These include stuff from DW, and this will be cross-posted.
On DW, responding to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trixtah on aquaeri's journal. They were talking about deliberately arbitrary names for different groups in a discussion, and I got back into larger questions of whether the groups were meaningful, and people taking sides on things, with specific reference to RaceFail but not limited to that:
But it seems to me that a lot of the underlying problem here is unexamined assumptions: primarily, unexamined assumptions about race (in this specific case) and other societal categories (because while much of this discussion is about white feminists, neither sf nor other forms of literature have always or even recently done well with regard to gender, diability, class, or sexual orientation.
If I may generalize and likely overgeneralize, I think there are at least two problems here: one is people who actually are prejudiced, and are defending prejudiced attitudes because they believe them. That's a problem, and not one that can be solved just by pointing out that there are no black characters in X's work, or that all the gays in Y's are cardboard villains. Or, at best, we can see that we don't want to read X or Y, but X or Y won't see it as a reason to change. [Obviously, if we're talking about writers from the past, nothing will get them to change; what we think of Dickens or Heinlein is a different issue.]
The other thing is that humans—and science fiction fans, media and print alike, are not an exception here—have a preference for the familiar. Not only, or entirely: most people want some degree of novelty, and someone who eats the same thing for breakfast every morning, even when traveling, may enjoy new music. But there's often an emotional "I like this, I don't want you to change it," even when the person thinking that recognizes a flaw: they're mildly allergic to a favored dessert, this book really does have problematic attitudes, that show is claiming to be in a mixed future but all the characters act and talk like white Americans, that relative or friend is mistreating them. Sometimes it's that there really are things they like about something: the flavor here and now versus the health problems hours or years later, the puns or tight plotting or sympathetic lead character, the pleasant outings in between fights or demands for money. And sometimes it's just that something—Star Wars or potato chips or an abusive relative—is woven into their lives, or was part of their growing up.
I suspect that, some of the time, it would be useful to distinguish between (a) zie is defending bigoted work X because zie shares those prejudices (b) zie is defending it because zie hasn't noticed the problem (which can shade into A, but often doesn't (c) zie is unhappy about being told "you/we need to change this" and (d) how dare you attack my friends!?
Because sometimes the right answer to (d) is "I'm not attacking your friend, I'm pointing out something harmful that they seem to have overlooked," sometimes it's "I know zie's your friend, but they're really messed up on this one issue" (WS's insisting that everything must be about class comes to mind), and once in a while it's "you may want to find better friends." And knowing which is which is useful, if often difficult.
I'm not saying it's our job to know which is which, I'm saying that if one does notice which is going on, it can be useful. I sat out of one bit of RaceFail this winter because it was so obviously "how dare you all say unkind things about the person I love?" that there seemed no point in trying to convince the poster of anything at that point.
To someone who said they were likely to either delete or friends-lock their entire journal:
Take care of yourself. I hope things are better soon.
And you don't owe anyone your life as entertainment.
To piranha on DW, who was talking about choosing vocabulary that doesn't insult disabled people or carry assumptions zie doesn't like :
I don't know if this is even indirectly spun off the Wiscon panel discussion, but in that conversation, someone (maybejesse_the_k?) pointed out that a crutch is a good thing: it's not the problem, it's part of a solution, or can be. Yes, the metaphor is about overreliance or laziness, but we should reclaim the concept of a crutch: it's a tool that helps people get places or do things when they otherwise might not be able to. (From a certain angle, most tools are such: if it's reasonable to use an automobile for mobility, why not a couple of shaped pieces of wood?)
hobbitbabe was talking about gender, perceived androgyny, self-image, and attraction:
I'm not transgendered, so I may not be the best person to comment on this, but it seems to me that there's a difference between "I have noticed that many/most of the people I'm attracted are either relatively 'feminine' men or relatively 'masculine' women" and talking about the physical appeal of either transgendered people (who can, like cisgendered people, fall anywhere on that spectrum) or labeling all and only transgendered people as transgressive, and implying that transgendered people are trying to be transgressive.
Apropos of very little, I got irritated atbudhist_milf on ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
polyamory arguing in favor of breast-feeding because it's "natural" and formula isn't (rather than, say, because it passes along antibodies, or because she had enjoyed nursing an infant):
Referring to things as "natural" says more about the speaker than about the things. Hemlock, strychnine, and arsenic are as natural as fresh fruit and solar energy.
It is true that as a species, we evolved to breast-feed. It is true that, when the mother can do so with reasonable ease and comfort, breast-feeding is a very healthy choice. Not all women can do so, and it's more natural to feed your baby formula than to let it starve if you can't nurse.
Your life, and mine, are full of artifice—things made by craft and skill. I know this because we are communicating using a variety of artificial devices: the internet does not grow on trees, and while energy does, electricity doesn't.
On DW, responding to
trixtah on aquaeri's journal. They were talking about deliberately arbitrary names for different groups in a discussion, and I got back into larger questions of whether the groups were meaningful, and people taking sides on things, with specific reference to RaceFail but not limited to that:But it seems to me that a lot of the underlying problem here is unexamined assumptions: primarily, unexamined assumptions about race (in this specific case) and other societal categories (because while much of this discussion is about white feminists, neither sf nor other forms of literature have always or even recently done well with regard to gender, diability, class, or sexual orientation.
If I may generalize and likely overgeneralize, I think there are at least two problems here: one is people who actually are prejudiced, and are defending prejudiced attitudes because they believe them. That's a problem, and not one that can be solved just by pointing out that there are no black characters in X's work, or that all the gays in Y's are cardboard villains. Or, at best, we can see that we don't want to read X or Y, but X or Y won't see it as a reason to change. [Obviously, if we're talking about writers from the past, nothing will get them to change; what we think of Dickens or Heinlein is a different issue.]
The other thing is that humans—and science fiction fans, media and print alike, are not an exception here—have a preference for the familiar. Not only, or entirely: most people want some degree of novelty, and someone who eats the same thing for breakfast every morning, even when traveling, may enjoy new music. But there's often an emotional "I like this, I don't want you to change it," even when the person thinking that recognizes a flaw: they're mildly allergic to a favored dessert, this book really does have problematic attitudes, that show is claiming to be in a mixed future but all the characters act and talk like white Americans, that relative or friend is mistreating them. Sometimes it's that there really are things they like about something: the flavor here and now versus the health problems hours or years later, the puns or tight plotting or sympathetic lead character, the pleasant outings in between fights or demands for money. And sometimes it's just that something—Star Wars or potato chips or an abusive relative—is woven into their lives, or was part of their growing up.
I suspect that, some of the time, it would be useful to distinguish between (a) zie is defending bigoted work X because zie shares those prejudices (b) zie is defending it because zie hasn't noticed the problem (which can shade into A, but often doesn't (c) zie is unhappy about being told "you/we need to change this" and (d) how dare you attack my friends!?
Because sometimes the right answer to (d) is "I'm not attacking your friend, I'm pointing out something harmful that they seem to have overlooked," sometimes it's "I know zie's your friend, but they're really messed up on this one issue" (WS's insisting that everything must be about class comes to mind), and once in a while it's "you may want to find better friends." And knowing which is which is useful, if often difficult.
I'm not saying it's our job to know which is which, I'm saying that if one does notice which is going on, it can be useful. I sat out of one bit of RaceFail this winter because it was so obviously "how dare you all say unkind things about the person I love?" that there seemed no point in trying to convince the poster of anything at that point.
To someone who said they were likely to either delete or friends-lock their entire journal:
Take care of yourself. I hope things are better soon.
And you don't owe anyone your life as entertainment.
To piranha on DW, who was talking about choosing vocabulary that doesn't insult disabled people or carry assumptions zie doesn't like :
I don't know if this is even indirectly spun off the Wiscon panel discussion, but in that conversation, someone (maybe
jesse_the_k?) pointed out that a crutch is a good thing: it's not the problem, it's part of a solution, or can be. Yes, the metaphor is about overreliance or laziness, but we should reclaim the concept of a crutch: it's a tool that helps people get places or do things when they otherwise might not be able to. (From a certain angle, most tools are such: if it's reasonable to use an automobile for mobility, why not a couple of shaped pieces of wood?)hobbitbabe was talking about gender, perceived androgyny, self-image, and attraction:I'm not transgendered, so I may not be the best person to comment on this, but it seems to me that there's a difference between "I have noticed that many/most of the people I'm attracted are either relatively 'feminine' men or relatively 'masculine' women" and talking about the physical appeal of either transgendered people (who can, like cisgendered people, fall anywhere on that spectrum) or labeling all and only transgendered people as transgressive, and implying that transgendered people are trying to be transgressive.
Apropos of very little, I got irritated at
budhist_milf on polyamory arguing in favor of breast-feeding because it's "natural" and formula isn't (rather than, say, because it passes along antibodies, or because she had enjoyed nursing an infant):Referring to things as "natural" says more about the speaker than about the things. Hemlock, strychnine, and arsenic are as natural as fresh fruit and solar energy.
It is true that as a species, we evolved to breast-feed. It is true that, when the mother can do so with reasonable ease and comfort, breast-feeding is a very healthy choice. Not all women can do so, and it's more natural to feed your baby formula than to let it starve if you can't nurse.
Your life, and mine, are full of artifice—things made by craft and skill. I know this because we are communicating using a variety of artificial devices: the internet does not grow on trees, and while energy does, electricity doesn't.
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