"Everything is problematic" - McGill activist's story about deradicalizing

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > "Everything is problematic" - McGill activist's story about deradicalizing

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

duck monster posted:

Theres a term I heard for some of this stuff recently. Epistemological privelege. The idea that particular identities posess a priveleged insight into their own oppression and nobody without that identity could possibly understand them and therefore should not comment.

Its kind of bunkum but it also has some elements of truth to it.

In my view part of this turn in left politics comes from the lessening influence of marxism and post-marxism on the left. Not necessarily big M marxism and all its baggage of economism and party rara trotskyism and stuff, but the general underlying mechanic of viewing oppression as being a social system thats amenable to analysis as a system. In this thinking personal experience not only isn't that useful, its anecdote, and anecdote isn't data. The actual type of analysis isn't really the important part here. You could view it from a strictly marxist view of class relationships to capital, or you could look at it from the perspective of foucaultian analysis of power and discourse, or feminist analysis of patriachy, and so on. All of these analyse their subjects sociologically rather than psychologically, as interactions between groups rather than as individuals.

I generally agree with your analysis- it's also worth noting that iirc when this set of concepts were developed (before the "privilege" framework became more popular), the term that was used, which was not intended as a criticism, was "standpoint epistemology".

Most of the discussion so far has concentrated on the privilege stuff. What do folks think of the anti-intellectualism stuff? In my eyes they're closely linked.

SparkPeople posted:

The word oppression has been abused to describe any minor inconvenience, any uncomfortable reality by connecting them to a systemic nature. My personal experiences about being educated about how 'oppressed' I am have always come from some white girl or boy. Any rebuttal is a symptom of 'internalized racism' or ignorance on my part.

In this context it's also useful to discuss the concept of "microaggressions".

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Dec 3, 2014

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 21:11

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 11, 2024 18:18

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

SedanChair posted:

Privilege theory and intersectionality are amazing, there are no problems. People just can't handle them.

People not being able to handle them is a pretty big problem.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 21:26

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Nessus posted:

What exactly does intersectionality mean, anyway? Like, I have never clearly been able to get a sense of that. A thumbnail sketch is fine.

I have certainly known self-hating gays and I suppose you have self-hating (whatevers) in any minority group. I don't think you can just tune them out but Uncle Ruckus does not become correct about black folks just because he himself is black.

The nutshell version is that previous civil rights movements, such as feminism, would try to tackle their set of issues without considering or incorporating the problems of oppression that, for example, african-americans experienced (beyond it not being the thing they were focused on, no big surprise, feminists can be racist). This meant that people whose existences were at the intersection of multiple oppressed or prejudiced groups weren't being helped by civil rights efforts. Acknowledging the different experiences of those groups, and incorporating them into theory and response to oppression, is at the center of intersectionality theory.

Intersectionality was a big deal, and a huge step forward. The meaning of third-wave feminism is disputed, but intersectionality is one of the most common things identified as the shift to the third wave. At the same time, intersectionality can introduce complexities and forms of self-criticism or policing that grind civil rights and other such movements to a halt. When this happens, it's usually because intersectionality is in the hands of the politically self-interested or people who don't have a good understanding of its original purpose- to make the movement more inclusive, not to make it more ideologically pure or outcomes-perfect. Such abuses occur both from lay internet people and, infuriatingly, from academics and others who really oughta know better.

Privilege is usually a more troublesome set of concepts, because it can be used directly as an attack "check your privilege" in a way that directly and immediately invokes the relativism and standpoint epistemology that others were discussing above.

SedanChair posted:

Yes exactly. It is the entirety of the problem, just like people couldn't handle postcolonialism. The problem is not, Mr. Let's Make Friends, that people are talking about things that are real.

That's the opposite of my meaning, because the "can't" is categorical.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 21:44

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

OK, now I see the miscommunication- I was being unclear, my apologies. The group of people who "can't handle" these theories, especially privilege, are the people who are trying to use them. That's sort of at the core of this discussion.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 21:50

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Nessus posted:

Makes sense. Is this where the MRA people are going 'well I may be middle/upper-middle class, white, healthy, more or less without disability, but women won't have reproductive sex with me now who is the oppressed one??'

I remember one of those fine fellows saying that women's privilege included "existing" and "continuing to exist," which he counted twice, and which was rooted in the higher average female lifespan.

This is also a genuine problem within protest circles, and within the academy. I just got back from my field's national conference, where they made the opening panel discussion, i.e. the really big one everyone attends, about how to make the organizationa and field more inclusive and respectful. The panel was made up of major critical theorists and caucus leaders from various divisions and sectors, and they had a long and mostly productive discussion of concrete goals and changes that the organization could make to be more inclusive. The entire time, though, one of the panel members was actively attempting to police the statements and claims of everyone else on the panel, and attacked all of their ideas, as well as the panel itself, as an example of protest puppetry from the oppressive majority. She argued that nothing anyone could do would be sufficient to satisfy her, and devoted her own time to questioning the motives, experience and legitimacy of everyone else in the room.

This panelist and a group of like-minded supporters have prevented the organization from rewriting its constitution or making any major changes in any other governance area, mostly by litigating the race, gender identity, sexual orientation and politics of, as near as I can tell, anyone involved. This isn't someone on the fringe- it's someone quite prominent and respected in their part of the field. These are problems, and they're problems because some of the tools and concepts of left protest and critical analysis invite abuse.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 22:24

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Kristov posted:

So the author, based upon personal experiences, aligned herself with 'radical' leftists to combat the social surpression she faced. Then upon graduating and becoming a professional (engineer), she adopted the ideology of her employer as is the custom. This article is a pretty good picture of kicking the ladder out from behind you once you finish climing it.

It's also analogous to creating a psa warning people not to fist their own rear end in a top hat while they're trying to wipe it after taking a poo poo.

You might want to reread the article- you're pretty badly misconstruing it.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2014 23:31

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Xibanya posted:

Basically "tone argument" is a form of concern trolling when it's used to tell ignored people to shut up and play nice. But if it's not concern trolling it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

In other words, it's important to pay attention to who is mentioning tone and why, just like it makes a difference if (for example) someone brings up men whose sexual assault by women is not taken seriously whether or not the person bringing it up is in fact invested in the well-being of victims of sexual assault or are only pretending to care in order to try to diminish the voices of female victims of sexual assault.

I would love the phrase "concern trolling" to enter academia.

I can promise you that academics in rhetoric are aware of the term. The problem with "concern trolling" as a concept or rhetorical position is that it's falsification-resistant (that's how I'd put it, the rhetoricians would have their own term). Basically, it's not really possible to refute a concern trolling accusation, because it's entirely intention-based.

Kristov posted:

I cannot know

I fundamentally disagree. A standpoint epistemic framing, especially a categorical one, and especially one that's constructed strictly along racial or gender lines, does a tremendous disservice to the shared experience and humanity of those in a civic discourse. The "You cannot know" framing is precisely what creates the problems that the rest of the thread has discussed.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2014 20:30

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

katlington posted:

Amateurs using rulers to measure their microdicks doesnt prove that math is useless.

Under this metaphor, privilege makes for a poor ruler because its framing is individual- in other words, it is scaled at the microdick level.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2014 08:54

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Effectronica posted:

Intersectionality, I think, is basically flawed from its name on down. It emphasizes the meeting points that are always smaller than the things that are meeting, so we can have demands that feminism serve trans lesbians of color and them only, because the very idea of people working together is anathema. The roots of this are partially due to the splintering of leftist movements in the 1970s, but I think that the overall culture bears a lot more responsibility given how little institutional memory left-wing movements have. It is absolutely necessary for movements to accommodate all kinds of people, but emphasizing smaller and smaller groups is fruitless.

I think Intersectionality functions, but it can function at a softer level and as a weaker corrective. Its relative lack of appeal on an individual level as a cudgel is immediately associated with its relative lack of uptake. That might be a major point here- these theoretical concepts shouldn't be used as cudgels or tests of discursive legitimacy.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2014 21:01

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

katlington posted:

No you misunderstand, you've got it backwards. You think that because your experience with it is weird people on the internet but weird people on the internet get things wrong and are not a good source to learn from.

I don't know what you're talking about but it's not privilege theory.

No true privilege. More seriously, the problem of privilege theory is that it is prone to the misunderstanding and abuse that I and others in the thread have referred to.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 07:29

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

katlington posted:

Privilege and everything else. Find me a concept used by professionals that's not also misused by amateurs somewhere.

It's a matter of degree and relative harm/benefit. To repeat, privilege is more prone to abuse and harmful application because it frames the issue individually and invites rhetorical invocation in a conflict setting.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 09:38

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Debate & Discussion: Problematizing Pony Privilege

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 19:45

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

SedanChair posted:

You wake up in a ditch. You do not know what has happened.
Your political alignment is now: Nubio-Marxist

Exits: up
Press ? for help.

>

INV
XYZZY
KILL DRAGON

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 23:56

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 11, 2024 18:18

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

goatse.cx posted:

That's absolutely ridiculous sedanchair.

It's rapidly descending into moral freight term territory. If something I like happens, that must be because privilege was checked somewhere, whether anyone knew it or not. If something I didn't like happened, oh, if only there had been more privilege theory invoked.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2014 04:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > "Everything is problematic" - McGill activist's story about deradicalizing