself from the kind of people who are a threat to them.

Because as we all know, black people protect themselves from skinheads by screaming "FUCK YOU, HONKEY" at random white people.

[Cain]

Yeah, I mean "survival mechanism"?  Not only is that more than a bit hyperbolic, but it's a misuse of basic psychology, where mechanisms like displacement, repression of memories and similar are actual survival mechanisms.  Furthermore, psychologists and counsellors would probably agree that survival mechanisms, while possibly useful as a child, are terrible behaviour patterns for adults to allow themselves to perpetuate.

But then, most people on tumblr are children, so that's not a major problem.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

So, my objections somewhat expanded in scope as I tried to write out a fuller reply to this.  It became something of a rant against...well, what is called the "Social Justice Warrior" subculture, though I dislike that particular name (I happen to think social justice is a worthy cause, and would rather it not be associated with juvenile nitwits and subaltern extremists).

My first problem could be with what could charitably be called "privilege theory" and how it is deployed.  Despite all the talk about "intersectionality", privilege theory involves taking racially and gender essentialist concepts and weighing them in a perpetual oppression Olympics to discover who is the least privileged by society.

There are a number of issues with that.  First is the concept of "privilege" itself.  It's...not a good word to use.  A lot of what is described as privilege are rights that should be extended to everyone.  In other words, male privilege or white privilege are only bad because they are restricted to whites or males.  However, I've rarely ever seen it put in those terms.  Instead, the way in which privilege is used by those who write about it...well, it's deployed in a very negative context and way, as something to be condemned and avoided.  It suggests any form of advantage is necessarily bad, and the people who have it should feel bad, and while that may not always be explicitly stated, it is in some quarters.

The second problem is the gender and race essentialism that accompanies this.  There are often strong, if frequently unspoken assumptions about what is considered female or black or asian or similar, and works from the assumption that this identity is, in all social circumstances, the most important determining factor.  The possibility of other factors, such as class, education, religion, sexual identity, political affiliation etc are either erased or, occasionally, fetishised.  As are the possibilities of varying import in different social milieus that make up this vast, incomprehensible beast we call "society".

Intersectionality theory, if correctly deployed, might mitigate against this tendency.  However, intersectionality as it currently exists does nothing more than add reified and naturalized identities into an ahistorical understanding of society.  Furthermore, the way intersectionality is used is inherently divisive, it brings up greater divisions between apparently oppressed groups who have similar goals in aiming for liberation.  Ironically intersectionality therefore becomes a reinforcement tool for racial and gender essentialism, by focusing on those threads of commonality rather than shared commonality of oppression in a late capitalist system which unites those differing genders, racial identities and classes.

When these identities are taken into account, they are often weighted in, shall we say...questionable ways.  In a capitalist society, there is one overriding advantage: capital.  However, when intersectionality is deployed, it often "stacks" identities of oppression in such a way that it would not be hard to conclude that a homeless white man is more "privileged" than Condi Rice, since she is both black and a woman (but is rich).  Identity trumps materiality, despite identity being very much a product of materiality.

So, yeah, privilege theory is, to talk like the yoof of today, "problematic".

Some of the blame for how this has come about can be laid at the feet of Critical Race Theory.  Again, a charitable if questionable (ab)use of that word...theory.  According to La Wiki, CRT is "an academic discipline focused upon the application of critical theory, a critical examination of society and culture, to the intersection of race, law, and power."

CRT was the brainchild of Derrick Bell, an Africa-American academic with a sideline in science fiction stories about white Americans selling blacks to space aliens to pay off the national debt.  Bell pioneered much of what passes as discourse in this circles nowadays, including the concept of "microaggressions".  According to UCLA, where Bell was a professor;

CRT recognizes that racism is engrained in the fabric and system of the American society. The individual racist need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture. This is the analytical lens that CRT uses in examining existing power structures. CRT identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color.

Somewhat ironically, Bell's own name for his theory was "Race Realism".  I wonder if David Duke is aware of this?

Bell believed that it was impossible for blacks to gain full equality in America, due to the essentially racist structure of its society and government: "Black people will never gain full equality in this country. Even those Herculean efforts we hail as successful will produce no more than 'temporary peaks of progress,' short lived victories that slide into irrelevance as racial patterns adapt in ways that maintain white dominance."

Interestingly, Bell was, unlike many African-Americans at the time, not very interested in Marx or socialism in general.  This may explain why his theory managed to gain currency during a period when black/socialist politics were extremely suspect in American society, as it provided a "safe" alternative to the more radical message of Malcolm X and MLK.  It also throws some doubt on what is meant by "critical" in the "critical race theory", as "critical theory" is a Neo-Marxist approach to analysing society and culture.  Of course, it's possible that this meant "critical" in the more general sense, but given "critical theory" has a well known meaning in academia, I do wonder about that name...

The name itself was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who applied CRT's analytical lense to racism more generally, as well as feminism and was critical in the formation of "intersectionality".  She is currently a professor in UCLA's Law School, and studied under Bell.

So, there are a lot of problems with the theoretical background these people draw from.

Onto their behaviour....

One aspect that could explain this is groupthink.  In fact, look at this paragraph:

The member's firm belief in the inherent morality of their group and their use of undifferentiated negative stereotypes of opponents enable them to minimize decision conflicts between ethical values and expediency, especially when they are inclined to resort to violence. The shared belief that "we are a wise and good group" inclines them to use group concurrence as a major criterion to judge the morality as well as the efficacy of any policy under discussion. "Since our group's objectives are good," the members feel, "any means we decide to use must be good." This shared assumption helps the members avoid feelings of shame or guilt about decisions that may violate their personal code of ethical behavior. Negative stereotypes of the enemy enhance their sense of moral righteousness as well as their pride in the lofty mission of the in-group

That's from Irving L. Janis in Victims of Groupthink.  It's almost a perfect description of the kind of behaviour these people engage in.

Being on the internet exacerbates the first symptom of groupthink, the feeling of invulnerability which results both from anonymity and the righteousness of their cause.  The nature of social networking, which allows dissenting voices to be easily excluded conforms to the second symptom or sign, the collective effort to rationalise behaviour.  They stress the righteousness of their cause and stereotype their enemies as unforgivably evil, which justifies the extreme measures taken.  Members are encouraged to stifle disagreement through abuse of the idea of "safe spaces", which creates an illusion of conformity which dissuades some from voicing their doubts (see: Asch conformity experiments).

In some ways, their strategy does work.  Rude and abusive behaviour does polarize readers, often causing a negative reaction to what is being protested against.  Sadly, most people on tumblr and similar are not actually going out of their way to attack actual racists or homophobes or whatever, but instead "allies" who said something which could be misconstrued or was impolitic (but not necessarily offensive or morally reprehensive).

This angry use of language often causes the amygdala to hijack the frontal lobe, making rational thinking harder and exacerbating abusive behaviour.  This is because that language can be seen as threatening, causing us to react in a threatened manner, even where no physical threat exists.  Anthropologists have also described a process of "altruistic punishment" which the brain apparently finds rewarding.

I'm going to go ahead and bump this in case anyone missed it.

I don't have much to add at this point besides a thank you to Cain for putting a lot of this conversation into a historical context.

Also it's good to see people making headway on the topic.

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

 I hafta confess, i was guilty of this as recent as two days ago. A friend of mine had me over to RP. My friend is a registered libertarian, and his wife is a homeschooled Baptist Republican, and after one more Mexican joke than i was fully comfortable with, I busted out and called him a wop dego. Granted, i don't think he'll really hold it against me, but it does bother me that i went there.

[Junkenstein]

Uuugh yeah standard Tumblr... that's even fairly tame and reasoned, relatively speaking.

"Survival mechanism" is a typical fallback, as if constantly posting "FUCK ALL CISHET PEOPLE" is somehow equivalent to protecting yourself from the kind of people who are a threat to them.

Because as we all know, black people protect themselves from skinheads by screaming "FUCK YOU, HONKEY" at random white people.

[Cainad (dec.)]

I hafta confess, i was guilty of this as recent as two days ago. A friend of mine had me over to RP. My friend is a registered libertarian, and his wife is a homeschooled Baptist Republican, and after one more Mexican joke than i was fully comfortable with, I busted out and called him a wop dego. Granted, i don't think he'll really hold it against me, but it does bother me that i went there.

Well, I assume you're talking about in person?

That's at least more earnest than the way Tumblr works, wherein people pull this shit so that they can get Internet high-fives from people who agree with them. The person being told off might as well not even be real (and sometimes they aren't; it's an insanely easy community to troll).

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Which got this reply:

This is well intentioned, I know.

But let me make this clear: YOU do not get to decide whether or not your actions are oppressive. YOU do not get to decide whether or not you are a good ally. YOU benefit from homophobia and heteronormativity and transphobia every single day, whether you want to or not. You benefit from that and it is very likely that you are complicit in those systems without even realizing it. This is normal, but it is true.

If you look at LGBTQIAP+ who don't play nice with you, you don't cry about how mean they are being. For many of us, treating cis hetero people with default distrust is a survival mechanism. You need to understand that. You want to be an ally? Then you don't start crying when the people you want to help don't treat you like a delicate flower.

Being a good ally is listening. Posts like this? Aren't listening. Posts like this are busting onto the stage and trying to make it about you, bargaining for your support.

Communication took place here.  Of a sort.

Let's send this through the translator.

But let me make this clear: YOU do not get to decide whether or not your actions are oppressive. YOU do not get to decide whether or not you are a good ally.

Crawl.  Thanks.

If you look at LGBTQIAP+ who don't play nice with you, you don't cry about how mean they are being. For many of us, treating cis hetero people with default distrust is a survival mechanism. You need to understand that. You want to be an ally? Then you don't start crying when the people you want to help don't treat you like a delicate flower.

We here at Tumbler, etc, will shit on you when you crawl.  If you don't like it, you're a basher.

Being a good ally is listening. Posts like this? Aren't listening. Posts like this are busting onto the stage and trying to make it about you, bargaining for your support.

If you don't like the crawling and the poop, then you aren't an ally.  We here at Tumbler view "allies" the same way George W Bush did; as vassals.



I give the above quote 3 out of 4 Garbos.  The remaining point was lost because CISHET MAN TEARS were not referenced.

[Faust]

This is well intentioned, I know.

But let me make this clear: YOU do not get to decide whether or not your actions are oppressive. YOU do not get to decide whether or not you are a good ally. YOU benefit from homophobia and heteronormativity and transphobia every single day, whether you want to or not. You benefit from that and it is very likely that you are complicit in those systems without even realizing it. This is normal, but it is true.

If you look at LGBTQIAP+ who don't play nice with you, you don't cry about how mean they are being. For many of us, treating cis hetero people with default distrust is a survival mechanism. You need to understand that. You want to be an ally? Then you don't start crying when the people you want to help don't treat you like a delicate flower.

Being a good ally is listening. Posts like this? Aren't listening. Posts like this are busting onto the stage and trying to make it about you, bargaining for your support.

Which I think rather sums up everything Cainad was saying in the OP in a nice, easy to understand example of how this plays out.

I would have absolutely no moral qualms with oppressing whoever wrote that. If anything it is so counter-intuitive and abrasive to the goals of equality it makes me question if those are actually the outputs that person wants, and makes me suspect that it is far more likely looking to perch themselves in some kind of perceived position of moral superiority.

I mean if you put that person and Ramesses the second into a debate on equality, Ramesses II would come out looking like Martin Luther King

[LMNO]

My sister-in-law (and, let's be honest, the majority of my wife's side of the family) is of the racist-not-really-racist-ha-ha-racism-not-really-just-kidding tribe; or as Roger's recently put it, "not racist BUT".  I'm finding it increasingly difficult not to troll the ever-loving shit out of some of her Facebook posts.  Over the weekend, I couldn't help it.  I replied to a post of hers

"I think your account has been hacked, and someone has been posting a lot of racist shit on your wall."


So far, there's been no response.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This is well intentioned, I know.

But let me make this clear: YOU do not get to decide whether or not your actions are oppressive. YOU do not get to decide whether or not you are a good ally. YOU benefit from homophobia and heteronormativity and transphobia every single day, whether you want to or not. You benefit from that and it is very likely that you are complicit in those systems without even realizing it. This is normal, but it is true.

If you look at LGBTQIAP+ who don't play nice with you, you don't cry about how mean they are being. For many of us, treating cis hetero people with default distrust is a survival mechanism. You need to understand that. You want to be an ally? Then you don't start crying when the people you want to help don't treat you like a delicate flower.

Being a good ally is listening. Posts like this? Aren't listening. Posts like this are busting onto the stage and trying to make it about you, bargaining for your support.

Which I think rather sums up everything Cainad was saying in the OP in a nice, easy to understand example of how this plays out.

I would have absolutely no moral qualms with oppressing whoever wrote that. If anything it is so counter-intuitive and abrasive to the goals of equality it makes me question if those are actually the outputs that person wants, and makes me suspect that it is far more likely looking to perch themselves in some kind of perceived position of moral superiority.

I mean if you put that person and Ramesses the second into a debate on equality, Ramesses II would come out looking like Martin Luther King

What I love is that asking to not be called rotten names is "bargaining".

[Junkenstein]

This is well intentioned, I know.

But let me make this clear: YOU do not get to decide whether or not your actions are oppressive. YOU do not get to decide whether or not you are a good ally. YOU benefit from homophobia and heteronormativity and transphobia every single day, whether you want to or not. You benefit from that and it is very likely that you are complicit in those systems without even realizing it. This is normal, but it is true.

If you look at LGBTQIAP+ who don't play nice with you, you don't cry about how mean they are being. For many of us, treating cis hetero people with default distrust is a survival mechanism. You need to understand that. You want to be an ally? Then you don't start crying when the people you want to help don't treat you like a delicate flower.

Being a good ally is listening. Posts like this? Aren't listening. Posts like this are busting onto the stage and trying to make it about you, bargaining for your support.

Which I think rather sums up everything Cainad was saying in the OP in a nice, easy to understand example of how this plays out.

I would have absolutely no moral qualms with oppressing whoever wrote that. If anything it is so counter-intuitive and abrasive to the goals of equality it makes me question if those are actually the outputs that person wants, and makes me suspect that it is far more likely looking to perch themselves in some kind of perceived position of moral superiority.

I mean if you put that person and Ramesses the second into a debate on equality, Ramesses II would come out looking like Martin Luther King

I think there may be something else at play here, in particular some sort of persecution complex and fucked up idea of superiority due to your difference.

As Faust says, many of these people act in ways that will obviously piss most people off. They're not looking for allies, they're looking for attention. "I am X. You are not X. Ergo, I, and I alone can define what is the proper way to treat X. Oh, he's not X, he's just Xa and irrelevant to this discussion. She's Xb so again irrelevant. Only the true X can define appropriate behaviours here."

Part of what makes me think this is the fact that LBGT is now LGBTQIAP+. I'd like to think I'm a fairly progessive chap but I can't say for certain what QIAP+ even is. I'm not even inclined to try and find out because the chances are I probably treat QIAP+ people roughly the way I treat everyone else. Badly.

There's something else here too about the politics of inclusion/exclusion but I need to think about that more. Something along the lines of automatically excluding people from being with you will almost invariably turn them against you, eventually.   

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This is well intentioned, I know.

But let me make this clear: YOU do not get to decide whether or not your actions are oppressive. YOU do not get to decide whether or not you are a good ally. YOU benefit from homophobia and heteronormativity and transphobia every single day, whether you want to or not. You benefit from that and it is very likely that you are complicit in those systems without even realizing it. This is normal, but it is true.

If you look at LGBTQIAP+ who don't play nice with you, you don't cry about how mean they are being. For many of us, treating cis hetero people with default distrust is a survival mechanism. You need to understand that. You want to be an ally? Then you don't start crying when the people you want to help don't treat you like a delicate flower.

Being a good ally is listening. Posts like this? Aren't listening. Posts like this are busting onto the stage and trying to make it about you, bargaining for your support.

Which I think rather sums up everything Cainad was saying in the OP in a nice, easy to understand example of how this plays out.

I would have absolutely no moral qualms with oppressing whoever wrote that. If anything it is so counter-intuitive and abrasive to the goals of equality it makes me question if those are actually the outputs that person wants, and makes me suspect that it is far more likely looking to perch themselves in some kind of perceived position of moral superiority.

I mean if you put that person and Ramesses the second into a debate on equality, Ramesses II would come out looking like Martin Luther King

I think there may be something else at play here, in particular some sort of persecution complex and fucked up idea of superiority due to your difference.

As Faust says, many of these people act in ways that will obviously piss most people off. They're not looking for allies, they're looking for attention. "I am X. You are not X. Ergo, I, and I alone can define what is the proper way to treat X. Oh, he's not X, he's just Xa and irrelevant to this discussion. She's Xb so again irrelevant. Only the true X can define appropriate behaviours here."

So, basically, it's just one elaborate & huge No True Scotsman argument.

Part of what makes me think this is the fact that LBGT is now LGBTQIAP+. I'd like to think I'm a fairly progessive chap but I can't say for certain what QIAP+ even is. I'm not even inclined to try and find out because the chances are I probably treat QIAP+ people roughly the way I treat everyone else. Badly.

Many would like it if you'd take the "A" out.  "A" gets in the way of the histrionic posturing.

There's something else here too about the politics of inclusion/exclusion but I need to think about that more. Something along the lines of automatically excluding people from being with you will almost invariably turn them against you, eventually.

"Immediately."

[Junkenstein]

So, basically, it's just one elaborate & huge No True Scotsman argument.

Well, yes. At least from some from what I've seen.

Many would like it if you'd take the "A" out.  "A" gets in the way of the histrionic posturing.

A:
Asexual?
Alaskan?

I'm going to assume it's one of those and refuse to hear any corrections.