Hostile assumptions? Or just calling it like you see it? Part II

Aw, but there is always intent behind the words. Words are words but we assign meaning to them based upon our history with each other (or no history), and the way people have historically framed certain issues and questions.

It is a human trait to assign motive and intention. This is what critical reading and thinking allows for. Personally I am all for it. Why? because it is human and it is what we do to each other each and every day a 1000 times over.

Funny how the two people who seem most interested in this thread are the ones who both try to pretend they have ZERO intentions behind their posts. I'm not being hostile, but I think you are both (Yiwah and Sven) being disingenuous is you expect us to believe that there is nothing to your words than simply words sans intentions. That is very very very unlikely, and you both certainly must know this because you are smart people.

Stargazer wrote:

Funny how the two people who seem most interested in this thread are the ones who both try to pretend they have ZERO intentions behind their posts. I'm not being hostile, but I think you are both (Yiwah and Sven) being disingenuous...

How can you possible say that I am one of "the two people who seem most interested in this thread"???  Of the 100+ posts in this and its companion thread, I made one post prior to this one.

Sven, I am referring to this thead. Not the other thread. Sorry about that.

KenS, I am not attributing this to just Sven and Yiwah, I am attributing this to all of us. Yes, each and every one of us. We all have intentions behind our words, whether conscious or unconscious. We all engage in trying to dechipher what people are saying, and we dechipher these words according to how we hear them, what our experience of their words or ideas are, and how that is filtered is based upon our individual make-up, our experiences, the WAY we hear the words, and not the words themselves.

I can never experience you, your Self, directly. I can only experience you through my own experiences. Therefore when it comes to words, it is impossible for those words NOT to be filtered through our own lenses. I am not you. I have no direct experience with you. I have my experience OF you, but no way to actually have or factually understand your direct experiences. So when someone types up a sentence or two, and I read it, I am reading it through my own experiences, not your, therefor what I attribute to those words may not be and probably isn't exactly what you meant to say, or were saying.

Blast it all to hell. R.D. Laing did this to me!

Anyways, I hope I'm being as clear as possible.

Stargazer, you might have caught that I was suprised you inluded Sven as one of the two "most interested", when I've definitely shown more interest in the discussion... and I might have expected that if Yiwah was going to be 'put in the dock', then I'd be there too.

But maybe you just responded most or most easily to Sven's specific words. [And as opposed to Yiwah, there's not much reluctance to be seen as picking on Sven.]

Like I said, about whether you would include me- thats a tangent, unless you dont. And then maybe theres something in why not.

Anyway.... I wanted to expand a bit on my closing comment above.

KenS wrote:

But I'm thinking .... that you still would say she is disengenuous. And I'd like to hear some elaboration on that.

[If it makes any difference: I think it's a valid reaction, even if I would probably be stumbling to explain why I think its valid beyond the pro forma there is vaildity in anyone's comments.]

Yiwah did not just object to having motives read in. She called it manipulative and bullying.

I agree. But lets just take the minimum statement that its manipulative, and leave aside whether its 'bullying'.

Not just manipulative, which has a lot of degrees. But very manipulative. And a strong arm way to manipulate people.

Where I can see that I might easily be called disengenuous in calling people on that, is that I do something that amounts to the same thing. IE, even if I'm [mostly]innocent of reading hidden motive/agendas into what people have said and arguing with THAT rather than what people said and try to insist is what they meant.... that even if I dont engage in THAT particular strong arm manipulative discussion tactics, that I engage in other strong arms that are just as bad and do just as much to poison the atmosphere.

Well, of course everybody always has motives! The motive is usually stated right there in the post, or in the tone of a response to the subject at the top of the page. Problems arise when one poster accuses another poster of hidden motives - bad, nasty, destructive, feeding-the-troll hidden motives. It gets worse when the accusing poster goes on to explain, from a position of unassailable ignorance, why the accused is doing those bad, nasty, etc. things.

 I don't care, 'cose i'm not really here, but i can imagine people being hurt and discouraged by that.

Yiwah, i may be able to add a bit more, after all. I was ticked-off last night by a couple of people throwing out cryptic one-liners that didn't sound friendly. (Of course, that's just my interpretation) I've seen this before on babble, and i find it reminescent of a schoolyard, where all the kids know another and have played dodgeball together since they could walk, and suddenly a new kid challenges their understanding of the rules. New kids come here all the time. If they're too sensitive or too different, they leave again. If the stay, they get used to these rules of dodgeball.

Also, on a more personal level, i think your eloquence may cause some problems. Not by itself, but in conjunction with this medium of exchange. People read carelessly; they scan, they skip; they make assumptions when they don't really understand. I've seen other posters who write in long, well-constructed paragraphs become frustrated when people respond to something out of context, maybe even taking it to mean the opposite of what the original poster not only meant, but actually wrote. And then s/he would clarify at even greater lenght, using different examples, and somebody else would take exception to that  and go ballistic over a severed fragment, etc. I don't see a cure for impatience, word-triggers and conclusion-jumping.

Yiwah wrote:

We would be accepting that there are posters on babble who are delberately, consciously, and with malice, trying to harm the left.  Trying to harm babble.  Trying to disrupt and destroy conversations here.

I do not accept that as truth. 

Oh, well. There certainly have been such on babble. There was one extreme and extended case that occurred in 2005-06, just before the schism, that caused lasting damage to some of the regulars on three discussion boards, just as was intended (the MasterDebator mess, men's rights troll pretending to be a woman and writing about divisive topics among feminists like porn and transgendering). And then there has been an almost non-stop struggle since 2001 with people who appear on babble only to write from talking-points passed on by organizations like the CJC -- it would be impossible for anyone who's been here any length of time not to have spidey senses educated by that history.

To cut to the chase: When I started reading here regularly about a year ago, after an absence since early 2006, I noticed one major shift right away, and it was a shift in the position of the mods on the subjects of BDS and Israeli apartheid. The old mulberries were pretty much over. That shift had happened elsewhere too and not only in left circles -- Lebanon and then finally Gaza were just too much even for "liberals" to take (whatever our flannel-mouthed politicians are doing). Perhaps people who were here the whole time didn't notice how categorical the board had become on this turf, but I did, and I should add, as someone who suffered through the old mulberries, that I welcomed it.

This board has a character. It has politics. (Read the policy statement.) Over time, with experience, people sift out how the policy actually comes to life in particular discussions. Some kinds of rhetorical strategies and arguments become very familiar, and it is intellectually and editorially legitimate for anyone who recognizes them to point them out. That is not being nasty or getting personal; it is intelligent. Who wants to be Othello?

We all have backstories, agendas and drives for writing what we write here. None of us - NONE OF US - are mindreaders. Let's stick to what we know - our own intentions. Our own words.

If we've got a question about what someone else wrote, ask it. If the meaning could be interpreted several ways, ask about intent.

Don't assume you know what the other REALLY means, and indulge in fantasy accusations and yummy mudslinging. It brings the board down. It drives good people out. It intimidates others, convincing them not to join. Voices we really need. People who get enough bullying in their everyday lives that they don't feel excited to join up for more of the same on a progressive board.

What writer said. Post 14.

100%

And just to make sure I havent unintentionally made things fuzzy, I want to highlight some of what Yiwah said:

Yiwah wrote:

...no one is trying to pretend that there is never meaning behind words, or trying to strip words of the motives they have.

What I HAVE said is that I do not have the conscious, bad intentions/motives that have been ascribed to me, and I do not believe that others who are so accused have those conscious, bad intentions.

If we took the accusations at face value, what would we be accepting?  We would be accepting that there are posters on babble who are delberately, consciously, and with malice, trying to harm the left.  Trying to harm babble.  Trying to disrupt and destroy conversations here.

[edited addition: and not just that there are SOMETIMES such people]

I do not accept that as truth.  I think the attempts to make it into a truth create a hostile atmosphere, and engender suspicion and paranoia, all of which are ultimately more destructive than any shadowy outside forces that may exist.

Yiwah wrote:

Accusing someone of having hidden evil motives is not okay if I'm the one doing it.  It's not okay if it's done to someone who isn't me. 

I don't think it's disingenuous to call people on it, even if you have, or have been perceived to have engaged in unsavory tactics.  The 'glass house' saying refers to people pointing fingers without taking any blame themselves. I'm not attempting to do that.  As has been brought up before by myself and Smith, our posting styles have been influenced by the atmosphere of this place.  I don't like it.  I don't want that to happen.  The only way I can make sure it doesn't happen is to be aware of it.  Constantly.

I don't see how trying to keep these behaviours on a conscious level is a sign of being disingenuous or hypocritical.  Perfect people don't need these conversations, they're already perfect.  That isn't me.

I still think that motives are being read into why I even started this conversation in the first place.  I don't know how many other ways to say I'm tired of being bullied, and tired of watching other people being bullied.  I don't want to encourage it by using strategies which are apparently acceptable here...I don't want to be part of the problem.  Those are my motives.

Thats the bottom line.

Stargazer,

As far as I know, I got it.

And if I really didnt get it, I'll never know if you just shrug your shoulders.

I didnt think you were being complete. That you needed to fill out what you said.

Yiwah took excetion with what you said. That isnt 'not getting it' either.

If people have picked up on the wrong parts of what you said, then say where. And go at it again.

I used to post at babble quite a lot (under a different username). I still read babble, because I find many of the discussions to be quite interesting. But I stopped posting precisely because of the mind-reading and motive-searching that frequently goes on here.

Of course, we all have motives, agendas, thoughts, and feelings that are only implicit in what we post. But, all too often, one babbler does not begin to have enough information to divine another babbler's motives, agendas, thoughts and feelings. And when one do not have enough information to divine these things, one should simply take other babblers' words, as far as possible, at face value. And, I think, we should each assume that each others' motives are decent and good, whatever they might be.

Yiwah wrote:

I'd rather a hundred guilty people get away than one innocent be imprisoned?

I appreciate the principle, but babble is not the government of Canada. Discussion forums actually can be destroyed, and fairly easily. It's a good idea for individuals to take individual decisions to avoid others they can't abide, but under a determined assault, others may not clue in quickly enough. I have seen that happen.

I might add, though: In my entire online life, I've only once been banned anywhere (plz, Maysie -- not now). That happened on a Merkin site that I hadn't known well before I barged in with a comment, prompted by a friend who was a regular. Now, that was a newbie mistake. I should have known better. You don't pipe up with a controversial comment in a community that you don't know, and therefore don't know how to respect in real terms. I did that; I was srsly misread; a band of Hillary-lovers (who knew?) descended upon me overnight and called me a man and a troll and other things that some here, anyway, will know I'm not, except how did Hillary get in there? And bang -- I got banned.

Well -- it was a learning experience. Mainly in the etiquette of being a newbie, though. There was nothing wrong with what I wrote, and the Hillary lovers are all naive imperialists anyway. ;)

Okay thanks Yiwah, I thought I was talking to myself. Yes you did get it completely, and you are right, it isn't the same as attributing bad motives. I guess I was trying to point out the root of these issues is an inability to "see" and/or "experience" what others are experiencing. Maybe if we work from that we can come to a better place? I don't know.

Yiwah wrote:

I totally recognise that my looooooooooong posts, and at-times stream-of-consciousness style of posting is part of the communication problem.  I am currently struggling with the age old question of...do I change who I am, or not?  My goal is better communication, and part of that is putting effort into communicating more effectively with others, right?  But right now, I think I'm only willing to 'socially integrate' so far...I don't want to lose my voice, and replace it with something false.  I think that falsity would shine through and do more damage to my ability to communicate.

 

Oh, i can see where (a scrap of early Leonard Cohen song just got lodged in my brain. Ouch!) this could be difficult for you. The medium is to blame. Reading is slow work, writing and editing, even slower. By the time i finish a post, having fixed 90% of the typos and gone back to remove a sarcastic riposte that i'd prefer to think is beneath me, but is actually the very first thing that springs to mind, eight other posts have appeared (usually about four of them a private conversation between two people who know each other well) and verbal edifice i've built is now irrelevant. That's probably happening right now. The medium doesn't really support well-thought-out utterances. And it's usually a waste of effort to explain a complex idea by several eaxamples. You end up having to defend and re-explain the examples.

 I wouldn't, for one second, recommend changing your style. What you could possibly do is divide a multi-part concept into two or three posts, for easier quoting. That might not work, either, because of the delay. However you look at it, face to face communication is easier (even if it sometimes ends in somebody slamming a door). But it doesn't give you access to the variety and sheer number of other people that you can meet on a forum.        

Yiwah wrote:

So, I think I've sort of 'talked it out', thanks, the cheque is in the mail, Babble

Caissa points out that  Rabble/Babble always appreciates financial support.

I think its also true beyond a shadow of a doubt, and needs to be said, that when Yiwah, myself, or countless other babble regulars are accussed of having a hidden motives / agenda, that no one is mistaking us for trolls out to wreck babble.

It is being done deliberately- whether fully concious or not does not matter- out of antipathy to what we are saying.

People are perfectly entitled to that antipathy. AND to expressing that antipathy freely.

What is unacceptably damaging is to express that antipathy by attributing motives or agendas.

No, Yiwah, I am also known to comment directly. It partly depends on the severity of the attack.

I guess for me there's a fine line to be skated on. Too often threads are destroyed by the *combination* of mindreading and meta discussion about the discussion, shadow moderating, etc. I believe that if moderators arrived to work seeing that several regulars have flagged an attack on *someone else* as a personal attack *and not* have to weigh in on a slugfest, with all sides hurling abuse and accusations, their jobs would be that much easier.

(Both the slugfests and the meta-discussions hurt my head, for example. Though I do think the slugfests are what hurt the board more.)

And, while I do believe that online attacks can get into your head and do real damage, no, Caissa, it is not equivalent. Someone is *being mugged* when somone is being mugged.

Analogous would have been a better word choice than equivalent. Thanks, writer.

What would be unfair about it? I have never thought of it in terms of fairness. Could you elaborate, Yiwah?

Yiwah wrote:

Caissa wrote:

What would be unfair about it? I have never thought of it in terms of fairness. Could you elaborate, Yiwah?

Oh, I meant I'm not sure my gut reaction was fair.  That I saw it in similar terms to calling the police while someone is being mugged.  That was my immediate reaction, but when you intervene in a mugging, you don't have a group of people coming in, yelling at the mugger, the victim, and you, and having the whole thing turn into a weird muddle of 'what were we doing before the mugging?'

"What were you doing before the mugging?" hahahaha. Brilliant Yiwah! and funny too. Best laugh of the day yet.