Human beings like binaries. Black and white. Liberal and conservative. Hero and villain. But it’s never possible to sum somebody up with one of these labels. More often than not, we’re at least a little of both. In my article, The Hidden Complexities of Being A Racist, I re-examined the infamous Central Park Birdwatching Incident. I pointed out that the temptation to paint Amy Cooper as a perfect villain, or Christian Cooper as a flawless victim, clouds the issue.
Your eloquent rejection of being a meme with more melanin is fantastic! So too do I reject being summed up by my skin tone. Jeez why do we have a brain at all? Get past it, people.
What matters is how you treat your fellow humans. Are you willing to see the dignity and humanity of every person you encounter? Dignify the individual and stop hiding behind skin color tropes.
Did you catch Bari Weiss’ Amy Cooper piece? Man was she set up and typified (and destroyed) by the mob. I say f*uck mob justice. No sense in that at all.
We aren’t binaries. We are all much much more than the easy calculus.
"What matters is how you treat your fellow humans. Are you willing to see the dignity and humanity of every person you encounter? Dignify the individual and stop hiding behind skin color tropes."
It's genuinely crazy to me that some people are moving further away from this simple truth instead of closer to it.
Though that said, I did see Bari's Amy Cooper piece, and though I think Bari is great, I think she dropped the ball on that one. Amy didn't deserve to be destroyed (as nobody does), but she wasn't set up. And, in fact, there was a *second* 9-11 call where Amy doubles down and expands upon her lies (Bari's piece doesn't mention this or a few other pertinent details). It was this call that got her charged for filing a false police report.
I actually wrote a piece going over the case in detail. Are you still on Medium?
Medium cancelled my account because I dared question the narrative of vaccine mandates (being a firm believer in ‘my body, my choice’) and suggested that some level of immunity following covid infection should be researched and evaluated.
Seems free thought isn’t really free there…and some ideas are more welcome than others.
So while I refuse to give them another dime I still get a few free looks and use that time to seek out your articles…
"Seems free thought isn’t really free there…and some ideas are more welcome than others."
This is really starting to worry me. I'm hearing more and more people say they've had their accounts cancelled or they've received warnings because of comments they've made on Medium. Really sorry to have lost your voice there. I think that's a huge mistake on their part.
After multiple warnings to my Frostjax account due to comments I made, I just decided to end my membership. It actually was a freeing decision; I still get to see the maniacal article titles in my daily notification, but only get to read and comment on 4 free articles a month. I usually save that allotment for you and the Penguin, instead of wasting those 4 spots on crazy-making nonsense. And I get a lot less agitated at the start or end of my day when my ability to even read agitating nonsense has been removed!
Hi Steve, I've appreciated the experience of reading your work (articles and commentary) over the last few months. It's been hard, I won't lie. As you say in this commentary, there's a lot of de-conditioning required, and it's an effing lot of work. But it's worth it.
Question: Do you have an article or essay providing more details on your philosophy and game plan--not just within the context of the counter-productive approaches you critique so well? I often find myself wondering how you imagine putting your ideas into practice--at scale, as opposed to you changing minds one on one. How can it catch fire? Can it? I'd love to hear some thoughts on this (or any source material you may have).
"How can it catch fire? Can it? I'd love to hear some thoughts on this (or any source material you may have)."
This is a fantastic question to which I have an unsatisfying answer. I plan to keep ringing the bell and broadening my audience (there's some cool stuff coming on this next year but I can't talk about it yet).
As far as I see it, race discourse is struggling for a number of reasons:
1. There's a significant degree of fetishisation of black people's suffering, from both some black people and some white people, which it's taboo to question. When people like Eli say things like "black people are having their souls ripped out of their chests", it's currently risky to publicly call it out for the nonsense it is. Especially if you're not black.
2. There's the very common toxicity in racial discourse and an increasing comfort with race essentialism. Black people are X. White people are Y. This firmly upholds the foundations of racism.
3. There's a great deal of focus on systems and white people, which is fair. But there's next to none on what black people need to do. Again, this is exceedingly taboo to talk about. Even for black people.
4. Very few people are talking about race and racism in a way that points to the very real problems some black people face in a way that can be understood by people who aren't black. Add the aforementioned toxicity to attempt that *are* made to talk about black people's struggles, and nobody really learns much.
My goal with all of my race writing is to tackle these issues. And having made the switch to writing full time, I have room to focus on bigger, more ambitious projects. There are already small ripples forming as a result of what I and many others are doing. It just takes time.
This is *not* an unsatisfying answer. Unsatisfying would have been "it's never going to happen" or "I have no idea". This is a long-term problem needing long-term solutions, and it sounds like you're all in. Looking forward to learning more and contributing, as possible.
Re: your four reasons, this is a really useful (if depressing list). Sadly, I'd like to add a fifth: race discourse is a casualty of general challenges to discourse presented by a host of factors that have people really struggling to empathize with each other, across all groupings. I'm def not saying the past was some sort of wonderland of shared values and understanding. But we're not well, indifference to other people is endemic, open hostility is common. Taking on race in this moment is in some ways like starting to begin a new exercise and diet regime while suffering from the flu.
That said, waiting won't change anything. And maybe we need to really hit bottom before we can countenance the truly difficult work.
I couldn’t finish this. Whenever someone invokes their childhood sexual abuse, the conversation is no longer about whatever you thought you were talking about. All you can do is offer a few words of kindness, and if, as in this case, the disclosure feels completely tangential and/or inappropriate for the setting, politely disengage. I hope that Eli has help to process her experiences.
I can imagine Eli was trying to relate to you as a victim, and though I totally understand why that would irritate you, I imagine she felt rejected when you didn’t meet her there. It is absolutely not your responsibility to play a role in order to meet her needs, but we can have compassion for the need just the same. Our experiences as humans are so complex.
"Whenever someone invokes their childhood sexual abuse, the conversation is no longer about whatever you thought you were talking about."
I completely understand why you'd say this. I understand and share the concern about sexual (or any childhood) abuse in general. But I disagree with your conclusion in this case.
If Eli chooses to disclose this information to me, a complete stranger, during a conversation which, as you say, is totally unrelated to what we were talking about, I don't feel like it's my responsibility to manage that disclosure.
Of course, I'd never say anything about her situation. Or judge it in any way. But I feel like if she's ready to bring that into our conversation, unprompted and needlessly, then it's well processed enough that I don't need to tiptoe. Wouldn't you say?
I appreciate that you thought about this and have simply come to a different conclusion.
I tend to think the opposite. When someone’s trauma bubbles up unexpectedly into a conversation like this, often overtaking the conversation and/or interfering with their ability to remain centered and engaged, I assume that trauma has not been fully processed in a more appropriate setting. Assuming I am centered myself (not always the case for any of us), my inclination is to pause, let go of where I thought we were headed, and take in the new surroundings.
There's always the possibility that Eli used the story to try and 'one up' Steve. I have a sneaking suspicion (I will write about this one day) that some women use rape (my suspicion is that they're *alleged* rapes) to shut down conversations. Like, they pull it out of nowhere when they don't like where the conversation is going (i.e., they're not convincing me of something). Whether Eli was sexually abused or not, it was inappropriate for her to invoke it in a conversation having nothing to do with sexual abuse.
This sort of thing (childhood abuse, rape) coming out of nowhere has happened to me so often over the decades with women, that I've begun to doubt whether many or all of them actually occurred. Sexual assault allegations have taken on a thou-shall-not-question mantle of sacred writ and I suspect at least some women are using it to try and shut down conversations.
My response now is, "I'm sorry to hear that but I still think blah blah blah."
This response saddens me. I wonder if you have considered why you need to control the conversation in this way. Not only do you shut the door to feeling the other person’s vulnerability, but you go a step further to deny her experiences. “I’m sorry to hear that, but _I_ still think blah blah blah.”
Sexual abuse and assault are extraordinarily common, so it is likely that many of the women you encounter have experienced it. That doesn’t mean their disclosures are always appropriate for the setting. I believe you that at times such disclosures have derailed conversations. I don’t need to deny others’ experiences in order to hold both of those truths. Sometimes people’s traumas come bubbling out when they least expect it with people who can’t help. That happens to all of us.
Yeah, it usually comes 'bubbling up' when they don't like where the conversation is going. It's supposed to be the mic drop. And it was, when I was younger, until I realized it was likely a subtle bullying tactic, and it happened so much I began privately questioning its truth to myself. I'm hardly trying to control the conversation; I'm trying to keep it moving forward despite this unnecessary information.
Yes, I know rape and sexual abuse are common, but not as much as we may think, especially today when the meanings of words like 'rape', 'sexual assault' and 'violence' have become broadened to the point where they don't mean much anymore. And now, with the anonymity of social media, women can lie about rape if they want, and no one knows, nor do they run the risk of repercussions unless they name names. When MeToo got so popular, I'd scroll through the 'confessions' and sometimes wonder if some of them were making it up to get some (anonymous) attention for themselves, feel good about joining the sisterhood, maybe scoring a few political points. Just this morning I read about two women who out-and-out lied about rape testimony they gave in Take Back The Night marches in the '90s. And I began to really suspect some of today's me-too stories when I encountered a young woman on Medium a few years ago who rattled off her list of alleged sexual abuses almost proudly, as though she was listing her academic accomplishments. It lacked the authenticity I've seen with so many other stories. It was the first time I ever thought, "You are out-and-out lying."
So yeah, I think there's a lot more rape lying going on than we know and we can't know for sure, although hey're mostly 'harmless' when they don't name any innocent men. That's a highly uncomfortable thought for a lot of women to digest, that other women may make up stories to be part of the 'sisterhood', score points or just try to one-up others in conversation. That's what I think this gal was doing to Steve, trying to shut down the conversation with a mic drop. Except it didn't work, and I'm glad. It wasn't even relevant to the conversation.
Anyone who thinks women don't lie has never known any women. We're no better than men. No worse, but no better.
So much of what Steve writes critically about 'antiracism' and overstated black victimhood applies as easily to feminism. White feminists and black antiracists have a helluva lot in common. I think Naomi Wolf nailed it best when she delineated between 'victim feminists' - those who identify with powerlessness and victimhood, and infantilize women, seeing them as weak and vulnerable and in need of constant protection - and 'power feminists' who identify with personal power and using it for the common good. I see exactly that within the antiracism movement - those who see blacks as constantly aggrieved and perpetual victims, and those who are tired of the self-infantilization and the constant finger-pointing at whites with no sense of personal responsibility for one's own life. One of my favourite black voices is John McWhorter, the language and race expert and commentator at Columbia University. Give his talks on YouTube's Bloggingheads a listen. Quite eye-opening to hear a black man (like Steve) talking about blacks as though they're adults with personal agency. I could take many of his talks, substitute 'women' for 'blacks', and it would be just as relevant.
I appreciate Steve’s rejection of binary narratives. I think it takes fortitude and compassion to accept the basic humanity of people on both sides and attempt to bridge the gap.
As with the topic, it's not that simple. Of course nearly every formulation about human beings that reduces to either-or is a simplification. But a lot of them, for example biological male-female, are so close to being true that to argue about the exceptions, who are mostly stillborn, is only of interest to biologists and a certain attention-craving fad movement.
Sure, we are diverse in many ways, but dammit most people true really hard to figure out what they're "supposed to do" and do it. I could bring up some desperately overused words like tribalism but I'm trying to cut down on clichés this week. Studies show statistically significant differences in brain structure betrween conservatives and the rest of us; no, they are not completely non-overlapping but it's a hell of a lot more like a bimodal distribution than a continuum.
Parenthetically I find arguments based on "not one or de udder budda liddle bidda both" to be every bit as irritating as "who gets to decide." These are debate-suppressing.
In an earlier post you mentioned that 10% of black Americans voted for T****. I will never understand this any more than I will ever understand the Log Cabin Republicans.
To say that people are entirely binary in attitudes like racism is inaccurate, but I would not call it untrue because it is true for a lot more people than those for whom it's false. I confided in you once the discovery of some incidental racist assumptions in myself. It was a shocking experience and I almost had to leave work early.
And yes people are complex; there is virtue even in the worst of us, but when it's so hard to find, what does it matter?
In almost three decades arguing with conservatives, thoudands of them, I have seen only two switch over. FAIAP that is none.
"I find arguments based on 'not one or de udder budda liddle bidda both' to be every bit as irritating as 'who gets to decide.'"
I don't think the issue is whether they're irritating, the issue is whether they're true. And of course, "not one or the other" is true in most cases (who gets to decide is a different problem).
Male/female is one of the very few genuine binaries I can think of (I'm pretty sure we agree that quibbling over the 0.02% of people with ambiguous intersex conditions is asinine). Black and white is far from a meaningful binary. And while male and female is a binary, man and woman (or let's say masculine and feminine) is far less clear-cut in this day and age (which I personally think is a good thing).
And I know we disagree, but liberal/conservative isn't nearly as clear-cut as you seem to think it is either. Not least because there's a great deal of diversity of opinion among conservatives.
I mean, just consider the left. It spans from communists to post modernists to the centre left. I suspect close to 100% of the "attention-craving fad movement" would call themselves liberals (and most conservatives definitely would). Yet you disagree with them extraordinarily strongly.
So yes, the complexity of humans can certainly be irritating. It requires far more energy than thinking of them as "them and the rest of us". But I'm going to keep pointing out how limiting a way to look at the world the latter is.
I didn't express myself very well. I had news yesterday that one of my best and oldest friends just died; I've known her over 20 years and spoke to her only a few weeks ago, She had told me she was back in treatment but not that death was imminent. My thoughts are all disorganized. Cancer.
The point I absolutely failed to make: your opening article in this thread is about people being externally forced into binary formulations. As one parent sneered to me after I asked him to stop using "they" so confusingly, "society's little boxes." Yeah that his child has a twibby and not a putz is a "social construct." His nastiness was legendary.
My point, barely alluded to in my response, is how stridently people strive to fit into one little box or another. An INTERNAL force. Both ends of the political spectrum do this. And while conservatives ae as a whole more orthodoxy-policing (see Cheney, Liz), the social justice warriors on our side are every bit as rigid; 99% agreements casts one as a hardened enemy for the 1%.
The word thus far unmentioned is conformity, the desire to "belong," and both sides have it. I've been kicked off Medium twice for refusing to refer to Those People in the singular they. Banned, all my writing erased, losing over a grand in MPP money due me. This is as bad as the worst RW forums.
Overall, yes, those we call liberals embrace more of a diversity of views since that is one of our values but I see no difference in orthodoxy-policing between the SJWs and the propagators of the Big Lie. In fact I think the SJWs are dragging us because making a forefront issue of who can use which bathroom is not helping at all.
"one or de udder budda liddle bidda both" is not an argument for polarization, my beef is that it's used almost exactly like "who gets to decide," to stop debate. Of course most of our polarities are at least partially continua. But most of them are very bimodal.
But. Anyone who is still a Republican may not be a rabid bigot himself but he knows that he is allied with people most of whom ARE rabid bigots, who support violence against PoC, who blame Tamir Rice for his murder, who yearn for a Gileadean society, who are OK with caged children .. and these are not deal-breakers for them. They remain Republicans. OK, compartmentalization; they all have the same justifications on cerebral macro keys;
* fiscally conservative and socially liberal
*small government, strong defense
* porous borders.
They compartmentalize away raw cruelty and evil, and compartmentalization is the illness of our time. Sorry but I can't pardon them. And distinguishing them from the openly racist is hair-splitting in my view.
"I didn't express myself very well. I had news yesterday that one of my best and oldest friends just died; I've known her over 20 years and spoke to her only a few weeks ago,"
Oh, I'm really sorry for your loss Chris.
No, my opening line isn't about being "externally forced" into binaries. It's simply noting that people like them and that they're almost always a terrible (or at least limited and inaccurate) way of looking at the world. One of the reasons why discourse is in such a mess is that some people can't (or won't) think outside of them. But nuance and complexity and intelligent discourse requires recognising that very few things are "black and white".
Again, I disagree that *most* Republicans are rabid bigots. I think that this is an incredibly simplistic and sensationalist way of looking at millions of people that doesn't do your intelligence justice. But one thing I have noticed, both on the left and the right, is that people's willingness to express empathy for somebody depends on what concessions they think that empathy might require to their political or philosophical position.
Sitting behind a screen, behind some anonymous avatar, it's easy to say thoughtless, callous things about, say, Tamir Rice, that they wouldn't dream of saying about a boy in their community that they knew. And they're especially motivated to do that if the implications of their empathy would be that they should have a sane conversation about the Second Amendment, say. It's easy to talk about human life in a heartless, mechanical way when separated from the implications.
Consider even how we talk about war or COVID or human rights violations on the other side of the world. Even those of us who care about these things talk in a way that doesn't truly respect the lives of the people affected. Because it can't. Would the people who supported the Afghanistan withdrawal be willing look at an Afghan women in the eye and say that enough money and time has been spent trying to help her? Would those who thought Allied forces should stay be willing to look a young soldier in the eyes and tell them to go risk their life?
It's impossible to give each side the weight it deserves. So these conversations become philosophical debates that would sound monstrous to the people actually living with the consequences. This is just one example of why it's not a simple black/white, right/wrong issue.
So yes, I know that some people use "who gets to decide" or "it's not one or the other" to stifle debate. But I don't. So I'm not sure why you keep reminding me of what these people do. The fact that people arguing in bad-faith use an argument doesn't necessarily mean that the argument itself is rotten to its core.
Your eloquent rejection of being a meme with more melanin is fantastic! So too do I reject being summed up by my skin tone. Jeez why do we have a brain at all? Get past it, people.
What matters is how you treat your fellow humans. Are you willing to see the dignity and humanity of every person you encounter? Dignify the individual and stop hiding behind skin color tropes.
Did you catch Bari Weiss’ Amy Cooper piece? Man was she set up and typified (and destroyed) by the mob. I say f*uck mob justice. No sense in that at all.
We aren’t binaries. We are all much much more than the easy calculus.
"What matters is how you treat your fellow humans. Are you willing to see the dignity and humanity of every person you encounter? Dignify the individual and stop hiding behind skin color tropes."
It's genuinely crazy to me that some people are moving further away from this simple truth instead of closer to it.
Though that said, I did see Bari's Amy Cooper piece, and though I think Bari is great, I think she dropped the ball on that one. Amy didn't deserve to be destroyed (as nobody does), but she wasn't set up. And, in fact, there was a *second* 9-11 call where Amy doubles down and expands upon her lies (Bari's piece doesn't mention this or a few other pertinent details). It was this call that got her charged for filing a false police report.
I actually wrote a piece going over the case in detail. Are you still on Medium?
I thought I’d found all your pieces on medium!
Medium cancelled my account because I dared question the narrative of vaccine mandates (being a firm believer in ‘my body, my choice’) and suggested that some level of immunity following covid infection should be researched and evaluated.
Seems free thought isn’t really free there…and some ideas are more welcome than others.
So while I refuse to give them another dime I still get a few free looks and use that time to seek out your articles…
"Seems free thought isn’t really free there…and some ideas are more welcome than others."
This is really starting to worry me. I'm hearing more and more people say they've had their accounts cancelled or they've received warnings because of comments they've made on Medium. Really sorry to have lost your voice there. I think that's a huge mistake on their part.
After multiple warnings to my Frostjax account due to comments I made, I just decided to end my membership. It actually was a freeing decision; I still get to see the maniacal article titles in my daily notification, but only get to read and comment on 4 free articles a month. I usually save that allotment for you and the Penguin, instead of wasting those 4 spots on crazy-making nonsense. And I get a lot less agitated at the start or end of my day when my ability to even read agitating nonsense has been removed!
You too? What the hell is Medium doing?!
Hi Steve, I've appreciated the experience of reading your work (articles and commentary) over the last few months. It's been hard, I won't lie. As you say in this commentary, there's a lot of de-conditioning required, and it's an effing lot of work. But it's worth it.
Question: Do you have an article or essay providing more details on your philosophy and game plan--not just within the context of the counter-productive approaches you critique so well? I often find myself wondering how you imagine putting your ideas into practice--at scale, as opposed to you changing minds one on one. How can it catch fire? Can it? I'd love to hear some thoughts on this (or any source material you may have).
Thank you!
"How can it catch fire? Can it? I'd love to hear some thoughts on this (or any source material you may have)."
This is a fantastic question to which I have an unsatisfying answer. I plan to keep ringing the bell and broadening my audience (there's some cool stuff coming on this next year but I can't talk about it yet).
As far as I see it, race discourse is struggling for a number of reasons:
1. There's a significant degree of fetishisation of black people's suffering, from both some black people and some white people, which it's taboo to question. When people like Eli say things like "black people are having their souls ripped out of their chests", it's currently risky to publicly call it out for the nonsense it is. Especially if you're not black.
2. There's the very common toxicity in racial discourse and an increasing comfort with race essentialism. Black people are X. White people are Y. This firmly upholds the foundations of racism.
3. There's a great deal of focus on systems and white people, which is fair. But there's next to none on what black people need to do. Again, this is exceedingly taboo to talk about. Even for black people.
4. Very few people are talking about race and racism in a way that points to the very real problems some black people face in a way that can be understood by people who aren't black. Add the aforementioned toxicity to attempt that *are* made to talk about black people's struggles, and nobody really learns much.
My goal with all of my race writing is to tackle these issues. And having made the switch to writing full time, I have room to focus on bigger, more ambitious projects. There are already small ripples forming as a result of what I and many others are doing. It just takes time.
This is *not* an unsatisfying answer. Unsatisfying would have been "it's never going to happen" or "I have no idea". This is a long-term problem needing long-term solutions, and it sounds like you're all in. Looking forward to learning more and contributing, as possible.
Re: your four reasons, this is a really useful (if depressing list). Sadly, I'd like to add a fifth: race discourse is a casualty of general challenges to discourse presented by a host of factors that have people really struggling to empathize with each other, across all groupings. I'm def not saying the past was some sort of wonderland of shared values and understanding. But we're not well, indifference to other people is endemic, open hostility is common. Taking on race in this moment is in some ways like starting to begin a new exercise and diet regime while suffering from the flu.
That said, waiting won't change anything. And maybe we need to really hit bottom before we can countenance the truly difficult work.
Thank you again.
I couldn’t finish this. Whenever someone invokes their childhood sexual abuse, the conversation is no longer about whatever you thought you were talking about. All you can do is offer a few words of kindness, and if, as in this case, the disclosure feels completely tangential and/or inappropriate for the setting, politely disengage. I hope that Eli has help to process her experiences.
I can imagine Eli was trying to relate to you as a victim, and though I totally understand why that would irritate you, I imagine she felt rejected when you didn’t meet her there. It is absolutely not your responsibility to play a role in order to meet her needs, but we can have compassion for the need just the same. Our experiences as humans are so complex.
"Whenever someone invokes their childhood sexual abuse, the conversation is no longer about whatever you thought you were talking about."
I completely understand why you'd say this. I understand and share the concern about sexual (or any childhood) abuse in general. But I disagree with your conclusion in this case.
If Eli chooses to disclose this information to me, a complete stranger, during a conversation which, as you say, is totally unrelated to what we were talking about, I don't feel like it's my responsibility to manage that disclosure.
Of course, I'd never say anything about her situation. Or judge it in any way. But I feel like if she's ready to bring that into our conversation, unprompted and needlessly, then it's well processed enough that I don't need to tiptoe. Wouldn't you say?
I appreciate that you thought about this and have simply come to a different conclusion.
I tend to think the opposite. When someone’s trauma bubbles up unexpectedly into a conversation like this, often overtaking the conversation and/or interfering with their ability to remain centered and engaged, I assume that trauma has not been fully processed in a more appropriate setting. Assuming I am centered myself (not always the case for any of us), my inclination is to pause, let go of where I thought we were headed, and take in the new surroundings.
There's always the possibility that Eli used the story to try and 'one up' Steve. I have a sneaking suspicion (I will write about this one day) that some women use rape (my suspicion is that they're *alleged* rapes) to shut down conversations. Like, they pull it out of nowhere when they don't like where the conversation is going (i.e., they're not convincing me of something). Whether Eli was sexually abused or not, it was inappropriate for her to invoke it in a conversation having nothing to do with sexual abuse.
This sort of thing (childhood abuse, rape) coming out of nowhere has happened to me so often over the decades with women, that I've begun to doubt whether many or all of them actually occurred. Sexual assault allegations have taken on a thou-shall-not-question mantle of sacred writ and I suspect at least some women are using it to try and shut down conversations.
My response now is, "I'm sorry to hear that but I still think blah blah blah."
This response saddens me. I wonder if you have considered why you need to control the conversation in this way. Not only do you shut the door to feeling the other person’s vulnerability, but you go a step further to deny her experiences. “I’m sorry to hear that, but _I_ still think blah blah blah.”
Sexual abuse and assault are extraordinarily common, so it is likely that many of the women you encounter have experienced it. That doesn’t mean their disclosures are always appropriate for the setting. I believe you that at times such disclosures have derailed conversations. I don’t need to deny others’ experiences in order to hold both of those truths. Sometimes people’s traumas come bubbling out when they least expect it with people who can’t help. That happens to all of us.
Yeah, it usually comes 'bubbling up' when they don't like where the conversation is going. It's supposed to be the mic drop. And it was, when I was younger, until I realized it was likely a subtle bullying tactic, and it happened so much I began privately questioning its truth to myself. I'm hardly trying to control the conversation; I'm trying to keep it moving forward despite this unnecessary information.
Yes, I know rape and sexual abuse are common, but not as much as we may think, especially today when the meanings of words like 'rape', 'sexual assault' and 'violence' have become broadened to the point where they don't mean much anymore. And now, with the anonymity of social media, women can lie about rape if they want, and no one knows, nor do they run the risk of repercussions unless they name names. When MeToo got so popular, I'd scroll through the 'confessions' and sometimes wonder if some of them were making it up to get some (anonymous) attention for themselves, feel good about joining the sisterhood, maybe scoring a few political points. Just this morning I read about two women who out-and-out lied about rape testimony they gave in Take Back The Night marches in the '90s. And I began to really suspect some of today's me-too stories when I encountered a young woman on Medium a few years ago who rattled off her list of alleged sexual abuses almost proudly, as though she was listing her academic accomplishments. It lacked the authenticity I've seen with so many other stories. It was the first time I ever thought, "You are out-and-out lying."
So yeah, I think there's a lot more rape lying going on than we know and we can't know for sure, although hey're mostly 'harmless' when they don't name any innocent men. That's a highly uncomfortable thought for a lot of women to digest, that other women may make up stories to be part of the 'sisterhood', score points or just try to one-up others in conversation. That's what I think this gal was doing to Steve, trying to shut down the conversation with a mic drop. Except it didn't work, and I'm glad. It wasn't even relevant to the conversation.
Anyone who thinks women don't lie has never known any women. We're no better than men. No worse, but no better.
This response reminds me of Steve’s Medium article Some People vs. Most People.
I’m sorry you see the world in this way. We each get to choose what to focus on in this life.
I wonder, what is it you appreciate about Steve’s posts?
So much of what Steve writes critically about 'antiracism' and overstated black victimhood applies as easily to feminism. White feminists and black antiracists have a helluva lot in common. I think Naomi Wolf nailed it best when she delineated between 'victim feminists' - those who identify with powerlessness and victimhood, and infantilize women, seeing them as weak and vulnerable and in need of constant protection - and 'power feminists' who identify with personal power and using it for the common good. I see exactly that within the antiracism movement - those who see blacks as constantly aggrieved and perpetual victims, and those who are tired of the self-infantilization and the constant finger-pointing at whites with no sense of personal responsibility for one's own life. One of my favourite black voices is John McWhorter, the language and race expert and commentator at Columbia University. Give his talks on YouTube's Bloggingheads a listen. Quite eye-opening to hear a black man (like Steve) talking about blacks as though they're adults with personal agency. I could take many of his talks, substitute 'women' for 'blacks', and it would be just as relevant.
What do *you* get out of Steve's work?
I appreciate Steve’s rejection of binary narratives. I think it takes fortitude and compassion to accept the basic humanity of people on both sides and attempt to bridge the gap.
As with the topic, it's not that simple. Of course nearly every formulation about human beings that reduces to either-or is a simplification. But a lot of them, for example biological male-female, are so close to being true that to argue about the exceptions, who are mostly stillborn, is only of interest to biologists and a certain attention-craving fad movement.
Sure, we are diverse in many ways, but dammit most people true really hard to figure out what they're "supposed to do" and do it. I could bring up some desperately overused words like tribalism but I'm trying to cut down on clichés this week. Studies show statistically significant differences in brain structure betrween conservatives and the rest of us; no, they are not completely non-overlapping but it's a hell of a lot more like a bimodal distribution than a continuum.
Parenthetically I find arguments based on "not one or de udder budda liddle bidda both" to be every bit as irritating as "who gets to decide." These are debate-suppressing.
In an earlier post you mentioned that 10% of black Americans voted for T****. I will never understand this any more than I will ever understand the Log Cabin Republicans.
To say that people are entirely binary in attitudes like racism is inaccurate, but I would not call it untrue because it is true for a lot more people than those for whom it's false. I confided in you once the discovery of some incidental racist assumptions in myself. It was a shocking experience and I almost had to leave work early.
And yes people are complex; there is virtue even in the worst of us, but when it's so hard to find, what does it matter?
In almost three decades arguing with conservatives, thoudands of them, I have seen only two switch over. FAIAP that is none.
"I find arguments based on 'not one or de udder budda liddle bidda both' to be every bit as irritating as 'who gets to decide.'"
I don't think the issue is whether they're irritating, the issue is whether they're true. And of course, "not one or the other" is true in most cases (who gets to decide is a different problem).
Male/female is one of the very few genuine binaries I can think of (I'm pretty sure we agree that quibbling over the 0.02% of people with ambiguous intersex conditions is asinine). Black and white is far from a meaningful binary. And while male and female is a binary, man and woman (or let's say masculine and feminine) is far less clear-cut in this day and age (which I personally think is a good thing).
And I know we disagree, but liberal/conservative isn't nearly as clear-cut as you seem to think it is either. Not least because there's a great deal of diversity of opinion among conservatives.
I mean, just consider the left. It spans from communists to post modernists to the centre left. I suspect close to 100% of the "attention-craving fad movement" would call themselves liberals (and most conservatives definitely would). Yet you disagree with them extraordinarily strongly.
So yes, the complexity of humans can certainly be irritating. It requires far more energy than thinking of them as "them and the rest of us". But I'm going to keep pointing out how limiting a way to look at the world the latter is.
I didn't express myself very well. I had news yesterday that one of my best and oldest friends just died; I've known her over 20 years and spoke to her only a few weeks ago, She had told me she was back in treatment but not that death was imminent. My thoughts are all disorganized. Cancer.
The point I absolutely failed to make: your opening article in this thread is about people being externally forced into binary formulations. As one parent sneered to me after I asked him to stop using "they" so confusingly, "society's little boxes." Yeah that his child has a twibby and not a putz is a "social construct." His nastiness was legendary.
My point, barely alluded to in my response, is how stridently people strive to fit into one little box or another. An INTERNAL force. Both ends of the political spectrum do this. And while conservatives ae as a whole more orthodoxy-policing (see Cheney, Liz), the social justice warriors on our side are every bit as rigid; 99% agreements casts one as a hardened enemy for the 1%.
The word thus far unmentioned is conformity, the desire to "belong," and both sides have it. I've been kicked off Medium twice for refusing to refer to Those People in the singular they. Banned, all my writing erased, losing over a grand in MPP money due me. This is as bad as the worst RW forums.
Overall, yes, those we call liberals embrace more of a diversity of views since that is one of our values but I see no difference in orthodoxy-policing between the SJWs and the propagators of the Big Lie. In fact I think the SJWs are dragging us because making a forefront issue of who can use which bathroom is not helping at all.
"one or de udder budda liddle bidda both" is not an argument for polarization, my beef is that it's used almost exactly like "who gets to decide," to stop debate. Of course most of our polarities are at least partially continua. But most of them are very bimodal.
But. Anyone who is still a Republican may not be a rabid bigot himself but he knows that he is allied with people most of whom ARE rabid bigots, who support violence against PoC, who blame Tamir Rice for his murder, who yearn for a Gileadean society, who are OK with caged children .. and these are not deal-breakers for them. They remain Republicans. OK, compartmentalization; they all have the same justifications on cerebral macro keys;
* fiscally conservative and socially liberal
*small government, strong defense
* porous borders.
They compartmentalize away raw cruelty and evil, and compartmentalization is the illness of our time. Sorry but I can't pardon them. And distinguishing them from the openly racist is hair-splitting in my view.
"I didn't express myself very well. I had news yesterday that one of my best and oldest friends just died; I've known her over 20 years and spoke to her only a few weeks ago,"
Oh, I'm really sorry for your loss Chris.
No, my opening line isn't about being "externally forced" into binaries. It's simply noting that people like them and that they're almost always a terrible (or at least limited and inaccurate) way of looking at the world. One of the reasons why discourse is in such a mess is that some people can't (or won't) think outside of them. But nuance and complexity and intelligent discourse requires recognising that very few things are "black and white".
Again, I disagree that *most* Republicans are rabid bigots. I think that this is an incredibly simplistic and sensationalist way of looking at millions of people that doesn't do your intelligence justice. But one thing I have noticed, both on the left and the right, is that people's willingness to express empathy for somebody depends on what concessions they think that empathy might require to their political or philosophical position.
Sitting behind a screen, behind some anonymous avatar, it's easy to say thoughtless, callous things about, say, Tamir Rice, that they wouldn't dream of saying about a boy in their community that they knew. And they're especially motivated to do that if the implications of their empathy would be that they should have a sane conversation about the Second Amendment, say. It's easy to talk about human life in a heartless, mechanical way when separated from the implications.
Consider even how we talk about war or COVID or human rights violations on the other side of the world. Even those of us who care about these things talk in a way that doesn't truly respect the lives of the people affected. Because it can't. Would the people who supported the Afghanistan withdrawal be willing look at an Afghan women in the eye and say that enough money and time has been spent trying to help her? Would those who thought Allied forces should stay be willing to look a young soldier in the eyes and tell them to go risk their life?
It's impossible to give each side the weight it deserves. So these conversations become philosophical debates that would sound monstrous to the people actually living with the consequences. This is just one example of why it's not a simple black/white, right/wrong issue.
So yes, I know that some people use "who gets to decide" or "it's not one or the other" to stifle debate. But I don't. So I'm not sure why you keep reminding me of what these people do. The fact that people arguing in bad-faith use an argument doesn't necessarily mean that the argument itself is rotten to its core.