As we discussed, I don't want trans people to turn up here, to a space where certain aspects of trans activism are being challenged, and see language like this. Just as I wouldn't want black people to come here and see people comparing BLM to nazis or women to see feminists being compared…
As we discussed, I don't want trans people to turn up here, to a space where certain aspects of trans activism are being challenged, and see language like this. Just as I wouldn't want black people to come here and see people comparing BLM to nazis or women to see feminists being compared to nazis.
If you're not sure why I think invoking nazism to describe any group of people other than actual nazis stifles productive discourse, I'd be happy to have that conversation. If you think it's unreasonable of me to ask you not to use this word, please tell me where you think I'm going wrong. But otherwise, this kind of rhetoric has no place here. The very last thing I want to be doing is policing language. So please don't make me have to do it.
Contempt is a uniquely self-defeating way of dealing with people. Even people who really are evil. Daryl Davis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw&t=1s), a personal hero of mine, has personally convinced over 200 klan members to leave the KKK. And the people he convinced have done the same for hundreds more. He did this, by turning up at klan rallies, as a black man, and speaking to them calmly and respectfully. If we didn't know he was real, many people would laugh at the idea that this were possible.
Of course, the vast majority of people don't have the stomach for that kind of work. Nobody could criticise them. But I do criticise those who satisfy themselves with the belief that those they disagree with are worthy of contempt. It is impossible to achieve anything at all with this mindset except to deepen divisions. And worst of all, the habits of thinking necessary maintain that mindset hurt the people who practice them.
I've been a big fan of Daryl Davis since I watched "Accidental Courtesy" when it first aired on PBS. Mr. Davis would be dead if he took a confrontationally hostile approach. But he does it in the face-to-face world. I could quote Mike Tyson.
"I promised not to call them transnazis"
And yet...
As we discussed, I don't want trans people to turn up here, to a space where certain aspects of trans activism are being challenged, and see language like this. Just as I wouldn't want black people to come here and see people comparing BLM to nazis or women to see feminists being compared to nazis.
If you're not sure why I think invoking nazism to describe any group of people other than actual nazis stifles productive discourse, I'd be happy to have that conversation. If you think it's unreasonable of me to ask you not to use this word, please tell me where you think I'm going wrong. But otherwise, this kind of rhetoric has no place here. The very last thing I want to be doing is policing language. So please don't make me have to do it.
Contempt is a uniquely self-defeating way of dealing with people. Even people who really are evil. Daryl Davis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw&t=1s), a personal hero of mine, has personally convinced over 200 klan members to leave the KKK. And the people he convinced have done the same for hundreds more. He did this, by turning up at klan rallies, as a black man, and speaking to them calmly and respectfully. If we didn't know he was real, many people would laugh at the idea that this were possible.
Of course, the vast majority of people don't have the stomach for that kind of work. Nobody could criticise them. But I do criticise those who satisfy themselves with the belief that those they disagree with are worthy of contempt. It is impossible to achieve anything at all with this mindset except to deepen divisions. And worst of all, the habits of thinking necessary maintain that mindset hurt the people who practice them.
Thanks for the link to the TED talk. I had never seen that.
I've been a big fan of Daryl Davis since I watched "Accidental Courtesy" when it first aired on PBS. Mr. Davis would be dead if he took a confrontationally hostile approach. But he does it in the face-to-face world. I could quote Mike Tyson.