I don’t know what the deal is with me lately. Why does it feel like I have less free time for blogging, even though I know I have more since Sex 2.0 is over? Yes, it’s true work has been busy - but work is usually busy. And I don’t really like blogging from work anyway; I like working at work, and I hate having no actual work to do. So what is my deal?
It just seems like I can’t get caught up. Are we hitting that tipping point I mentioned on a podcast a while ago… you know, “what happens when everyone is on Twitter?” - that kind of thing? Oh, but I better not start on that train of thought, that’ll get me all carried away with the “are the records of our lives impermanent” meme again.
I know I still haven’t finished my Balticon wrap-up post. At this point I don’t know if I will; just listen to the Mostly ITP episode about it, I guess. A lot of what I’m feeling, I can’t really articulate anyway. I’ve just had this weird feeling ever since we got back from Balticon - or, more accurately, ever since the “Don’t Be That Guy” session. A lot of Balticon was fun, don’t get me wrong; and of course I loved spending time with Jenny and going into Baltimore. But that session, and everything it represented… I can’t really convey the way it’s affected me.
Violet Blue said recently, “Being a woman who documents her life [online] is a source of power. Don’t ever let anyone make you think otherwise.” But sometimes I do think otherwise. -Or, no, scratch that; that’s not accurate. I do feel it’s powerful. I feel that truth, deep inside, which is why I still have a blog 6+ years in, despite all the “selfish, selfish!” voices in my head, and the lack of time, and everything else… I do believe that. But sometimes, I guess I wonder what expense that power comes at. Basically, why do some people - and sometimes “some” feels like “so many” while other times it feels like “just a few” - have to be so mean? So hateful, spiteful, jeering, judgmental, two-faced, toxic? Toxic. That’s a word I keep coming back to.
I think there are cases where the old Southern adage “when you point a finger at someone else, there are three others pointing back at you” is true, and other cases where it’s bullshit. I also think it’s true that bullies are trying to make themselves feel better by putting others down, because they can’t bear to face their own inner torment - but what I never figured out was how that little tidbit of info was supposed to make anything better. It doesn’t stop the bullying. It doesn’t stop the effect on the bullied person. Sure, you understand a little something about the bully’s psyche - just a glimpse, of course - but they’re still hurting you. And it’s not about “giving them power,” because that old line strikes of a lot of idealism and not nearly enough reality. It’s about, as Roy wrote a while ago:
Ignoring bullies doesn’t make it stop. I’m sure that some bullies will stop if they don’t get a rise out of you, but most? I doubt it. Because even if they don’t get a rise out of you, they get a rise out of other people. When a bully knocks your books out of your hands, it doesn’t matter how you react, because the act is done, and you’ve got to pick your books up.
Emphasis mine.
Toxic. I keep coming back to that word. The way I experience feelings is sort of synaesthetic, I guess you could say. Not necessarily with colors and sounds, like the way you might typically think of synaesthesia (yes, because there is a typical way to think of synaesthesia! I think of it all the time, don’t you?) - but with words and sensations. I’ve always been very attuned to both language and emotion, so I suppose it makes sense. And I experience things very strongly - which, depending on the circumstance, can be good (sex, anyone?) or bad (my ~lifelong struggle with depression).
So when Jen mentioned this idea several weeks ago, my initial reaction was somewhere between skepticism and outright aversion. Or, to use the parlance of our times: DO NOT WANT.
When she mentioned it at Manuel’s, everyone else at the table seemed to love the idea. There was much laughter. I felt queasy. A red flag was going up. That word came into my head: toxic. I thought, “That’s the adjective for this hypothetical podcast.”
The next day (or maybe a few days later, I don’t remember) I mentioned something about it on Twitter. And Kimberlee Cline said this, which made me consider a new perspective that hadn’t previously occurred to me:
I think it’s a great idea. Creates space for those who have nothing better to do than hate-post AND… it keeps them busy so that the rest of us can get on with problem-solving and pursuing cooperative solutions…. cuz the haters will always need to hate. It’s not really about the issue as much as it is about the passion to hate/argue… These are not universal generalizations of course, hating and arguing do have their effective qualities… One of the best leadership tips I’ve learned: Keep crazies busy so the rest of your team can be productive.
So then I thought, well, yeah, maybe this could be a good thing, in its own way. And I don’t have to be involved at all. I can focus on other things instead.
Something was still nagging at me, though, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then, seeing ATLMalcontent’s and Duane’s comments on the original thread today, I figured out what had been bugging me: with rare exception, I don’t think both of the parties in these types of “debates” (and I use that word in the loosest possible fashion) have an equal level/type of investment. I think Andre and Decaturguy are the one exception I can point to, so yeah, if they want to go at it, great. With them, the obsession/loathing/weirdness seems to be mutually irrational (from where I’m sitting, anyway). But with the other people mentioned? No, I don’t think we’re dealing with the same thing.
As I tried (poorly) to explain at Manuel’s last night, when somebody mentioned a question of “who do you hate”… to me it’s not really about hating people. It’s a sense I get from people, after interacting with them (or sometimes just based on intuition, which I know isn’t a popular or fair thing to say, but my whole life I’ve had extremely good intuition and it has yet to be wrong) that they don’t see me as an intellectual equal. That they won’t really take anything I say seriously; everything will be met with dismissal, or worse, mockery. And it’s more than just what the person thinks of me (and this is where the intuition really comes in) - it’s about, I don’t know how to even say it, but I guess just a sense of how they manipulate the world around them? (This isn’t going any better than it did last night.) So in the case of the person I mentioned last night at the table? It’s not that I hate him. It’s that I think he’s a bad person.
This is why I don’t trust people easily.
You know, if I don’t stop writing now, I could go on for hours. And I still need to do a few things before bed, and of course there is fuckery in the near future.
I’m not done though. I have more to say… for one thing, I want to come back to that Violet Blue piece I quoted above. Melissa’s been writing some stuff, too.
If you read this far, good luck deciphering my space talk! (h/t Kim)
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11 Responses to "This was supposed to be a bulleted list but it turned into… this"
The podcast certainly would have the potential to be toxic (not to mention exploitative) if not handled carefully. But I also think there’s potential for some long-lingering grudges to be vetted in a space where people can’t hide behind a keyboard, which could in theory be positive, at least in some cases.
I also am not going to involve myself other than to loan people equipment if they want to use it. So whether it happens at all would depend on other people taking initiative.
Certainly it would depend. With regards to Duane and The Other Guy, it would just be uncomfortable. The three that I mentioned have legitimate issues (political, journalism) with one another. But The Other Guy just seems to hate on Duane for no apparent reason except that he gets some sort of perverted glee from it.
For the others, it would be like an Airing of the Grievances and maybe everyone would come to some sort of mutual conclusion like “Hey! We have valid points. And now I understands yours!” Or not. It could wind up with just more bitterness.
I think that’s right. I think I can honestly say I’ve heard both sides and think a lot of what’s gone around is honest disagreement but covered by a layer of viscera.
But I could be wrong. And once the bloodletting ends I can always go back to my weird esoteric books on philosophy.
Well, maybe some people like this kind of thing or find it productive. Me, I have very strong doubts. Because unfortunately in my experience people will say to your face that yeah, they agree, they understand, they see your side… but then a few days later you hear that they’re talking shit again.
With people like this I have tried to reason with them. Tried to explain myself. As an eternal optimist to a fault, at some level I hold out this bizarre belief that, “If only I could explain myself clearly enough, surely I could get them to understand, because surely everyone is rational to some degree, right?”
And when I get proven wrong again and again, it’s not exactly heartening.
I hate conflict. I especially hate anything resembling “bloodletting.” I also hate the thoroughly American idea that all opinions or side of an argument are equally valid.
I do think Rusty’s point holds value, that maybe if people had to look one another in the eye they wouldn’t have quite the set of brass balls they have behind the keyboard. But if they just turn around and say it again once they part ways? I don’t know what it was worth.
My experience in meeting people I’ve had heated disagreements with online has more often than not been that it made me think a little harder the next time I was considering writing something vitriolic.
There are exceptions of course, and it certainly doesn’t always work out that way. In some (hopefully obvious by now) cases it has made the arguments even more heated.
I think either outcome is possible, and note that I used the word vetted, not resolved. I don’t expect a tidy ending for most of those disputes.
Yes, that!
Also, I think I get what you’re talking about here: “it’s about, I don’t know how to even say it, but I guess just a sense of how they manipulate the world around them?” With some people, they tend to affect and influence any social space that they are inhabiting at any time, and have - well, you used the word - a toxic or threatening effect on the environment as far as debate or emotional discourse is concerned? Have I got you right there?
I think each of us have a different comfort (or discomfort) level with conflict. I argue for a living, so it’s not hard for me at all to have it out with someone who I either disagree with or dislike. It doesn’t linger for me or make me feel bad, and I know that often having it out is exactly what it takes to work through the source of the conflict and resolve to to move forward from there.
But not everyone has that sort of openness to fighting, and if you’re not someone who is comfortable with the potential for it to get ugly then the idea of bringing 2 people who seemingly hate each other together for the explicit purpose of fighting would seem like a very noxious idea.
I dunno, maybe I’m the warped one. I personally hate to let things fester so whether I am fighting with a friend or an enemy, I’d rather just have it out and dump all the bad feelings out there and figure out if there’s any potential common ground or way to fix things, rather than stifling it or trying to smooth it over without really dealing with the underlying feelings at issue.
I don’t know if this sort of blogger fight scenario would bring any good to the table, but I sincerely doubt it could make things much worse among any of the pairings mentioned. And I do suspect as others have suggested that if you had to say something to someone’s face and live with the impact of it, you’d probably be a lot more reluctant to tend towards the outrageous and instead focus on arguments over simple personal attacks. Or, at least, I would.
I feel the same way. So maybe I wasn’t clear enough in my post.
To me, honesty is one of the most important things in any relationship. I hate when things go unsaid, resentment builds, that kind of thing. Lets just say in the past it has led to some pretty monumental personal upheavals. I hate sugar-coating things and not expressing true feelings. I hate when people say one thing to your face and another behind your back.
What I was referring to above is, I hate fighting for the sake of fighting, when there does not seem to be any constructive goal in sight, or a resolution does not seem possible - because, in some of the cases above, one party does not WANT a resolution.
SnowdropExplodes,
Meant to respond earlier…
Yes, and a very good summation, I might add!
[...] implications. This is why the “just ignore it” trope never worked for me. (Well, this and other, related reasons.) Not everyone has the luxury of “just ignoring it” - because if you do, something [...]
[...] such blogs - I keep myself out of such situations - as much as possible, because of the toxicity. (Again, there’s the word that always fits: toxic.) I’m always wary of it reaching the point of [...]
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