"check your privilege"

[AMFV]

Can you please not Quote me on stuff I didn't said? I said no thing about Neo-Nazis, now you are just being treacherous and dishonest.

I think that was probably an honest mistake. That was my statement. I still ask the question there. If you're stating that all gangs result from systemic oppression how do you explain a gang (admittedly on the decline) that recruits largely from people that are not in groups that would considered to be systematically oppressed. I mean they're the same type of gang as most of the others. Drug trafficking, petty crime, that sort of thing.

[Razade]

Can you please not Quote me on stuff I didn't said? I said no thing about Neo-Nazis, now you are just being treacherous and dishonest.

No one quoted you saying stuff about Neo-Nazis.

AMFV addressed a question to you about Neo-Nazis.

[Zebalas]

No one quoted you saying stuff about Neo-Nazis.

AMFV addressed a question to you about Neo-Nazis.

[Razade]

Yeah, that's clearly an editing issue and he fixed it even before you posted.

[Zebalas]

Yeah, that's clearly an editing issue and he fixed it even before you posted.

But... It was you the one who did it. And if it was an editing issue can you please fix it?

[Razade]

But... It was you the one who did it. And if it was an editing issue can please fix it?

Ah, I see. It was and it's fixed. It was indeed an editing error.

[Liquor Box]

1. Gordon, R A. (2004). Antisocial Behavior and Youth Gang Membership: Selection and Socialization. Criminology, 42(1), 55-89.
2. Joseph, J. (2008). Gangs and Gang Violence in School. Journal of gang research, 16(1), 33-50.,
3.Stretesky, Paul B. and Pogrebin, Mark R. 2007 "Gang-Related Gun Violence: Socialization, Identity, and Self" Journal of Contemporary Ethnographyvolume 360 (issue 1): Pages 85-114 (Retrieved from Database Illumina on August 6, 2009)
4. Shields N., Nadasen K., Pierce L. The effects of community violence on children in Cape Town, South Africa (2008) Child Abuse and Neglect, 32 (5), pp. 589-601.
5. Feinstein, Diane. "Gang Violence: An Environment of Fear." U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein. 2006. 13 Aug 2009 <http://feinstein.senate.gov/06speeches/s-gang-violence1023.htm>.
6. Malec, Danny(2006)'Transforming Latino Gang Violence in the United States',Peace Review,18:1,81 — 89
7. Miller, W.B.. " Violence by Youth Gangs and Youth Groups as a Crime Problem in Major American Cities." 1977 Web.13 Aug 2009. <http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=137446>.
8. Stephan, James. "State Prisons Expenditures, 2001." Bureau of Justice Statistics, Special Report (2004): Print.
9. Huff, R.C. "Crime and Delinquency: Youth Gangs and Public Policy" 1989; 35
10. McCorkle, Richard C. and Miethe, Terance D.(1998)'The political and organizational response to gangs: An
examination of a “Moral panic” in Nevada',Justice Quarterly,15:1,41 — 64

Before I look at any of those, can you just confirm that you think they prove your statement that without oppression there would not be gangs at all?

I was not talking about those types gangs.

What sort of gangs were you talking about?

Do you have any basis for that remark?

Which remark? That "Gangs may be more prevalent where people are relatively poor"? It came from your statement that "Gang activity is very prevalent in lower income neighborhoods". I used the word 'may', because i was only allowing that your statement might be true, not endorsing the statement myself.

I was talking about one specific type of gang. The type where youth feel that uniting as a gang is a way many oppressed individuals can overcome prejudices. A gang can offer its members a sense of protection and belonging. Many of the inequalities that gang members fight against stem from racism and from the fact that they are of a minority group. In this nation there is a high value placed on being "white". Ore claims that inequality stems from the values we as a society attach to the differences we see between us and other people. The key way that gangs lash out against this inequality is through violence. Violence has become a standard operating procedure with in gangs. The violence has essentially become a culture. Guns give gang members a false sense of power and importance because of the drastic impact guns can make.

Ahhh, so when you said "without oppression there would be no gangs", you meant "without oppression there would be no gangs that formed from people who joined a gang because of oppression"? Surely you can see that that is about as meaningful as saying that "without jet engines there would be no aeroplanes that are propelled by a jet engine"

Even without oppression and any gangs that form only because of oppression. there would still, of course, be lots of other violent gangs.

[Mith]

So this thread is a bit of a mess to sort out on a phone, but I find that in untangling the knots, one can find a gold coin or two (plus you now have some free rope!)

My general perspective (so it could have more holes than substance) on check your privileges is that the original intention is to say:

"It sounds like you are making an assumption or personal bias is unfairly colouring your argument in a way that is not conductive to this discussion. Compare your experience, and the history of those with similar experiences, with those that are like us."

^That is a mouthful to say, and it isn't nearly as quippy. But this case, the phrase is boiled down to something that has lost it's...potency, for the lack of a better word. However, it is exhausting and time consuming to do the full Socratic Method on breaking down everything for people who in the end may not be arguing in good faith. So when they try and join in on the conversation with an argument that is viewed by the group to be unproductive from group experience, they are asked to try and work through the potential issues on their own time.


Ramble/Confession:

I will admit that I take the coward's way out, but that is because I don't have enough personal energy to argue with people who (to me), are starting from a point so different from my own. Plus, the only way I can see a way to truly sway viewpoints is to start from points so far removed and work foreward, that my discussion will have eaten up any desire to humour me long before I get back to the original point. Does this make me a bad philosopher, or a good one?

On the Subject of Gangs:

The Ideological gangs such as Neo Nazis, from my understanding, still have some roots in lower economic class (gods I hate that term), with the higher class representation probably stemming from the synergy of self validation with the all to slow decline of the Classic Western power dynamics.

That's my two pennies on the thread so far. Which given the current value of the coin, gives you an accurate estimate of it's worth. :P

[2D8HP]

I think this illustrate the idea well, both 2D8HP[..]

[..](Sorry to assume stuff)[..]

No need to apologize, you're assumptions are close enough (in my case).

[...]part of the thing that's often happening is you're trying to say "your ways are hurting other people, and you're not seeing that because of where you're coming from." People aren't talking about matters for funsies - they're talking about them because they think something bad is happening and people need to change what they're doing in order for the bad thing to not be happening.

For an obvious example, I obviously want the guy shouting out his car window about how he wants to touch me to change his ways[..]

[...]A more common example, and something I've actually seen happen - women want to talk about sexual harassment and how certain behaviors make it harder for them to be taken seriously and feel like they can be safe and accepted. However, there are more men than women, and what many of the men want to talk about is how it's hard for them to get a date and how the women wanting to focus on work is preventing them from getting a date. And the conversation ends up by sheer numbers being far more about the romantic difficulties of the men involved (because from their perspective that's what's important) than the women's desire to feel safe and like their romantic choices aren't going to affect their ability to do their jobs[...]

Grown men not boys?

Sadly, if they're like this as full adults, I'm not sure there's anything that may be done until they witness someone they care for being harassed, if even that works for them to grow some basic empathy.

We're back to the same problem here though. Unless you can sit down and have a personal conversation with everyone who's causing the problems (many of whom don't have that kind of relationship with the people they're causing the problems for), you can't really make any changes at all or get your message across[...]

It's contradictory, but if someone has had an experience in their past that helps them relate to the suffering of others, but is distant enough that the scars have healed, that helps them have empathy, that is if they were beaten once long ago, but not recently (because then they'll only focus on their own pain).

However, if they grew up repeatedly abused they often become abusers themselves.

What's worked in the past to get people to become more inclusive is to have felt their own circumstances to have been improving, and to feal lucky about it (so boom times) and to witness the suffering of others (visual media).

If however times are tough, then people often become more exclusive rather than inclusive.

Usually this isn't done by shouting match. It's done by a polite, ok I hear what you're saying, but if men have to worry about harassment won't it mean that we can't get a date? Isn't it unfair that it's so hard for a man to get a date? And that happens over and over and over again[..]

Really?

When I worked at the motorcycle shop I heard a fellow 20-something coworker who complained to me one-on-one about not having "a girl", but otherwise I've not heard it.

Spoiler: a long digression

Show

Maybe it's an older blue collar thing, but the standard attitude is that you're supposed to pretend to want to be alone so you can have more time to devote to fixing up old cars, eating buffets at casinos, drinking alcohol, fishing, watching sports, and sometimes hunting until you somehow have kids, at which point your interests become coaching sports (baseball, basketball, and football for your sons, basketball and soccer for your daughters), and teaching fishing, you may also talk about music education for your daughters, but not your sons (that will get you mocked), and if your an immigrant you may praise your kids academics without being mocked.

When I was union jobsite steward one of the young apprentices didn't know the social cues and did complain about never having a date, and also how many bullets he fired ever week in his target shooting hobby, which got him shunned, I took him aside, explain to him to never complain again about lacking the attention of women, and to make up a story about bringing home a deer that he "only had to shoot once", that he put in his freezer and "cooked in a crock-pot",.he did so and became accepted, for the record, I never had any of those hobbies, except for occasional drinking, and some fishing with my father and stepdad, and it was a running joke about how the only sports I watched was beach volleyball, which I volunteered when asked, "Well what do you watch?", otherwise my tales of motorcycling, and how terrible tasting my Dad's attempts at cooking what he hunted sufficed for "guy talk", unless I was asked for union news, and I was considered a bit odd for reading during lunch. Still, somehow I had an instinct for what to suggest to the apprentice to get him unshunned, which latter benefited me when he not only became a Journeyman, but a Foreman!

Long story short, I've never heard a group of men complain about a lack of dates in earshot of each other, and despite the sterotypes of "locker room talk", when I worked construction if women were mentioned mostly they bragged about "She was into me", complained about how much their divorce cost them, and sometimes bragged about their daughters accomplishments. With City workers, among the older guys it's pretty much the same as construction work, but the younger guys show each other pictures of singers and ladies they say they're going "to hook up with", but I still haven't heard them complain about not having dates, and unless I miss my guess they would be mocked if they did (though the younger crew members are pretty much always mocking each other, to the amusement of we older ones).

Sounds like the men where you live WarKitty are just different than what I'm used too, so I don't really know what advice to give to get them to change their behavior. The yelling out the window thing in particuliar sounds like someone inviting being kicked repeatedly to me.

[WarKitty]

Grown men not boys?

Sadly, if they're like this as full adults, I'm not sure there's anything that may be done until they witness someone they care for being harassed, if even that works for them to grow some basic empathy.

Usually I've seen it in the "just legal" age group. So they are technically adults, but maybe not all the way there yet.

Really?

When I worked at the motorcycle shop I heard a fellow 20-something coworker who complained to me one-on-one about not having "a girl", but otherwise I've not heard it.

Spoiler: a long digression

Show

Maybe it's an older blue collar thing, but the standard attitude is that you're supposed to pretend to want to be alone so you can have more time to devote to fixing up old cars, eating buffets at casinos, drinking alcohol, fishing, watching sports, and sometimes hunting until you somehow have kids, at which point your interests become coaching sports (baseball, basketball, and football for your sons, basketball and soccer for your daughters), and teaching fishing, you may also talk about music education for your daughters, but not your sons (that will get you mocked), and if your an immigrant you may praise your kids academics without being mocked.

When I was union jobsite steward one of the young apprentices didn't know the social cues and did complain about never having a date, and also how many bullets he fired ever week in his target shooting hobby, which got him shunned, I took him aside, explain to him to never complain again about lacking the attention of women, and to make up a story about bringing home a deer that he "only had to shoot once", that he put in his freezer and "cooked in a crock-pot",.he did so and became accepted, for the record, I never had any of those hobbies, except for occasional drinking, and some fishing with my father and stepdad, and it was a running joke about how the only sports I watched was beach volleyball, which I volunteered when asked, "Well what do you watch?", otherwise my tales of motorcycling, and how terrible tasting my Dad's attempts at cooking what he hunted sufficed for "guy talk", unless I was asked for union news, and I was considered a bit odd for reading during lunch. Still, somehow I had an instinct for what to suggest to the apprentice to get him unshunned, which latter benefited me when he not only became a Journeyman, but a Foreman!

Long story short, I've never heard a group of men complain about a lack of dates in earshot of each other, and despite the sterotypes of "locker room talk", when I worked construction if women were mentioned mostly they bragged about "She was into me", complained about how much their divorce cost them, and sometimes bragged about their daughters accomplishments. With City workers, among the older guys it's pretty much the same as construction work, but the younger guys show each other pictures of singers and ladies they say they're going "to hook up with", but I still haven't heard them complain about not having dates, and unless I miss my guess they would be mocked if they did (though the younger crew members are pretty much always mocking each other, to the amusement of we older ones).

Sounds like the men where you live WarKitty are just different than what I'm used too, so I don't really know what advice to give to get them to change their behavior. The yelling out the window thing in particuliar sounds like someone inviting being kicked repeatedly to me.

I think it's different circles. I actually when I worked retail and backroom stuff, you didn't hear near as much of that crap. There's a certain sort of behavior among those who want to appear like they're the cultured intellectual. Realistically, it's almost always brought up as a response to a perceived wrong on the part of women - for example, the idea that the fear of sexual harassment will keep men from being able to approach women with romantic intentions.

In my experience going from the university setting, to retail work (especially unloading and janitorial), to call center stuff, there's some very different social rules.

[ve4grm]

Ah, I see. It was and it's fixed. It was indeed an editing error.

Right, so if we're accepting that editing errors can be made, and sometimes people aren't as clear as they want to be, can we also just accept that zebalas was (from context clues, such as the ability to "grow up in" a gang of that type) pretty clearly talking about youth gangs, but communicated it inadequately?

.

This thread is fully off topic, has verged (and will inevitably verge even more) into real-world economics and socio-political discussion. I think everybody needs to back up before the mods shut it down.

The initial questions was answered. The fact that some people use the phrase in bad faith doesn't change the intended meaning of the phrase in the first place.

[Liquor Box]

Right, so if we're accepting that editing errors can be made, and sometimes people aren't as clear as they want to be, can we also just accept that zebalas was (from context clues, such as the ability to "grow up in" a gang of that type) pretty clearly talking about youth gangs, but communicated it inadequately?

Except some youth gangs are not made up of the oppressed either. There are youth gangs made up predominantly of people who are not oppressed in any apparent way - for example youth skinhead gangs.

Zebalas has clarified what he or she was actually talking about when he/she said that without oppression there would be no gangs - that is gangs that arise from oppression, so he/she was excluding all the gangs that don't arise from oppression. It as sensible as me saying "all people are asian", then defending by saying that I was only talking about those people who are asian, and not those who are not.



Anyway, the original point (from TVTyrant) was that white people do sometimes experience racial abuse at the hands of minority groups (and in quite a sustained way when the minority is actually the majority in a microcosm of society, like a particular school). So it is not correct to assume that white people have had the privilege of never experiencing sustained and serious racism. I think that point holds true (subject to points about institutional vs individual racism) despite Zebalos's assertion that there are some gangs where perceived oppression plays a part in their formation.

[WarKitty]

I think people do really miss the aspect - time is not infinite. People's energy is not infinite. And most people's listening ability is not infinite.

And talk isn't necessarily something that's harmless. I think this comes up a lot with LGBT issues - there are a lot of people who simply aren't comfortable with trans people. And there comes a time where the argument turns into how trans people should modify what they do because it makes cis people uncomfortable. There has to be a way of saying, look, your discomfort with not having people fit into how you think gender works is not on the same level as a trans person's right to be able to live their lives as themselves without being considered a joke, threat, or trick.

That's a common problem in these discussions - they're not just theoretical discussions where you pick a representative of each side and have a nice, even, moderated talk and everyone goes home with no hard feelings.

[AMFV]

I think people do really miss the aspect - time is not infinite. People's energy is not infinite. And most people's listening ability is not infinite.

But they aren't as limited as you're describing. A person can listen for a good deal of time to somebody with whom they have fundamental disagreements. Even somebody whose views they find abhorrent. And if you can't instead of shouting somebody down with the idea that they're overprivileged maybe a better route would be to tell them that you can't really deal with the conversation that's happening, putting the blame for the conversational avoidance where it really belongs.

You should save a little listening energy for voices you disagree with, actually you should spend a great deal of your listening energy on that. Because listening to a choir of voices you agree with and silencing the others, can push people to very dangerous conclusions.

And talk isn't necessarily something that's harmless. I think this comes up a lot with LGBT issues - there are a lot of people who simply aren't comfortable with trans people. And there comes a time where the argument turns into how trans people should modify what they do because it makes cis people uncomfortable. There has to be a way of saying, look, your discomfort with not having people fit into how you think gender works is not on the same level as a trans person's right to be able to live their lives as themselves without being considered a joke, threat, or trick.

Well if your'e discussing societal level solutions to something like that, somebody is going to have to be uncomfortable. And it can't ALWAYS be the non-LGBT folks. That's not a very fair way to handle things. There are parts of my life that I do not live in public. Because it would make other people very uncomfortable. So that's worth discussing, even if you don't necessarily agree with what they're saying. Even if, especially if what they're saying is not comfortable for you. Not because you should agree with them, but because you should listen to them. You should have the same listening focus for their group as you do for the others, because otherwise you're restricting your viewpoints to those from specific groups.

That's a common problem in these discussions - they're not just theoretical discussions where you pick a representative of each side and have a nice, even, moderated talk and everyone goes home with no hard feelings.

True, but resorting to attempting to literally silence a large group, as you've admitted is the goal here. Is not productive in any discussion, moderated or not. And very likely is even unethical

[WarKitty]

But they aren't as limited as you're describing. A person can listen for a good deal of time to somebody with whom they have fundamental disagreements. Even somebody whose views they find abhorrent. And if you can't instead of shouting somebody down with the idea that they're overprivileged maybe a better route would be to tell them that you can't really deal with the conversation that's happening, putting the blame for the conversational avoidance where it really belongs.

You should save a little listening energy for voices you disagree with, actually you should spend a great deal of your listening energy on that. Because listening to a choir of voices you agree with and silencing the others, can push people to very dangerous conclusions.

My experience is it usually doesn't end up being "a little energy." It ends up being pretty much all your energy and then some and you'll STILL be told you're silencing the voices of people you disagree with. Because your life, your right to just plain old wear clothes and exist in public, these make people feel uncomfortable and if you don't listen to every single voice that wants to explain how you wanting to be treated as an equal human being is a problem for them, you are silencing them.

Because it's not just a fundamental disagreement. It's for me literally been "is it ok for me to exist in public and speak to men and not have sex with them and not have to constantly defend my right to freaking read a book on the way to work without it being a big deal." Or does a trans person have the right to, you know, be trans in public and wear clothes and go to the bathroom without being obligated to defend themselves against people who find the existence of trans folk uncomfortable. That takes a lot of energy in part because you're ALREADY dealing with those objections on a regular basis simply by living your life where other people can see you, and that's tiring.

Should it really be on me to be the one who's "avoiding the conversation" when the conversation is in the first place about my right to be a full member of society who gets treated with the same basic respect that the people I'm talking to get?

That last part is a lot of what we're trying to say with privilege. These objections are in our faces on a regular basis simply by trying to live our lives. We can't choose to not spend our energy on them. In fact we're already spending a great deal of energy on them because we don't have a choice, sometimes even when we don't have a lot of energy for ourselves. But in order to be seen as being fair, we're often expected to give over the lion's share of our energy and the discussion time to those same objections repeated over and over and over again, very commonly at the expense of our own voices being heard.

Part of privilege is saying that, if you're coming from a place of privilege, what you're seeing as "fair" often isn't actually fair. That's what I was trying to get at - a lot of times what's seen as "fair" is actually heavily biased in terms of the voices of those with privilege being able to be heard over the voices of those who aren't, but if you're used to that being the case than being told you need to listen, not just talk, feels very unfair and like you're being silenced.

That's why a lot of feminist spaces will say "but what about the men?" is a problem. Because if you start letting that in, what actually happens is women's issues don't get addressed. Because if you don't stop talking about women's issues and start talking about men's issues, you're accused of silencing. And there will never be an end to the men's issues that you're expected to talk about - you won't have any time and energy left for your own once you're done, and when you give out it will still not have been enough to address everyone who's showing up with a concern.

[Amazon]

AMFV, Liquor Box and Razade the defenders of the white cis male guy.

I'm surprised that Donnadogsoth didn't shown up yet.

[AMFV]

My experience is it usually doesn't end up being "a little energy." It ends up being pretty much all your energy and then some and you'll STILL be told you're silencing the voices of people you disagree with. Because your life, your right to just plain old wear clothes and exist in public, these make people feel uncomfortable and if you don't listen to every single voice that wants to explain how you wanting to be treated as an equal human being is a problem for them, you are silencing them.

I think that the problem here is that you're assigning them roles and then potentially jumping to conclusions about their perspectives. Like when you assumed that none of the men you've been discussing harassment with have ever been harassed which is not a safe assumption to make. When you're having a great deal of implied conversation that's not actually happening, that makes things a great deal more exhausting.

And maybe if that winds up burning up all of your energy, then you shouldn't discuss those topics. If you aren't able to give a fair shake to all people involved in the conversation, you shouldn't be having that discussion. Because it isn't a discussion... it's a sham. It doesn't matter if you don't think that their voices deserve to be heard.

And you shouldn't have to listen to points constantly being rehashed, but that's not been my experience in most discussions. It's possible that it's yours. But I'll tell what has been my experience, when people have a pre-established viewpoint of the other side, they start to "alter" their words in their mind until it fits that pre-established ideal and that is when problems start to arise. Now that may not be the case for you, but what you've described discussion wise is not something I've observed, and I worked in places that probably had much laxer rules as far as discussion goes.

Because it's not just a fundamental disagreement. It's for me literally been "is it ok for me to exist in public and speak to men and not have sex with them and not have to constantly defend my right to freaking read a book on the way to work without it being a big deal." Or does a trans person have the right to, you know, be trans in public and wear clothes and go to the bathroom without being obligated to defend themselves against people who find the existence of trans folk uncomfortable. That takes a lot of energy in part because you're ALREADY dealing with those objections on a regular basis simply by living your life where other people can see you, and that's tiring.

Here I'll answer for the men involved. "It's okay for you to exist in public and speak to men without having sex with them, it's also cool if you want to read a book." But, if you want to go through life without ever being harassed that isn't going to happen. Everybody gets some level of unwanted public interaction. As I've said, I've experienced that, and it is uncomfortable. There is no obvious solution to people being *******s, and if the people you're talking to aren't *******s lumping them in with the *******s is naturally going to make them defensive, that's the logical reaction. Saying "if you don't agree with my exact social policies you're part of the group that's harassing people," is going to make people upset, and quite reasonably so.

As far as trans people, I've had a lot of discussions with them, and generally the problem is that most of them are not willing to listen at all to any notion that they might have to compromise things. And that's problematic, if you're trying to solve something, both sides have to be willing to accept that they might have to shift boundaries or accept a compromise, otherwise discussion and moving forward is impossible.

Should it really be on me to be the one who's "avoiding the conversation" when the conversation is in the first place about my right to be a full member of society who gets treated with the same basic respect that the people I'm talking to get?

I don't think any member of society avoids getting messed with in public in some respect. And YOU DON'T FREAKING KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE RESPECT THOSE MEN GET. Sorry, but this has been stated so many times and you have glossed over it and ignored it every time. You don't have their experiences, you don't know if they've been ignored or harassed or what's been happening to them, you are making assumptions based on a flawed narrative. That's the problem, you're assuming that as people in the group they're in, they have fundamentally a more charmed and less problem filled existence than you, and that may not be the truth, because that assumption is coming straight out of your backside.

That last part is a lot of what we're trying to say with privilege. These objections are in our faces on a regular basis simply by trying to live our lives. We can't choose to not spend our energy on them. In fact we're already spending a great deal of energy on them because we don't have a choice, sometimes even when we don't have a lot of energy for ourselves. But in order to be seen as being fair, we're often expected to give over the lion's share of our energy and the discussion time to those same objections repeated over and over and over again, very commonly at the expense of our own voices being heard.

But you don't have any way of knowing that those men don't face similar problems. You're assuming they don't. And that is the problem with asking people with whom you are not intimately familiar with to "check their privilege" you don't have any idea what their actual privilege is. You have an assumption based on their race or gender, and that's a really poor place to start. And worse yet, that assumption is causing you to ignore what they're saying. And to try to publicly silence them, that's abhorrent.

Part of privilege is saying that, if you're coming from a place of privilege, what you're seeing as "fair" often isn't actually fair. That's what I was trying to get at - a lot of times what's seen as "fair" is actually heavily biased in terms of the voices of those with privilege being able to be heard over the voices of those who aren't, but if you're used to that being the case than being told you need to listen, not just talk, feels very unfair and like you're being silenced.

But I don't think that those voices are heard at the volume you believe or the frequency. I don't think that men are living in a life that you imagine. They have a lot of problems that you don't realize and have not personally experienced, problems that you are now dismissing out-of-hand. And you're silencing them based on what you expect them to say, or because they have drawn different conclusions. If you don't have the energy to have a discussion you shouldn't have one. But if you want to have a discussion, make a genuine discussion not a sham.

That's why a lot of feminist spaces will say "but what about the men?" is a problem. Because if you start letting that in, what actually happens is women's issues don't get addressed. Because if you don't stop talking about women's issues and start talking about men's issues, you're accused of silencing. And there will never be an end to the men's issues that you're expected to talk about - you won't have any time and energy left for your own once you're done, and when you give out it will still not have been enough to address everyone who's showing up with a concern.

I don't think that women's groups should have to solve men's issues. But their reaction isn't usually "We don't have time or energy to solve that, why not form your own group". Their reaction is much more typically "But you're privileged men, you don't have any real problems" or when men do form groups they label them as being misogynist sexist groups, which is not always accurate.

I'm going to share a video that I think captures where you are coming from if I'm not mistaken, and shows some of the problems with it, it's a TED talk by a lady who was interviewing men's rights groups. And it shows a lot of the value of listening to the other side even when you don't fundamentally agree with them.

Spoiler: Video

Show

AMFV, Liquor Box and Razade the defenders of the white cis male guy.

I'm surprised that Donnadogsoth didn't shown up yet.

Actually I haven't been "defending" anything that the "Cis Male Guy" may have said, only the fact that you should listen to all participants in a discussion you're in. Period. Or else you're being an ass, and that's a problem. I also like how you're lumping people having fairly rational discussion in with somebody who may not have intended that or wanted that.

[WarKitty]

I just want to address this idea of compromise here.

No, "everyone should be willing to compromise" is not the right solution to everything. I learned that fast in my personal life - that there are some people you can't compromise with, because what they want inherently infringes on someone else's needs or rights. If I'm talking to a guy who thinks me wanting to read a book in public makes me rude and stuck-up because I'm not giving him a chance, and I owe it to him to chat with him and maybe go out on a date because he thinks I'm pretty and that he deserves to have a chance with me, what should the compromise be?

That's totally a realistic argument I've had a lot of times. And I've definitely got the "you're not willing to compromise" accusation, because frankly I can't think of an acceptable compromise. And I have had plenty of people - always men - come in and say, well, sure, you deserve not to be harassed, but you have to understand that it's hard to get a date and maybe if women didn't insist on wanting to read instead of talking to men and were more willing to go out with guys they weren't really interested in men wouldn't feel the need to harass women.

Heck, I've had guys who actually say that rape is a real issue, but if women would compromise more by being willing to have sex more often it wouldn't be such a problem. I'm honestly not even sure how to reply to that one, because "have consensual sex so you don't get raped" (this was discussing especially date/partner violence) isn't even a logical thing. So I'm really not even sure how I'd include that in a discussion. And again, I'm pulling all this stuff from actual conversations.

Privilege isn't assuming that the privileged person has led a life free of all problems - it's assuming that, by and large, people in a certain group don't have specific experiences. I have yet to meet a man in the western world who has, on the order of several times a week on average, been harassed and pestered by people who want to go out on a date with him and refuse to take no for an answer, especially not when they are almost all bigger and stronger than him and in a context where it's very frequent that third parties will assume he brought it on himself by being too sexy. Somehow that's getting twisted into "I'm assuming no man I'm talking to has been harassed by anyone ever," which frankly I've never said. I am saying, even if you've been harassed at some point, that's not necessarily a comparable experience for various reasons.

[AMFV]

I just want to address this idea of compromise here.

No, "everyone should be willing to compromise" is not the right solution to everything. I learned that fast in my personal life - that there are some people you can't compromise with, because what they want inherently infringes on someone else's needs or rights. If I'm talking to a guy who thinks me wanting to read a book in public makes me rude and stuck-up because I'm not giving him a chance, and I owe it to him to chat with him and maybe go out on a date because he thinks I'm pretty and that he deserves to have a chance with me, what should the compromise be?

This is true, but if you aren't willing to alter your position, then discussion is pointless. Because discussion is intended to bring both sides closer to the truth and bring both sides to a better understanding. It's not that compromise is required in all situations, but that achieving the closest thing to the truth should be the goal of a discussion, and the inherently requires being willing to alter your position from it's starting point. Otherwise it's pointless. Which isn't the worst thing, but it should be mentioned.

Did you talk to that guy? Or are you talking to other people whose likely commonality with that guy is that they're guys? Because those situations are completely different. And in neither of them would telling somebody that they need to check their privilege be useful or move the discussion forward. That's the issue, you have to make rude assumptions about people and then you do something that's going to kill the discussion, that's just counterproductive on all sides.

That's totally a realistic argument I've had a lot of times. And I've definitely got the "you're not willing to compromise" accusation, because frankly I can't think of an acceptable compromise. And I have had plenty of people - always men - come in and say, well, sure, you deserve not to be harassed, but you have to understand that it's hard to get a date and maybe if women didn't insist on wanting to read instead of talking to men and were more willing to go out with guys they weren't really interested in men wouldn't feel the need to harass women.

I'm not sure that I would buy that it's "plenty" of people. I've heard that argument, but it was always from pretty lonely losers, and that's not a majority of men. I don't think that necessarily a compromise in terms of your actions is what's called for here. Maybe a compromise in terms of figuring out a way that a man can approach a woman in whom he has an interest and get accepted or rejected without having negative consequences beyond the rejection. You're trying to solve a big problem, and lumping all the men together is a horrible first step.

And the fact that it's hard for men in modern society to find a date, is increasingly becoming an issue, and likely is part of what might cause an upswing in frustrated harassment. I'm not saying that they're complaints are as significant as yours but those are valid complaints and they are part of the same issue. You can't tackle one side of a thorny issue by ignoring half of the people involved

Heck, I've had guys who actually say that rape is a real issue, but if women would compromise more by being willing to have sex more often it wouldn't be such a problem. I'm honestly not even sure how to reply to that one, because "have consensual sex so you don't get raped" (this was discussing especially date/partner violence) isn't even a logical thing. So I'm really not even sure how I'd include that in a discussion. And again, I'm pulling all this stuff from actual conversations.

Well there are some pretty strong logical responses to that, all of which would be superior to basically telling them "shut you don't understand". But the first thing you need to do is listen to their complaint and their part of the discussion. For a man, not having sex when you are aroused can be physically painful. No that doesn't justify rape or harassment, but it's something that you haven't had to experience, largely because in Western Culture at this time, sex is much more readily available to women than it is to men. Now that doesn't mean that you should accept any argument that's as full of **** as those are, but understanding where those arguments are coming from that's key to having a useful discussion.

If something "isn't even a logical thing" then pointing out the flaws in the reasoning is much better than attacking the character of the other people involved in the argument is. That would be a good first step. Maybe talk about ways that men can approach women that are less creepy, and ways that women can not assume that guys who approach them are always creeps. Because that's all enmeshed, not that you should give actual creeps a chance, but understanding them is important to any kind of way to solve the problem that you're discussing.

Privilege isn't assuming that the privileged person has led a life free of all problems - it's assuming that, by and large, people in a certain group don't have specific experiences. I have yet to meet a man in the western world who has, on the order of several times a week on average, been harassed and pestered by people who want to go out on a date with him and refuse to take no for an answer, especially not when they are almost all bigger and stronger than him and in a context where it's very frequent that third parties will assume he brought it on himself by being too sexy. Somehow that's getting twisted into "I'm assuming no man I'm talking to has been harassed by anyone ever," which frankly I've never said. I am saying, even if you've been harassed at some point, that's not necessarily a comparable experience for various reasons.

That is true. But you're still making assumptions based on what you believe their experiences to be rather than assumptions based on what their experiences actually are. And you don't know their experiences. You've never had the same set of bad experiences that they have. So they might be worse than yours. You have no idea. You're making assumptions based on your own set of experiences.

Let's flip the script a little here: I am a big scary looking dude, I'm a construction worker, I was a Marine, I weigh well over 200 lbs and I workout a lot. I don't harass women, and I don't have to be afraid of most physical confrontation. But I have to be very afraid of making sure that I don't make people around me uncomfortable. That is something you have never had to experience. And I can guarantee that sometimes when I have tried to talk to women, they've felt uncomfortable, sometimes even when I was doing everything I could to not make them so. I'm not saying that this is the case for the people doing actual harassment, but what I'm saying are the men you are talking to aren't likely going around harassing people, but I bet they're afraid people will think they are.

No set of experiences is comparable, which is why you should let everybody talk in a discussion, because those different experiences are often useful in coming closer to actual truth of things, which is hard to do, and painful.

Edit: Also did you watch the video, I think it really helps encapsulate why listening to others is important if you think their views are not good on the outset.

[Amazon]

You've never had the same set of bad experiences that they have. So they might be worse than yours. You have no idea. You're making assumptions based on your own set of experiences.

Said the slaver to the slave.

[Strigon]

Said the slaver to the slave.

And with that, the last hope of recovery for this thread was lost. Given the title of this particular one, I'm surprised it even lasted this long.

See you all next week for an exciting new episode of "Inflammatory thread titles", everybody. Whose turn is it to host the next one, anyway?

[Amazon]

And with that, the last hope of recovery for this thread was lost. Given the title of this particular one, I'm surprised it even lasted this long.

See you all next week for an exciting new episode of "Inflammatory thread titles", everybody. Whose turn is it to host the next one, anyway?

My point still stands, sometimes we don't need to hear both sides, sometimes a compromise is not a solution.

[WarKitty]

AMFV, I'm not currently on hardware capable of watching a video, just FYI.

[AMFV]

AMFV, I'm not currently on hardware capable of watching a video, just FYI.

Well I can try and summarize some of it as best I can, it's definitely worth watching when you have the capability. Basically the lady involved was a feminist she did a documentary on MRA folks. When she was doing the initial interviews she had to let them talk, cause that's what you do as a documentarian. But she was still adding an undertone of sexism to what they were saying, she didn't catch it until she was re-examining the interviews later, that she was adding things to what they were saying rather than listening. And that's a big part of this, I think.

What (I suspect) is happening is that when you complain about the harassment, the men start complaining about what to them is a related issue, that they aren't able to get the interest of women without seeming like a creepy harasser and that a lot of men are very frustrated by that. So that's I would imagine why that topic comes up when you bring up harassment, because it is a related topic. And while it might not seem like it is to you, or that it's that big an issue, you should still see what you can glean from it, because that'll get you closer to the truth of the matter, and the closer you are to that the better you can deal with anything.

And because I'm not able to as eloquently sum it up as I think the lady herself does:
https://singjupost.com/meeting-the-e...ye-transcript/

There is the transcript of the video.

Said the slaver to the slave.

If that relationship were accurate then why would I allow you to be having this extensive formal discourse on the subject, wouldn't it be in the best interests of the oppressing class to prevent that from taking place? I mean discourse is where freedoms have historically developed. And most oppressing groups and oppressive societies take steps against that because of that.

That's something you should definitely consider when you're trying to silence a group or a viewpoint. Silence and denial of speech is the weapon of the oppressor not the oppressed. That's historically been always true to the best of my knowledge. So when you find yourself siding with that, siding with the idea that speech should be rigorously controlled, then that's a negative.

My point still stands, sometimes we don't need to hear both sides, sometimes a compromise is not a solution.

You always need to hear both sides, because how in the world could you know you didn't have to hear both sides if you didn't hear them both? If you refuse to listen to something you have no way of knowing that it's bad, or that it's devoid of useful meaning.

And you certainly can't even begin to state that "compromise isn't a solution" if you have no idea what kind of compromise they want because you haven't listened and worse you haven't allowed them to speak.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

For a man, not having sex when you are aroused can be physically painful.

Those people can jerk it, and then visit a doctor.

in Western Culture at this time, sex is much more readily available to women than it is to men.

There are roughly as many women as men, so straight sex is at least on average pretty evenly divided. Also there are way more hookers for men. (*Availability may vary depending on your location.)

Wait, I don't want to get any more of this discussion on me do I, if that's the random first paragraph I land on?

[AMFV]

Those people can jerk it, and then visit a doctor.


There are roughly as many women as men, so straight sex is at least on average pretty evenly divided. Also there are way more hookers for men. (*Availability may vary depending on your location.)

Wait, I don't want to get any more of this discussion on me do I, if that's the random first paragraph I land on?

I think you may have missed ALL of what I was saying to focus on something you found offensive. I wasn't saying that what they were saying had merit. What I was saying is that dismissing their problems as being somehow insignificant out of hand is not really a good way to go and is likely to be very inaccurate. Which is what I said in all the sections around the sections you cherry picked quotes from.

Frankly, we aren't even hearing the arguments that Warkitty is talking about, we're hearing her renditions of them, and then using those to smugly attack the people making them, while saying that they should be silenced. That's not a way to have productive discourse that's not a way to move the conversation forward, that's a way to polarize and to basically get a bunch of people potentially falsely represented.

I'm not arguing that women should be required to have sex with men, I am saying that I have met a lot more men that complain about poor sex lives than women. I mean there's whole entire cultures on the internet dedicated to men who can't get laid. There isn't that for women, which suggests to me that more men are not getting laid than women.

Secondly, your argument about the equality of numbers doesn't work here. Because some large percentage of women could be having encounters with a small percentage of men. Which is, I suspect, the case.

[Amazon]

You always need to hear both sides, because how in the world could you know you didn't have to hear both sides if you didn't hear them both? If you refuse to listen to something you have no way of knowing that it's bad, or that it's devoid of useful meaning.

So we must always hear both sides? The side of the oppressor? The side of the slaver? The side of genocide defender?

And you certainly can't even begin to state that "compromise isn't a solution" if you have no idea what kind of compromise they want because you haven't listened and worse you haven't allowed them to speak.

Sometimes compromise is not a solution. Sometiems we have to take a stand.

Spoiler

Show

[AMFV]

So we must always hear both sides? The side of the oppressor? The side of the slaver? The side of genocide defender?

Yes, you should listen to all sides, even ones that are abhorrent. For a few reasons:

First, because you may be assigning abhorrent views to somebody that may not really have them, if you aren't listening to what they have to say or you're adding additional things to their statements that they aren't really saying... you're creating a problem. It's like how many people get associated with abhorrent movements nowadays who are not part of those movements, and who do not share those views. If you are claiming that all "Cis White Men" are part of the oppressors, and that all of them share the same viewpoints, you are categorically wrong. That's why listening is important, and not just listening, honest listening.

Second, because you want to understand their perspective even if it is an abhorrent one. If somebody is an oppressor or a slaver, or somebody who commits genocide (I'll even one up you on that one), I want to be able to understand why they would do that. This is for a variety of reasons, first, because that gives me the ability to talk to others and convince those who haven't made up their mind of the actual abhorrent views of that person, if I just spew bull**** then it doesn't work, because people recognize that. And because that gives me an honest chance to discuss things with the oppressor or the slaver or the genocidal, and potentially convince them to stop that. The best way after all to make those things stop is to get the people who are doing those things to stop that, and the best way to do that is honest forthright discussion.

Third, because you want to figure out the truth, and you can't figure out the truth when you're filtering out discussion, even if it's abhorrent or offensive or awful. Because you need all the facts for this. All of them. Listening to somebody is not equivalent to agreeing with them. But if you're silencing them then you have no idea what they stand for and that's a serious problem.

Sometimes compromise is not a solution. Sometiems we have to take a stand.

This is true. But that's why listening to people on the other side is critical because you can't know when those moments are and what you're standing up against unless you listen to them. If people had taken a particular 20th century dictators' words more seriously and listened to what he said, they'd have realized what a monster he was. But they decided not to do that, that he was exaggerated or BSing, and thus we fell into a problem where nobody tried to stop him earlier, because we had not given credence to what he said.

This is why listening and discourse is crucial, because unless you listen to people you don't know when it is time to take a stand, you'll stand up and fight when you don't need to, and beat on people that don't deserve it, or get beaten; or worse, you'll sit down when you should be standing up.

[Amazon]

There is stuff that we simply don't have to hear why? History.

Every time a guy comes and start talking sh** to a minority we can just invalidate that, been there done that, we can't give a plataform to hate, that's counter productive.

Just as we don't curse in a church you don't bring hate and orpession to a conversation, that's just how it is.

Why debate with someone who wants to remove rigths? Why give space on a debate to someone who wants to end debates? It's poitnless and dumb.

We know what the opressor want, they want to opress.

[The Extinguisher]

Funnily enough, the idea that you should always listen to all sides is one of incredible privilege. I dont need to listen to the voices of people who hate me during a discussion, cause theyre screamimg their views at me all the time anyway.

Its all really telling the kind of people that feel the need to insert their opinion into every discussion and insist that all sides should be listened to. Men, during discussions of womens issues. White people, with issues affect people of colour. Straight people and queer issues, cis people and trans issues, wealthy people and poor issues, and so on and so forth on basically any axis of oppression.

Maybe we can all take a minute and think why that might be the case?