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May. 2nd, 2007 11:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaI don't normally engage in online debates anymore. Especially in my journal, which at times in the past has more resembled a battleground than a place for private reflection. I've explained why i've made this shift at length -- whatever objection anyone could come up with i've already heard and answered a dozen times, and the rancorous tone often intimidates people into silence who might otherwise offer input. These days, i'd much rather hear from the quiet reflective types.
I've always been afraid that unless i actively encourage dissent, i'll curl in on myself into a world of self-important navel-gazing and intellectual auto-eroticism.
But, if anything, my ability to analyze and understand and see the bigger picture has only increased since i stopped seeking out any form of online debate. The thing is, online debate tends towards cavil. Cavil: this is a good word. Look it up, study it. There are times when a discussion is enhanced by drawing down from generalities into specifics. Other times a discussion is not, especially when the "specifics" being focused on are aside from the original point being made.
So, i will tend to avoid engaging in the sorts of arguments that i just know from experience are going to devolve into cavil orgies. OTOH there are things that once said cannot be left unchallenged, even if i've given the same reply a dozen times to the same overworked talking points. So there are times i will participate even though i know in advance what is going to happen -- particularly when opponents of women's or GLBT rights come to advocacy blogs to argue against us.
And sometimes i'm glad i do, because even with the hoary crust and battle-fatigue weighing down my weary soul a glimmer of insight from what opponents are saying sometimes sneaks in, despite my carefully-nurtured protective cynicism. In this case it had to hit me on the head, because it's something i've seen in three different comments in the last two days.
And that insight is this: the people we're arguing against really, truly do feel threatened and bullied by us.
Even in typing this out, i feel an urge to respond with mockery. My first response is, "Isn't it patently ridiculous that they should feel threatened and bullied by us, when they have far more resources on their side? They have law, tradition, religion behind them; churches as old as the Roman Empire; they've thoroughly dominated the Congress, the presidency, the courts since 1980; they have foundations with yearly budgets in the hundreds of millions to advocate against us; they've long had their own networks and universities and tax exemptions... and there they are, on every street corner; there they are picketing us at every turn, there they are outnumbering us and browbeating us and coming to our blogs even, dammit, don't we get to have something to ourselves?"
I do not understand how they can possibly feel bullied and threatened by us. But that is genuinely how they feel. I do have theories about that, but i still just viscerally don't get it. If i could get it i think i could mount a more appropriate, effective, and even compassionate response.
Besides, i think the reality is that they actually are being bullied, but they don't have the courage and awareness to stand up against the people who actually are bullying them.
The first response that comes to mind wouldn't work. To point out how scapegoating of minorities works would require a primer in class consciousness, and consciousness raising requires willingness and time. Besides, it doesn't address the basic fear -- it comes across as patronizing intellectualism.
The second response -- to supplicate ourselves to appear less threatening and different -- won't work either. It doesn't matter how mainstream or kind or gentle we appear, how polite we are when engaging in yet another round of 'dialogue,' they will still be bullied, and we will still be scapegoated.
I'm stumped, but i guess this insight will lead me somewhere eventually.
I've always been afraid that unless i actively encourage dissent, i'll curl in on myself into a world of self-important navel-gazing and intellectual auto-eroticism.
But, if anything, my ability to analyze and understand and see the bigger picture has only increased since i stopped seeking out any form of online debate. The thing is, online debate tends towards cavil. Cavil: this is a good word. Look it up, study it. There are times when a discussion is enhanced by drawing down from generalities into specifics. Other times a discussion is not, especially when the "specifics" being focused on are aside from the original point being made.
So, i will tend to avoid engaging in the sorts of arguments that i just know from experience are going to devolve into cavil orgies. OTOH there are things that once said cannot be left unchallenged, even if i've given the same reply a dozen times to the same overworked talking points. So there are times i will participate even though i know in advance what is going to happen -- particularly when opponents of women's or GLBT rights come to advocacy blogs to argue against us.
And sometimes i'm glad i do, because even with the hoary crust and battle-fatigue weighing down my weary soul a glimmer of insight from what opponents are saying sometimes sneaks in, despite my carefully-nurtured protective cynicism. In this case it had to hit me on the head, because it's something i've seen in three different comments in the last two days.
And that insight is this: the people we're arguing against really, truly do feel threatened and bullied by us.
Even in typing this out, i feel an urge to respond with mockery. My first response is, "Isn't it patently ridiculous that they should feel threatened and bullied by us, when they have far more resources on their side? They have law, tradition, religion behind them; churches as old as the Roman Empire; they've thoroughly dominated the Congress, the presidency, the courts since 1980; they have foundations with yearly budgets in the hundreds of millions to advocate against us; they've long had their own networks and universities and tax exemptions... and there they are, on every street corner; there they are picketing us at every turn, there they are outnumbering us and browbeating us and coming to our blogs even, dammit, don't we get to have something to ourselves?"
I do not understand how they can possibly feel bullied and threatened by us. But that is genuinely how they feel. I do have theories about that, but i still just viscerally don't get it. If i could get it i think i could mount a more appropriate, effective, and even compassionate response.
Besides, i think the reality is that they actually are being bullied, but they don't have the courage and awareness to stand up against the people who actually are bullying them.
The first response that comes to mind wouldn't work. To point out how scapegoating of minorities works would require a primer in class consciousness, and consciousness raising requires willingness and time. Besides, it doesn't address the basic fear -- it comes across as patronizing intellectualism.
The second response -- to supplicate ourselves to appear less threatening and different -- won't work either. It doesn't matter how mainstream or kind or gentle we appear, how polite we are when engaging in yet another round of 'dialogue,' they will still be bullied, and we will still be scapegoated.
I'm stumped, but i guess this insight will lead me somewhere eventually.
this is how I see it:
Date: 2007-05-02 07:42 pm (UTC)The "conservative" right IS being bullied by the New York Times White Liberal Mainstream. Instead of understanding that this is a shell game, they strike back at the minorities that these "liberals" claim to be speaking for.
The Neo-Conservatives are getting back at the NYTWLM and that's why the heartland populists still support them. Unfortunately that's their excuse to go after their real targets, us.
And we do scare them, because our inevitable liberation reduces their privilege. The NYTWLM tries to contain this in a more "good cop" patronizing way, the Neo-Conservatives go on the attack.