Rabble's politics of dividing the left

Agent666 and alan smithee/imdone: babble is a discussion board, rabble.ca is a media website providing news, columnists, tv/video, podcasts and blogs from a progressive perspective. That said, the thread title is inaccurate.

Wow Agent666, you've been with us for less than 2 weeks and have a long list of why babble sucks. And you've offered no links to any of your accusations AND some of your points are wrong. How lovely. Not.

If you hate it so much here, then seriously, what are you doing here?

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And just as a refresher for y'all:

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This may be the record week of babble moderators being called the PC police. My initial response is: the term "politically correct" is soooooo 1992. Can't you nay-sayers at least be a bit creative and make up something new?

And does it occur to you that your social location (if you are any of male, while and middle class) has a teensy weensy bit to do with how you experience the world, and how others respond to you? Teensy? Weensy?

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alan aka imdone. I agree with you, that actions are worse than words. But this doesn't mean that words have absolutely no meaning/impact/value in how we understand the world. I use many MANY words and phrases in person and in other places where I write, that I would not use on babble. Why? Out of respect for the community's rules that I had a hand in setting, and now, moderating. Debating word usage is a very very privileged debate. Again, this does not mean that words have no meaning in how we (all of us in society) understand the world. Show images, headlines and front page space, again and again, of Black men who are criminals or suspected criminals (see the ouevre of Quebecor, owner of The Sun newspaper publications) and subsequently the society at large will link Blackness and maleness to crime. Despite statistics, despite reality. 

The tiniest thing I'm going to add about the whole PC thing is this. Anyone who expects to engage in progressive discussion and not have the beliefs that they arrived with changed (a little, a bit, a lot) needs to look at why.

Personal disclosure #1: Whenever I find myself holding onto a certain value or belief and then am challenged by someone (which happens all the time), I start to (metaphorically) screech at whoever to shut up and leave me alone. I then realize that I'm holding on to some bullshit mainstream belief that matters to me. I try (don't always succeed) in breaking down why the hell this dumbass belief, whatever it is, matters so much to me.

Personal disclosure #2: I have worked in the field of anti-racism anti-oppression educating, training and organizational change for the past 14 years. 

Alan/imdone, I've really tried to engage you here, with this post, and I hope that you can respond in kind.

I really dislike the use of the term PC since in its modern usage (post-1990) it was coined as a right-wing derisive critique of the left.

How does the left adopting language intended as derisive by right further any cause?

Oh for fuck sake, grow up will you ... I didn't call anyone a "wife beater" .. I responded to a "did you stop beating your wife" type question with that commonly used phrase that is well known to mean that the person you are responding to is asking a "false dilemma" type question ... it was a rhetorical question meant to express disgust with the idioitic "excluded middle principle" question being asked ... but then again, that's pretty much the type of politically correct over-reacting that most people responding to this thread are talking about, fine example remind.

Hey Imdone, I feel for you buddy. Censorship is the one complaint I have with

babble. Unfortunately, it is reminiscient of my being banned from National Post

for a heated debate I had on legalization of hard drugs. So, as a plea to babble,

please do not continue along these censorious lines. We are all capable of

reading comments with which we do not agree. Let us make those decisions for

ourselves.

"A lot of the people who call themselves Left, I would regard as proto-fascists."

- Noam Chomsky

First, thanks for recognizing my comedic talents.  I'll be here all week folks.

Second, nobody banned you for the use of the term douche bag.   I'll repeat that, because you've said it many times and it's a lie.  Nobody banned you for using the term douche bag.  You were told, quite politely I should add, that the term was considered problematic around here, and asked not to use it.  You then proceeded to act like an asshole, for which I suspended you. Acting like an asshole is against policy, although I will grant the word itself probably doesn't appear in the policy statement.  When I susupended you, I made note of it on the moderators list asking about length of time of the suspension, adding I didn't have a strong opinion on that point.  Before I actually deactivated your account you got in one more comment pretty much ensuring re-instating you wasn't going to be anyone's priority.

I don't care about your left creds.  I care about your manners on this board.  There are people to the right of both of us here who get by because they know how to behave in someone elses living room.

Hi imdone, thanks for your concession and understanding. I want to stress that I never labelled you sexist, conservative or a troll or whatever. I said that sexist language, including "douche bag", are not allowed on babble. I rarely call people I don't know out-and-out racists/sexists/homophobes etc. Which profile would you like to use? I can reactivate alan smithee if you like.

With regards to the larger converstation happening here, what's at stake when it comes to words like "douche bag"? I hear it on a daily basis and like I said above, I've used it before on babble. What's at stake when our ability to use words like that are challenged? It's been said that babble has been cracking down on "metaphorical language" lately (although it seems to me that Maysie and I make about the lamest jackboots you'll ever see), but is there still anything "metaphorical" about the clichéed and hackneyed word "douche bag"? The only metaphorical strength left in its tired bones is its debt to old anti-feminist tropes. So why do we care if asked not to use it out of respect for fellow babblers?

While I admit that I was categorical in asking alan smithee not to use that word, I've noticed that even if I take a lighter approach--i.e. "maybe think about using less disrespectful language in the future"--babblers immediately react as if the world is falling down, as if babble has fallen into the abyss "lately" and that  the brownest shirts wouldn't condone so draconian a case of censorship. My response: wtf? I don't know what it is about being a moderator, but suddenly every word you say is like a celestial imperative, a manifesto from God.

I work with words on a daily basis and I realize that I consider their strength, implications and meaning more than the average person in her day to day life. If babblers think I enjoy conversations like this, or even the initial act of confronting a poster about her oppressive language, all I can say is that you are off base. But I also know as a long-time babbler that this is not a new conversation, that in fact, we have been moving--indeed, progressing--in this direction for as long as babble has been around. Working to be more inclusive, more considerate, more thoughtful about the language we use. Language is, after all, the only way anyone knows us here. I've always thought of babble as a space toward which, ideally, the rest of the world would move. Isn't that the whole point?

So why fight for "douche bag"? It's worth nothing to me. Is it worth something to you?

This thread is so telling. A post entitled "Rabble politics dividing the Left" - something I happen to think is true --  is turned into a red herring invective on the use of "politically correct language."

Not that I have any objection to a discussion about rhetoric, but the far more important discussion about how we are continually divided by our strategy -- and thus conquered -- is ignored by posters as though the topic of reasonable cooperation, intelligent winning electoral planning, and solidarity are mere gnats in their faces at a barbecue.

I believe some posters here have an extremely skewed sense of their political priorities... vis-a-vis the tiresome and useless "My perfect party is the best and ONLY party in the world" defence that supersedes the far more rational and pragmatic "How can all of those of us who are opposed to right wing politics hold our noses and work together in a manner that is best for the overall Canadian commonwealth at this time"?

It is not specifically the "douche bag". It is all words. Much like the lessons learned in Orwell's classic novel, 1984, eliminating words eliminates ideas. Sure, "douche bag" may not be an incredibly important - or even intelligent - word, but what next? Like you said, "we have been moving--indeed, progressing--in this direction for as long as babble has been around." This clearly implies that this will be taken farther; a slippery slope indeed. Soon will we lose words like racist? Surely being called a racist isn't very "considerate", is it? Such a word should certainly be done away with. Next, how about we ban the word wrong? After that, we can go round up all of the books which contain these words and we can burn them. Then we'll all be happy and included and we can eat lollipops and dance around a rainbow!

Why not learn inoffensive replacement words and demonstrate real freedom from the standard cant?

An Irishman not willing to experiment with the language?   Whatever is the land of Joyce coming to?

Could we get the official Imprima Potest, Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur 
ruling on "Scumbag"?

(O yeah, the word "bishoprick" leaves me a little quesy )

How about Apartheid? Might bring up some uneasy feelings for any readers of African heritage.

We can't accuse anyone of being a "slave" to their ideology (or whatever) for a similar reason.

Any conversation about execution in Arizona, Maryland, or Missouri will have to be carefully managed as they still use the "gas chamber" and that has some pretty terrible connotations to certain groups.

Thank gawd "chicken Pox" have been eliminated, because if we had to talk about that disease it might start getting sticky if any of our FN members happened to read the thread.

As someone who was learning to speak in the late 50's early 60's, I'll have to apologize right now 'cause every once in a while I might blurt out "mailman" or "manpower" in a discussion of our postal services or employment situation.

Too bad it is has been proven that it is entirely impossible to understand a word in the context of the conversation happening around that word  ... if only there were some way to do that so we could make an intelligent call on whether the word being used was meant to be hurtful or whether it was being used in a context that wasn't meant to demean any specific group.

A good example, but only to show where these things can lead ... "lame" originates from an old English/German word meaning more or less "to break down" ... it naturally (I suppose) got applied to physical impairment, but using it to describe something as "weak" (lame argument for example) is a legitimate use of the word that doesn't have to be associated with a physical impariment ... it's like saying "weak" doesn't have a legitimate use because it can, and has been used to degrade some specific groups of people.

Aware that I don't know you, perhaps it's because of your gender/privilege/race?