#41
Post rating: ~
Also my own ideas are horseshit and my interpretations of others' ideas are horseshit too and if nothing else it saves time not having to wear a dunces cap in public
#42
[account deactivated]
#43
[account deactivated]
#44
Post rating: +

discipline posted:
my favorite thing about tink is how he presented as a woman for like 2 years and got away with it



the thing that amazes me is that I basically at no point said "im a woman". i guess shit like "i destroyed my boyfriends computer" came close but thats not the same as saying youre actually a girl.

people assumed i was a hysterical scandinavian feminist and i just ran with it. that awfulyearbook thing came much later.


edit: holy shit people on wddp really, REALLY hate me with like the most intense sort of internet hatred ive ever seen, its amazing

#45
[account deactivated]
#46
Post rating: ~
what did you do to the deepers, i wasnt much into lf
#47
[account deactivated]
#48
drivel of drunken hags
Post rating: ~
a place for friends
#49
Kurdt
Post rating: +
Quote
i cant even describe what you're doing, but youre doing it, so get the fuck out

Quote
You're trying to be conversation boss, dude, and it's so natural to you that you should be that your behavior is completely subconsious and invisible to you. I can tell you don't actually think you're doing anything at all problematic or even observable, because you think the only way you could stop doing is to stop talking entirely. I want to be completely clear here, I don't have the slightest whisper of hope that you can understand me even when I phrase it as explicitly as this, but I'm hoping maybe other people will read it and check their own privilege.

McCaine said:
I'm also a minority. So who is right?

Quote
:sugarhigh:

This forum has a serious problem, and it's a problem in dealing with the word that seems to be on everyone's lips these days: privilege. Discussions about privilege and what can be broadly called "identity politics" not only tend to get incredibly heated and unproductive on wddp, it's also resulted in a truckload of bans and probations. This forum just cannot seem to deal with these issues without melting down (or getting shut down) in the process, and a lot of posters have already basically given up on it because of this.

In a way, things getting the way they are is easy to understand. Privilege isn't an easy thing to discuss, and if you've ever read, say, Graeber's ethnography on the US anarchist movement, he paints a picture of these groups eternally wrestling with issues of internalized oppression and privilege, with the best they can hope for being some sort of uneasy peace as they try to stage their actions and hold their assemblies while simultaneously making sure people aren't being excluded or alienated. I mean, how do you handle these things in a way that doesn't make light of the problem, but also doesn't paralyze any sort of attempts at discussion or action? Nobody has found a perfect solution to this problem. That this sort of thing trips up people is obvious, but that still doesn't excuse the sad excuse for discussion that goes on in this forum and the constant, ridiculous drama trainwrecks.

Let me tell you something that might just blow your mind: this forum is filled with browbeating, namecalling, cries to cbass to ban this or that person, ridiculous emotional meltdowns and what have you, and it's not because here people *finally* decided - come hell or high water - to tackle the Big Issues and have some Realtalk about privilege and gaslighting, but rather because people are too damn COWARDLY to do this! Why have an actual discussion with a person that may end up being smarter than you, where you might even end up *being wrong*, when you can simply dodge the issue altogheter?

The easiest way to dodge an actual discussion on privilege in WDDP has for a long time been to simply declare "I'm a minority, which means that you (as a non-minority) can't even begin to enter into a discussion with me." The implication is that if you don't have the subjective experience that comes with being a minority, then you are supposedly a priori unable to offer any sort of insightful or even relevant commentary on the situation. Sometimes though, broad categories of privilege prove insufficient to get the other person to go away. Maybe the other person is also a person of color, or is also woman? When this happens, you need to narrow your search for some other area where the other person is at least slightly more privileged than you. Perhaps the other person's parents are still married, which you can then use as ammunition for your slam dunk combo finisher? The possibilities are endless.

This argument then in turn usually sparks some ridiculous bout of Oppression Olympics (What do you mean you were poor as a kid? *I* had to pose for adverts for kids' cereal, a thing which is officially classified as Torture under the Geneva Convention of the twentieth of april, 1969. You know NOTHING of my pain!), a discussion which then often permanently derails the thread as people jockey for the correct minority credentials to even be allowed to have an opinion. Meanwhile, the instigator can laugh all the way to the (upvote) bank, having effortlessly defused any sort of threat of having to be forced to have a taxing and (G*d forbid!) intellectually honest discussion about anything.

The McCaine quote in the beginning of the OP illustrates the limitations of this sort of rhetorical device, though. When someone says something to that effect, what you usually end up with is the other person giving some token reply of "well.... uh... we're *both right*, I guess?" before hurriedly exiting the conversation. People here are incredibly fond of this sort of ridiculous subjectivization where anyone who isn't the subject is verboten from talking about anything (how could they? they haven't walked a mile in the shoes of the person they're talking about!), but this sort of view is a cowardly copout, because it is thrown away at a moment's notice when it's no longer convenient. No woman on wddp has any problem saying that being a cis white male is, in fact, not the hardest thing in the world. In fact, nobody has a problem saying this. The whole "a person who is not X cannot speak about X" trope gets forgotten remarkably quickly whenever it's not needed as some sort of defensive shield to deflect any intellectually honest discussion.

A person saying that being a white cis male isn't particularly hard or painful is in itself not a problem. I would say the same thing myself (with the caveat that I'm personally not one of those). But the fact is that these people then have absolutely no qualms about immediately turning around and saying that it's a priori impossible and wrong for someone who is not X to speak about X to explain why they don't possibly need to justify anything they say. The end result? Don't talk back (or else you're a priori mansplaining or otherwise abusing your privilege) and don't disagree with someone (or else you are a priori gaslighting).

Here's what the real tragedy is, though. By outright abusing this climate in LF, entrepeneurial posters can essentially create their own sort of twisted privilege and then use it as a sledgehammer in discussions, which ends up being very hard to fight back against. I'm sure we all have different definitions of what "privilege" is, but even those of you that have disagreed with everything I've said thus far should agree with this: part of how privilege works is that it establishes itself as "normal" and "neutral", a natural state of being from which anything else is considered a deviation. If the norm is that of whiteness or maleness, the sort of benefits enjoyed by whites or males (by definition enjoyed at the expense of others!) are rendered invisible. Not getting hassled by cops is seen as the natural state of being, for example, all the while the racial profiling of minorities is systemically instituted in order to keep these groups down.

WDDP encourages this sort of thing happening. Though I don't think this is strictly a problem with this or that person, there's nevertheless a very good example of this: Slashie. For those of you not in the know, here are a few things this person has said:

Quote
I grew up in an apartment. We lived right across from a park, but I feel like I missed out on all the messing around and building and digging kids with access to private land got to do. Well it wasn't that we weren't allowed to play there, just that we couldn't dig holes or climb trees or build forts or anything, because it was Central Park and cops would come yell at you. Also back in the day it was pretty easy to stumble into an area that really wasn't safe for kids. We used to have fun messing with tourists tho.

Those are not your only two options. And if you can't be bothered to feel shame for your privilege you could at least feel shame for your behavior.


Notice that she is talking about growing up in an apartment *near central park*. While I'm sure her childhood wasn't perfect by any degree, we should all be aware that it takes a great amount of money to live in an apartment bordering on central park. Complaining that some children in the US were more fortunate than her (in that their family _owned private land_) and portraying this as "missing out" seems somewhat tone deaf in this context. Slashie also currently spends more money on her hair bi-monthly than many american families' entire food budget for the same period of time:


Quote
I have experience with all of those things. I have Irish/Hebrew ancestry and the curls that come with it, but I prefer to wear my hair straight or with a slight wave, so I have tried basically everything.

Professional straightening: About 20 to 50 bucks, depending on the salon and whether you're getting other services at the same time. It works ok but is time-consuming, only lasts for a day or two (until whenever you wash your hair), and if you go to the wrong salon you can leave looking like a TV anchor lady.

For chemical treatments, the brazilian blowout and its weaker but safer cousin keratin treatments have been the only thing that got my hair to the way I like it. Everything else is basically a perm that fries your hair, except the japanese straightening thing which bizarrely made my hair too straight. Brazilian blowout gave me soft straight hair that air-dries after shampooing into very faint waves. I love it and want to do it forever even though it is horrible formaldehyde-containing poison. It costs about 300-500 bucks but there are always discounts up on groupon and similar sites.

This is perhaps not very outlandish for someone occupying Slashie's particular niche in society, given that she has a well-paying job in Hollywood. That she complains about how much she hates it and can't wait to quit is a bit unfortunate, given that being able to quit your job is (dare I say it?) a privilege not many americans enjoy.

Why is any of this relevant? Well, Slashie has, among other things, called a (much poorer) woman of color a "b*tch" on this very forum, and made fun of the idea that a mentally ill cis male occupies a position of oppression in many contexts. Slashie is often incredibly aggressive in discussions, telling people to "check their privilege" and "shut up and get out" as well as berating them for trying to "dominate discussions", yet she has no problem doing this herself and also manages to complain about the discomforts that goes with spending several hundred dollars on her hair or lament over not being allowed to dig holes in central park.

Let's be honest: Slashie inhabits a world that is miles apart from that of the average american (nevermind the average human being!), and yet she seems to have incredibly little to say about the privilege this confers, all the while not only berating other people for ignoring their own privilege but also prompting them to *feel ashamed* that they even enjoy it! This sort of thing is only possible precisely because Slashie (not that she's alone in this!) manages to turn her own position into this kind of "neutral" position. Complaining about cops telling you not to climb trees in central park can be passed off as normal only when you simultaneously treat growing up in one of the most affluent parts of the world with the same sort of normality. Slashie berating other people for their unwillingness to examine their own privilege or feel ashamed for it is likewise not a problem only as long as you assume that Slashie speaks from a position that isn't itself incredibly mired in privilege, that her concerns and issues bespeak of some sort of normal or "neutral" position, as if the concerns of an upper-upper middle class caucasian woman are so generic that they give her a carte blanche to enter any sort of discussion without a shred of self-examination or humbleness.

The attitude here on wddp and the unwillingness to talk openly and honestly about this is what lets her get away with this, which lets her call women of color "b*tches" or steamroll other people in discussions without being questioned, all by saying that they're "privileged" and she isn't. I know for a fact that a lot of people find this sort of atmosphere in wddp at present to be a big, big problem, and frankly there's just a lot less people posting in LF these days. I think most (but certainly not all) of them deserve better than simply dismissing them by going "what, they don't like LF today? They must be bigots!" or whatever.

Let me just clarify one thing here again, because I think it's incredibly important that there are no misunderstandings on this point. I don't mean to single out Slashie per se, nor do I think she is the problem. I find her to be somewhat of an idiot turd, but that's just how I feel- a feeling that I'm sure is mutual. I have no problem with idiot turds in a general sense either, as they're sort of what LF has always been about. It's just that wddp currently lets itself be manipulated into accomodating and accepting their plays at presenting themselves as (to use another, smarter poster's words) the ultimate arbiters of privilege, and this is driving away a lot of good people who aren't bigots or exceptionally privileged in any sense. This needs to stop, and people need to have the intellectual honesty to *discuss these things in good faith* without getting massively downvoted or banned or whatever. There is a fear of tangling with this issue on WDDP, a fear that allows people like Slashie to essentially act like the south african ambassador from Lethal Weapon 2. Minority issues shouldn't be marginalized. Gaslighting is real, and it is a problem. But what we've essentially done is give certain people the diplomatic immunity to do this exact thing, giving themselves the privilege to dismiss the concerns of others as wholly unimportant or irrelevant and setting themselves up as untouchable, unquestionable arbiters of privilege. We ought to be better than this!

PS: I am a minority.

PPS: I made this chart/graph to illustrate all of this in a scientific manner:
#50
Post rating: ~
lmao at first i thought that post wasnt worth the Effort but it ended up making like 10 people have emotional breakdowns
#51
Post rating: ~
like it wouldnt suprise me if LF gets closed p. soon with that post being the thing that pushed cbass over the edge
#52
Kurdt
Post rating: ~
good poast imo
#53
Post rating: ~
at some point im basically going to make like a mini essay or something that builds upon some of the concepts of that post + the root causes for things like the ridiculous fixation with identity politics in wddp, because while wddp is legit crazy the issues of subjectivization vs. some sort of objective approach to privilege is thorny + every sort of radical organization absolutely cannot avoid having to deal with it

in some ways the post is a huge troll, but only insofar as the thing ive learned about the internets is that the easiest, most effective way to troll a person is to tell them something they have an emotional hangup over and do it in 100% good faith.

Edited by Tinkzorg ()

#54
[account deactivated]
#55
[account deactivated]
#56
Post rating: +

discipline posted:
agreed, it's what shut down occupy afaik. we gather to discuss taking down capitalism but then people need to make it about fracking and then people need to make it about no hate speech and then people need to make it about vegan food and then need to make it about crystal energy blah blah blah ok I got it I understand there are issues in the world to care about but yes I think you should get on board with the smashing capitalism thing first before you worry about fathers' rights. I know that makes me sound hostile to otherkin rights but like chairman meow said, it's not a dinner party yall.



well, thats related, but i wouldnt say its the same thing. i think its far too premature to expect people to be able to agree what the problem is at this point. the fact that you can even introduce the idea of smashing capitalism in a public sort of context is a HUGE step forward though, so of course it'll take a while for people to catch up.

there for real needs to be almost a sort of "permanent revolution" when it comes to examining privilege and everyone has to do it though. everyone needs to partake in constantly questioning privilege and how it impacts their ideas and behavior and what they think is importand and unimportant. because otherwise you end up with your action group/council replacing the tyranny of straight men with like the tyranny of white gay men to the detriment of women etc. at no point can you say "welp this person is outside of privilege and is therefore immune to questioning" without inviting the same sort of structures of oppression that you tried to escape from.

like idk, a good illustration of this is the interaction between first world and third world feminists. first world feminists will say that the "feminist" issues that are important in sub-saharan africa are like genital mutilation and stuff like that. third world feminists will disagree and talk about issues of economic imperialism and material conditions a lot of the time. but for the first world feminists, all of their privilege from class, nationality etc is made invisible, "normal" etc because they dont even think about it, and so in their mind becomes like a natural state of being. nevermind that this natural state of being can only be sustained by exploiting these third world women for all that they're worth.

Edited by Tinkzorg ()

#57
[account deactivated]
#58
Post rating: ~
lol i thought slashie was some gbs idiot who wandered outside her natural habitat occasionally but i didnt know she was a deeper or an aristocrat
#59
Post rating: +
The similarity between olsx and wddp if anything is an a priori characterization of anything radical as being wrong, just plain sweeping it off the table, assuming that whatever's left must be the building blocks of a rational answer even though it's shot through with the same contradictions they claim to be against

having said that the uk wddp thread is great and has its own character apart from the rest of it (much like its d&d equivalent, not coincidentally)

Edited by cleanhands ()

#60
Poronto
Post rating: +
wddp and rhizzone paint such gigantic and warped caricatures of each other
#61
Post rating: +

discipline posted:
I've long said that you can't destroy the master's house using the master's tools but nobody believes me or looks at me weird. I think you should retool that privilege post and make it into a thread, could be something very interesting to discuss among the rhizzzzzzzone study group. suggested title: "u can't spell privilege without v-i-l-e"



i started writing something about this, ive written 555 words so far. five just five, in other words.

#62
Post rating: ~

Tinkzorg posted:

discipline posted:
my favorite thing about tink is how he presented as a woman for like 2 years and got away with it

the thing that amazes me is that I basically at no point said "im a woman". i guess shit like "i destroyed my boyfriends computer" came close but thats not the same as saying youre actually a girl.



one could say that tink, like J.A.D.E., is "out"...

#63
Post rating: ~

germanjoey posted:

Tinkzorg posted:

discipline posted:
my favorite thing about tink is how he presented as a woman for like 2 years and got away with it

the thing that amazes me is that I basically at no point said "im a woman". i guess shit like "i destroyed my boyfriends computer" came close but thats not the same as saying youre actually a girl.

one could say that tink, like J.A.D.E., is "out"...



ITS OUT

#64
Kurdt
Post rating: ~
i want to make a thread about the recently (?) coined pejorative 'marxsplaining' but i'm too lazy/don't have the time so could somebody else make one
#65
Post rating: ~

gyrofry posted:
i want to make a thread about the recently (?) coined pejorative 'marxsplaining' but i'm too lazy/don't have the time so could somebody else make one



Only you can do this thing. Now go out there and make us proud.

#66
Post rating: ~

Tinkzorg posted:

gyrofry posted:
i want to make a thread about the recently (?) coined pejorative 'marxsplaining' but i'm too lazy/don't have the time so could somebody else make one

Only you can do this thing. Now go out there and make us proud.

#67
drivel of drunken hags
Post rating: ~
what's marxsplaining, it doesn't sound like a bad thing
#68
Kurdt
Post rating: ~

Groulxsmith posted:
what's marxsplaining, it doesn't sound like a bad thing

i gather it's a handwavy liberal catchphrase for dismissing the validity of historical materialism without engaging it substantively

#69
Post rating: +
A thing I wonder is how anonymity and privilege intersect; because I'm normal (i.e white cis abled male) I can, when entering online spaces, step out of my public persona and don a pseudo persona which fits perfectly without really any effort. This strikes me as a privilege but I have no idea if being 'not normal' (i.e. everyone else in the world) makes it more or less difficult to be anonymous. I assume anonymity in order to bypass what I feel are restraints on thought and expression: in effect to become more privileged than I am already.

What's happening is that by becoming anonymous I'm electing to become ahistorical, to exist outside of things as they are, and while it's useful for me as a learner I wonder whether this is something I should be worried about, not just in the context of being free to ignore privilege (when has that ever held me back) but in the broader sense that I could spend years wanking over abstractions without ever realising.
#70
desire be, desire go
Post rating: ~

gyrofry posted:

shennong posted:
i looked at wddp after i saw it mentioned here but it seems to be like 95% about videogames and p&p rpgs and 4/5 posts are contentless shitposts. i prefer here where its like a bunch of seriousposts and then a tpaine nonsequitur post

ugh so where does one go to shitpost about poststructuralism



facebook

#71
Post rating: ~
wats "gaslighting" in a forums contexst
#72
Poronto
Post rating: +
questioning someone's right to be personally offended at things
#73
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*dims ur post slightly* oic
#74
north pole
Post rating: ~
dr. goey made it clear to me in a lengthy appeal early on this forum is Not About WDDP Discussion so i would thank you all to abide by that
#75
[account deactivated]
#76
drivel of drunken hags
Post rating: ~
even I'm tired of talking about wddp and I was banned from wddp mostly for talking about how bad wddp was
#77
Post rating: ~

Groulxsmith posted:
even I'm tired of talking about wddp and I was banned from wddp mostly for talking about how bad wddp was



im interested insofar as some of the idiot turd whining can teach us a thing or two about discussing privilege in a more accessible or less problematic way, but insofar as we're just talking about idiot turds being idiot turds and laughing at the latest Wacky thing some Liberal Progressive Trust Fund Princess said, thats not really interesting in the slightest.

#78
Post rating: ~

shennong posted:
wats "gaslighting" in a forums contexst



there was some awful thread that spun out of the abysmal nerd pride thread where slashie and some other poster who rarely leaves the women thread went ballistic quoting everybody then saying "YEAH I AGREE FUCK ALL VAPIDS. YOU'RE REIGHT ALL WOMEN ARE WHORES. DURRSR" regardless of what other folks were trying to say, like obviously itching for a fight. then when people called them out about it they told them to stop gaslighting them. booya

#79
Post rating: ~
gaslighting is denying or marginalizing an actual problem. of course, whats an actual problem is something that itself needs to be examined, so "gaslighting" when its thrown around in discussions basically means disagreeing with someone, only its now a bannable offense.
#80
Post rating: ~
it also came from a ridiculous thread about "gaslighting," which is the phenomena of people supposedly portraying women who take issue with certain things as potentially insane. so, being stupid as shit, whenever there was a disagreement on the forums, people on the forum would accuse one another of attempting to "gaslight" the other side