Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[ymu]

Nowhere have I said that. But I do think that Delroy has a point. There are some people who have lived quite sheltered lives and their level of shock seems to reveal their naivety about what actually goes on in the world, the views people hold, and the openness and ways in which they express them. Ever worked with a vile racist who knows you've got an Asian girlfriend? There's banter and then there's something else. It's not to be accepting of it (although sadly at times you have to when knowing to pick your battles as an individual), but to be grimly aware of it, square in the face, some people more than others, day to day. There are indeed some delicate little flowers out there. And a lot of these other people haven't been 'big boys' in my experience, but sad, relatively powerless (in the grand scheme of things) men.

All of that is very true, but I think that the point being made is that for some people there is no need for an Asian girlfriend or even to have expressed an opinion directly about racism in order to attract this kind of abuse. Just being a woman expressing opinions in public (outside of the format of Page 3) is enough. It's not 'deserved' or in any way justified in either case but (so the argument goes) it is not motivated by quite the same thing and if the only option is to (even just strategically) keep your head down, this means remaining invisible.

Replace 'woman' with any 'minority' group and perceptions remain the same. That at least some of the abuse is motivated by the identity of the writer and not the arguments being made. A white male writer might well receive the same type and volume of abuse motivated by the opinions they express but they don't get the same volume of abuse motivated by identity.

Whether or not this is a true perception requires some digging. I've not seen any attempts at quantifying it, just some 'minority' bloggers coming out and saying "I'm not deleting this crap any more, I want people to see it" and some white male bloggers professing shock at the content and volume of the abuse compared to that which they receive. Maybe they never wrote about anything remotely controversial to the straight, white, able-bodied, male psyche and it would be exactly the same response if they did. I dunno.

As you say, this sort of stuff nearly always comes from sad powerless individuals. It's one of the things that makes them fucking frightening. The only power they have is in their fists.

And that does, of course, arise from a much broader and much less visible power dynamic relating to class (including who gets a platform in the first place). In a very unequal society and a political environment which constantly demands we point the finger at those less fortunate than ourselves (blame the poor not the profits that rely on their existence; blame the immigrants not the bosses that exploit them; blame the rioters not the police that bully and neglect their communities) and can only make minorities more equal by making some others less equal, it'd be a fucking shock if there wasn't a backlash from some of those who are losing ground and powerless to stop it.

It's clearly silly to say that white men don't get any of this sort of abuse, but that doesn't mean that there is no truth whatsoever in the idea that some people suffer abuse because of their identity and not their actions. I'd be surprised if it turned out to be otherwise. I'd also be fucking amazed if the identity crowd managed to work out that this is a result of their failed analysis and not fucking proof that it is right.

 

[phildwyer]

I have a suspicion that a lot of people who are shocked by the levels of violent misogyny on twitter/internet must come from quite sheltered backgrounds, because as vile as it is I've heard worse in my everyday life.

It's a matter of gender more than class. Women didn't know men talked like that, but men have always known...

 

[ymu]

To some extent, that is true Phil. But this is not a men-only conversation that is now being overheard by women thanks to the internet; this is being directed at women. I don't think it's any different to the kind of misogynistic abuse most women have experienced offline (usually when there are no randoms around to overhear it, ditto with racists IME).

What is different, I think, is the sheer volume of it (suddenly every embittered type can vent without needing to be in the same physical space and away from anyone else who might hear it) and the apparent social acceptability when others join in instead of being repelled by it. The extent to which others join in or, instead, attack the embittered types probably varies a great deal by subject and readership.

Delroy Booth ‏@DelroyBooth
@jonanamary @AKvltGhost Fair enough, although I'm not keen on the word "classist" personally

Delroy Booth ‏@DelroyBooth
@jonanamary @AKvltGhost I mean I'm very classist, exception I'm pro working class and I bigoted against the upper classes

Delroy Booth ‏@DelroyBooth
@jonanamary @AKvltGhost so that kind of privilige theory prism and that language isn't really very helpful for me

I know what you are saying here but I'm not 100% convinced I agree with how you've said it.

I don't have an awful lot of time for white people who claim that anti-white racism is exactly the same thing as anti-black racism, or blokes that claim Loose Women is proof that men are now the downtrodden sex. 'Classism', as with every other -ism, is the abuse of power by the more powerful group(s).

The same term that is generally used to describe the abuse of power (eg racism, sexism, homophobia) is also generally used to describe backlash from the less powerful (eg anti-white racism, anti-male sexism, heterophobia), but I don't think these are describing the same thing at all. There's a difference between an upsetting but fleeting incident and a society-wide pattern of behaviour that systematically damages someone's life chances. Those who claim that the meaning is identical in both directions are generally members of the more powerful group seeking to claim equal victimhood as a result of losing some of their ability to abuse that power.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Her responses will be along the lines of, "I was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital as a child, I, more than anyone am aware of the power of this word. Blah to fucking blah." Which well maybe but you don't see people who were once confined in a wheelchair throwing the word cripple around. It isn't the first time she's shown no thought for people with mental health problems so this comes as no surprise. Also the people who pull her up will be trolls and blocked where as those who support / accept and support her apology will be retweeted. It is so fucking VOMIT!

fascinating to watch @PennyRed tying herself in knots over a 'lunatic' slip. reminds me of 80s university over-inclusivism. never mind.

No actually as a person with history of mental health problems myself I would have been upset to read that elsewhere. Legitimate.

It's almost as if Laurie Penny did this deliberately to show Moore et al how easy it would have been to, you know, not be a total dick.

 

[Blagsta]

Blimey, you should hear some of the banter in mental health teams from CPNs!

 

[Captain Hurrah]

All of that is very true, but I think that the point being made is that for some people there is no need for an Asian girlfriend or even to have expressed an opinion directly about racism in order to attract this kind of abuse. Just being a woman expressing opinions in public (outside of the format of Page 3) is enough. It's not 'deserved' or in any way justified in either case but (so the argument goes) it is not motivated by quite the same thing and if the only option is to (even just strategically) keep your head down, this means remaining invisible.

Replace 'woman' with any 'minority' group and perceptions remain the same. That at least some of the abuse is motivated by the identity of the writer and not the arguments being made. A white male writer might well receive the same type and volume of abuse motivated by the opinions they express but they don't get the same volume of abuse motivated by identity.

Whether or not this is a true perception requires some digging. I've not seen any attempts at quantifying it, just some 'minority' bloggers coming out and saying "I'm not deleting this crap any more, I want people to see it" and some white male bloggers professing shock at the content and volume of the abuse compared to that which they receive. Maybe they never wrote about anything remotely controversial to the straight, white, able-bodied, male psyche and it would be exactly the same response if they did. I dunno.

As you say, this sort of stuff nearly always comes from sad powerless individuals. It's one of the things that makes them fucking frightening. The only power they have is in their fists.

And that does, of course, arise from a much broader and much less visible power dynamic relating to class (including who gets a platform in the first place). In a very unequal society and a political environment which constantly demands we point the finger at those less fortunate than ourselves (blame the poor not the profits that rely on their existence; blame the immigrants not the bosses that exploit them; blame the rioters not the police that bully and neglect their communities) and can only make minorities more equal by making some others less equal, it'd be a fucking shock if there wasn't a backlash from some of those who are losing ground and powerless to stop it.

It's clearly silly to say that white men don't get any of this sort of abuse, but that doesn't mean that there is no truth whatsoever in the idea that some people suffer abuse because of their identity and not their actions. I'd be surprised if it turned out to be otherwise. I'd also be fucking amazed if the identity crowd managed to work out that this is a result of their failed analysis and not fucking proof that it is right.

I appreciate that. I was talking more about people (both men and women) who not only have never experienced such things (yet), or at least in such an everyday way and at a level which they find shocking rather than 'shit, this is how it is for me most of the time' but believe in the idea that it can be made to go away through such a thing as political correctness and/or the mere policing of language.

Racism is alive and well. Sexism is alive and well. Class inequality is alive and well.

And I'm very well aware of the things you're talking about wrt class and power, perhaps much better than you in some of its more everyday, but negative respects. Anything from the barely-concealed contempt and fobbing off from a (female Pakistani) NHS consultant who's supposed to be advising me on an operation, to the ignorant, prejudiced (female) academic who talks to me 'normally' before finding out my occupation, then treats me like an idiot. It's not their sex that bothers me, it's their class. It must be even more shit for working class girls and women (not getting into silly games where public school children protest and say what about me while using a crude two-class analysis) who haven't had some class-based sense of entitlement instilled in them from an early age and instead have serious material disadvantages heaped upon their already 'inferior' social position.

And as Ronnie said before, to an elite-educated liberal I'm just some thing to fear, another chav or thug, a potential member of the EDL, even though the Other Hurrah comes from a country the most ignorant of them probably couldn't spell the name of let alone point to on a map.

 

[Steel Icarus]

It's fascinating and irritating in equal measure, all this dissembling of language, I reckon. In the boozer if my mate's just bought a double to go with his pint and it's only half two in the afternoon I might well say something like "Why you on the shorts already you loon?".

"Um...the epithet 'loon' is a truncated version of the archaic and kyriarchal term 'lunatic'. I'd appreciate you finding less offensive terminology to reflect your incredulity at the contents of this round of drinks."

I'm not saying I go around being thoughtless and rude to people. The frustration with this stuff, on the contrary, is cos I've been doing it for ever, and then a bunch of Mr. Logics arrive with their handbooks everytime someone says something that someone somewhere might find upsetting and "ums" follow. Bubbly.

frogwoman - did you see this: http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2013/01/why-i-dont-agree-trigger-warnings

relevant to something you were saying a lot earlier in the thread.

Article posted yesterday and within a couple of hours loads of people on (yeah, I know) Twitter were getting ready to write angry responses to it. And with a definite sense of glee that they had another opportunity to do so.

 

[Balbi]

Blimey, you should hear some of the banter in mental health teams from CPNs!

I don't think there's a profession where you deal with people where the clientele aren't reffered to in some seriously iffy terms. In my job, the cases that make you want to chew someones face off in fury and frustration are usually thickly brushed with dark humour. It's either that or just become completely dispirited.

 

[Bakunin]

I don't think there's a profession where you deal with people where the clientele aren't reffered to in some seriously iffy terms. In my job, the cases that make you want to chew someones face off in fury and frustration are usually thickly brushed with dark humour. It's either that or just become completely dispirited.

True. I'm used to bootneck humour which tends to exist on another level of foulness. It\s just their way of dealing with what they see and do.

 

[Balbi]

True. I'm used to bootneck humour which tends to exist on another level of foulness. It\s just their way of dealing with what they see and do.

You've gotta laugh, or things get broken

 

[ymu]

I appreciate that. I was talking more about people (both men and women) who not only have never experienced such things (yet), or at least in such an everyday way and at a level which they find shocking rather than 'shit, this is how it is for me most of the time' but believe in the idea that it can be made to go away through such a thing as political correctness and/or the mere policing of language.

Racism is alive and well. Sexism is alive and well. Class inequality is alive and well.

And I'm very well aware of the things you're talking about wrt class and power, perhaps much better than you in some of its more everyday, but negative respects. Anything from the barely-concealed contempt and fobbing off from a (female Pakistani) NHS consultant who's supposed to be advising me on an operation, to the ignorant, prejudiced (female) academic who talks to me 'normally' before finding out my occupation, then treats me like an idiot. It's not their sex that bothers me, it's their class. It must be even more shit for working class girls and women (not getting into silly games where public school children protest and say what about me while using a crude two-class analysis) who haven't had some class-based sense of entitlement instilled in them from an early age and instead have serious material disadvantages heaped upon their already 'inferior' social position.

And as Ronnie said before, to an elite-educated liberal I'm just some thing to fear, another chav or thug, a potential member of the EDL, even though the Other Hurrah comes from a country the most ignorant of them probably couldn't spell the name of let alone point to on a map.

I don't think there's any perhaps about it, Captain - you do know it much better than I do. I see it from precisely the opposite point of view. The police who were crawling all over our car trying to find evidence that it had been stolen, who then switched to crawling in the gutter in the rain trying to change the tyre for us as soon as I turned up. When I turned up to sign onto a new doctor getting handed a form to fill in without further comment, whilst the woman right after me in the queue was interrogated about her family members, told that they'd all have to sign on with the new surgery if she wanted to, and that her husband would have to take (unpaid) time off work to do it.

FWIW, doctors tend to assume everyone is stupid (I sat in on a GP lecturing his students recently: "remember, 5% of your patients will be more intelligent than you are!" ) and I've never had much luck persuading them otherwise.

 

[frogwoman]

frogwoman - did you see this: http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2013/01/why-i-dont-agree-trigger-warnings

relevant to something you were saying a lot earlier in the thread.

Absolutely spot on.

 

[Firky]

Blimey, you should hear some of the banter in mental health teams from CPNs!

You should hear the gallows humour of paramedics and RGNs.

I am sure you're well aware why this happens too. You're not daft.

Haven't read this thread. Had about an hours sleep, woken up by a bloke ripping next doors roof up and I have no fuse for my coffee grinder that has packed in. First world middle class problems.

 

[Brixton Hatter]

LPs grovelling apology here if anyone's interested: http://www.penny-red.com/post/41858644191/ableism-and-apologies

Whilst I think it can be useful deal with issues like this, it's a shame the seemingly huge amount of effort put in to minor spats over language etc can't be channelled into something more real & productive.

 

[Balbi]

Suzanne Moore's placed herself on the platform of...

@suzanne_moore: I call out "Calling out" . I call it inane narcissism actually.Moral superiority dressed in clothes of martyrdom.

@bindelj: @suzanne_moore amen sister. In fact I am calling out everyone for a privilege check right now, WITHOUT a prior trigger warning

----

Lines drawn then.

 

[love detective]

LPs grovelling apology here if anyone's interested: http://www.penny-red.com/post/41858644191/ableism-and-apologies

we also need to get used to taking ownership of our mistakes

Here's a summary of Laurie taking ownership of her mistakes earlier:-

Me: Here's an article

LP: Ah, You're a racist

Me: Serious allegation, can you back that up?

LP: That article is racist and sexist (and banal)

Others: You're a dick, you should retract/apologise

LP: I stand by what I said

Others: You should apologise

LP: I never called anyone a racist

Others: Yes you did, you should retract/apologise

LP: I have already apologised

Others: No you haven't

LP: Well, ok, to clarify, I've no idea whether Love Detective is racist

 

[BigTom]

frogwoman - did you see this: http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2013/01/why-i-dont-agree-trigger-warnings

relevant to something you were saying a lot earlier in the thread.

Article posted yesterday and within a couple of hours loads of people on (yeah, I know) Twitter were getting ready to write angry responses to it. And with a definite sense of glee that they had another opportunity to do so.

ah so that's why people were talking about trigger warnings last night.. anyway I tried to have a conversation about my concerns about trigger warnings and failed to get my points across on twitter and it's been on my mind and I wrote this this morning (before seeing the article), I thought I was going to tweet it but it ended up being too long, I'm going to drop it here instead:

I have two issues with trigger warnings, both concerned with them becoming enabling.

When I first came across TWs it was when I was trying to self-diagnose 15-20 yrs ago on relatively clinical/psych focused mailing lists and forums.

There TWs were used very tightly when there was a graphic description of something like rape or child abuse.

The discussion around the use of TWs always included discussion about how avoidance could be bad and the issues of enabling.
Now I don't see discussion around trigger warnings the issue of enabling and avoidance raised or discussed

I think this is a problem. To me, TWs used to say "If you have triggers about X, be prepared before reading this that it may trigger. If you want to avoid reading it that is your choice but it's not necessarily the right thing to do"

Now they seem to say "If you have triggers about X, avoid reading this because it might trigger" and I think that's a change for the worse, is enabling, and is a problem.

The second is with TWs spreading. Now they seem to be used for any personal account of rape/abuse no matter how vague. I assume that's a change that has come from the direction of survivors in which case it's how it should be, but the danger is that spread continues with people who aren't survivors overusing TWs.

To take it to the extreme, obviously we can't put TWs on every tweet, as they lose all meaning. But the discussion around TWs is "you must use TWs" and "there can be no objections to TWs".

Everyone's MH is different, and lots of things can trigger people, to different extents of seriousness. You can't know what is going to trigger someone or how bad it will be for them so do you put TWs on every link? Of course not.

I've seen very little discussion about where the line is drawn, I don't believe that it's true that someone said there should be a TW on a link about balloons because of people with a phobia of balloons but if it did happen (and not as a joke) then that to me shows a clear problem with the way TWs are heading towards being used.

Already I think people are creeping to using them when an article talks about rape/abuse in almost any way. Sometimes the title of the article has the word rape in it, and there's no accounts of rape or descriptions in the article, but there's a TW with it. What does the TW tell you that the title of the article doesn't? imo nothing. But it does cloud things when someone puts a TW on article with a graphic description, if TWs get overused then someone doesn't know what they can expect in the article because it covers too broad a set of possibilities - this then doesn't really give them any information, and thus no real choice.

When you put this together with a discourse that doesn't discuss the problems of enabling and avoidance, then when people are wondering "should this have a TW" they'll always put it in because there is no argument against using TWs, no reason why they might not be helpful to someone. And that is a problem too.

 

[Pickman's model]

surely she should be penny dreadful and not penny red

 

[krink]

Whilst I think it can be useful deal with issues like this, it's a shame the seemingly huge amount of effort put in to minor spats over language etc can't be channelled into something more real & productive.

I always think if this is all they have to complain about then they really haven't got anything to complain about. I'm trying to feed, cloth, house 5 of us on 15 grand a year. I'm really not bothered if someone says 'loon'.

 

[frogwoman]

ah so that's why people were talking about trigger warnings last night.. anyway I tried to have a conversation about my concerns about trigger warnings and failed to get my points across on twitter and it's been on my mind and I wrote this this morning (before seeing the article), I thought I was going to tweet it but it ended up being too long, I'm going to drop it here instead:

I have two issues with trigger warnings, both concerned with them becoming enabling.

When I first came across TWs it was when I was trying to self-diagnose 15-20 yrs ago on relatively clinical/psych focused mailing lists and forums.

There TWs were used very tightly when there was a graphic description of something like rape or child abuse.

The discussion around the use of TWs always included discussion about how avoidance could be bad and the issues of enabling.
Now I don't see discussion around trigger warnings the issue of enabling and avoidance raised or discussed

I think this is a problem. To me, TWs used to say "If you have triggers about X, be prepared before reading this that it may trigger. If you want to avoid reading it that is your choice but it's not necessarily the right thing to do"

Now they seem to say "If you have triggers about X, avoid reading this because it might trigger" and I think that's a change for the worse, is enabling, and is a problem.

The second is with TWs spreading. Now they seem to be used for any personal account of rape/abuse no matter how vague. I assume that's a change that has come from the direction of survivors in which case it's how it should be, but the danger is that spread continues with people who aren't survivors overusing TWs.

To take it to the extreme, obviously we can't put TWs on every tweet, as they lose all meaning. But the discussion around TWs is "you must use TWs" and "there can be no objections to TWs".

Everyone's MH is different, and lots of things can trigger people, to different extents of seriousness. You can't know what is going to trigger someone or how bad it will be for them so do you put TWs on every link? Of course not.

I've seen very little discussion about where the line is drawn, I don't believe that it's true that someone said there should be a TW on a link about balloons because of people with a phobia of balloons but if it did happen (and not as a joke) then that to me shows a clear problem with the way TWs are heading towards being used.

Already I think people are creeping to using them when an article talks about rape/abuse in almost any way. Sometimes the title of the article has the word rape in it, and there's no accounts of rape or descriptions in the article, but there's a TW with it. What does the TW tell you that the title of the article doesn't? imo nothing. But it does cloud things when someone puts a TW on article with a graphic description, if TWs get overused then someone doesn't know what they can expect in the article because it covers too broad a set of possibilities - this then doesn't really give them any information, and thus no real choice.

When you put this together with a discourse that doesn't discuss the problems of enabling and avoidance, then when people are wondering "should this have a TW" they'll always put it in because there is no argument against using TWs, no reason why they might not be helpful to someone. And that is a problem too.

This.

 

[butchersapron]

LPs grovelling apology here if anyone's interested: http://www.penny-red.com/post/41858644191/ableism-and-apologies

Whilst I think it can be useful deal with issues like this, it's a shame the seemingly huge amount of effort put in to minor spats over language etc can't be channelled into something more real & productive.

Left-big hitters at home in minor cultural spats (on behalf of the poor and oppressed blah blah), the right cracks on with more material matters. What a wonderful subdivision.

 

[Balbi]

At the beating heart of debate

 

[Steel Icarus]

Left-big hitters at home in minor cultural spats (on behalf of the poor and oppressed blah blah), the right cracks on with more material matters. What a wonderful subdivision.

Ah, but you see, once The Left has sorted out all the nasty words, everyone's checked their privilege and knows where they are on the Wheel of Infinite Intersectionality, everything that's wrong with the world will simply go away. (I've seen more than a few variations on this theme after Suzanne Moore said something about the bigger picture of fighting the Tories being more important.)

 

[frogwoman]

It is enabling. It is helping people remain trapped in a prison of anxiety.

 

[Random]

surely she should be penny dreadful and not penny red

Ahem! http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...facebook-handbags.266196/page-25#post-9852244

 

[Pickman's model]

Ahem! http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...facebook-handbags.266196/page-25#post-9852244

yes, i know: and i thought i'd have another plug at it as no one seems to have taken onboard the suggestion

 

[smokedout]

Ah, but you see, once The Left has sorted out all the nasty words, everyone's checked their privilege and knows where they are on the Wheel of Infinite Intersectionality, everything that's wrong with the world will simply go away. (I've seen more than a few variations on this theme after Suzanne Moore said something about the bigger picture of fighting the Tories being more important.)

or the left will look up from its naval gazing to discover melanie philips and toby young have taken over the world

 

[Steel Icarus]

It is enabling. It is helping people remain trapped in a prison of anxiety.

What you've done there is you've made the mistake of thinking your point of view is relevant. You're not in the in-crowd, are you, who decide trigger warnings have to be put everywhere because "where's the harm in putting one" and "If even one person is prevented from having a flashback then that's good enough for me".

Jesus, I saw a trigger warning because of the word "idiot" the other day.

 

[frogwoman]

It does not prevent people from having flashbacks. It makes them worse. It stops them living a normal life.

 

[frogwoman]

What you've done there is you've made the mistake of thinking your point of view is relevant. You're not in the in-crowd, are you, who decide trigger warnings have to be put everywhere because "where's the harm in putting one" and "If even one person is prevented from having a flashback then that's good enough for me".

Jesus, I saw a trigger warning because of the word "idiot" the other day.

These people make me sick.