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Call-Out Culture: Who's in and Who's out?

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Mon, 2015-03-02 13:14

#1

6079_Smith_W

Call-Out Culture: Who's in and Who's out?

Good article in Briarpatch:

http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/a-note-on-call-out-culture

Quote:

What makes call-out culture so toxic is not necessarily its frequency so much as the nature and performance of the call-out itself. Especially in online venues like Twitter and Facebook, calling someone out isn’t just a private interaction between two individuals: it’s a public performance where people can demonstrate their wit or how pure their politics are. Indeed, sometimes it can feel like the performance itself is more significant than the content of the call-out. This is why “calling in” has been proposed as an alternative to calling out: calling in means speaking privately with an individual who has done some wrong, in order to address the behaviour without making a spectacle of the address itself.

Mon, 2015-03-02 13:54

#2

Pondering

It's better than good, it identifies a key factor that prevents progressives from advancing and has allowed rightwing thought to dominate.

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that there is a mild totalitarian undercurrent not just in call-out culture but also in how progressive communities police and define the bounds of who’s in and who’s out. More often than not, this boundary is constructed through the use of appropriate language and terminology – a language and terminology that are forever shifting and almost impossible to keep up with. In such a context, it is impossible not to fail at least some of the time. And what happens when someone has mastered proficiency in languages of accountability and then learned to justify all of their actions by falling back on that language? How do we hold people to account who are experts at using anti-oppressive language to justify oppressive behaviour? We don’t have a word to describe this kind of perverse exercise of power, despite the fact that it occurs on an almost daily basis in progressive circles. Perhaps we could call it anti-oppressivism.

Yup.

Tue, 2015-03-03 22:31

#3

Sineed

Twitter is a cesspool of this sort of thing.

Wed, 2015-03-04 01:27

#4

6079_Smith_W

Sineed wrote:

Twitter is a cesspool of this sort of thing.

Never had the pleasure. I have run into it on facebook of course, but at least there it is a bit tempered by the friends one chooses.

Wed, 2015-03-04 05:29

#5

Slumberjack

When they put it that way it becomes easier to recognize doesn't it?

Wed, 2015-03-04 09:21

#6

6079_Smith_W

I suppose, if the focus is weeding out traitors in some people's court rather than discussing the issues in an online forum. That was part of what I took from the article.

(if I get your meaning)

Mark Twain put it nicely:

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits. Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky.

Wed, 2015-03-04 10:08

#7

Slumberjack

If that is what you took from it, then it may make sense to you, or maybe not I don't know, to consider tempering a little your criticisms of political actors and events in far away places that you know so little about with a rational and critical assessment of the more familiar shennigans and actors closer at hand, notwithstanding that I don't get a sense you're interested in doing that at all.

Wed, 2015-03-04 10:34

#8

6079_Smith_W

Sorry SJ, but that really isn't any of your business, any more than it is my business to change your political views or make assumptions about how you formed them.

I think it says "discussion board" at the top, not re-education board.

Wed, 2015-03-04 16:11

#9

Slumberjack

And as part of that discussion, seeing as how you make yourself part of it, in the exchange it naturally falls to us to point out some of the shortcomings in your logic and to try and determine why that is, and where you are coming from. Being someone else's business or no is not even a point when you put it out there as opinion.

Wed, 2015-03-04 17:29

Mr. Magoo

Seems to me that this kind of thing is common enough on babble. Dunno how many times I've read "Why are you even here?" or "How many demonstrations have YOU participated in??" or "I'll believe you're a REAL progressive when I see your outrage on the ________ thread!!".

Me, I got called out in my first week here. And I've treated it as the freedom that it is ever since. So I'm not a REAL progressive -- whatevs. It's not like the real progressives get free pizza.

Wed, 2015-03-04 18:08

Bacchus

Well Im sure you would certainly get more real progressives if they did get ffree pizza

Wed, 2015-03-04 18:15

Mr. Magoo

It had better be organic, vegan, gluten-free pizza made by a worker-owned pizza joint who uses approved suppliers, or else we'll be right back to the calling-out. :)

Wed, 2015-03-04 18:21

Bacchus

Hah. Hard enough to find vegan beer/wine or booze let alone that kind of pizza (which would be tasteless anyway)

Wed, 2015-03-04 18:21

6079_Smith_W

Slumberjack wrote:

it naturally falls to us to point out some of the shortcomings in your logic..

"Us"?

Don't know about you, but I just speak for myself.

I'm curious who you think is on this posse of yours, and why you imaging anything "naturally falls" to you. Me, I generally let most of that nonsense pass.

Wed, 2015-03-04 18:27

Pondering

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Seems to me that this kind of thing is common enough on babble. Dunno how many times I've read "Why are you even here?" or "How many demonstrations have YOU participated in??" or "I'll believe you're a REAL progressive when I see your outrage on the ________ thread!!".

Me, I got called out in my first week here. And I've treated it as the freedom that it is ever since. So I'm not a REAL progressive -- whatevs. It's not like the real progressives get free pizza.

It can be amusing. You might want to check out my introductory thread in which I invite people to attack me to their heart's content. I don't think the mods appreciated it but the board has been much more peaceful since then.

Wed, 2015-03-04 18:31

Pondering

Bacchus wrote:

Hah. Hard enough to find vegan beer/wine or booze let alone that kind of pizza (which would be tasteless anyway)

My daughter was a 10 year vegetarian but she fell back to the dark side at a BBQ last week. Yes, a BBQ, in Winnepeg.

Wed, 2015-03-04 19:37

Mr. Magoo

Quote:
Hah. Hard enough to find vegan beer/wine or booze let alone that kind of pizza (which would be tasteless anyway)

I shall assume that by "tasteless" you meant "inclusive and non-oppressive".

If not, I'M CALLING YOU OUT.

The good news is, that's only a five minute penalty. :)

Wed, 2015-03-04 20:08

6079_Smith_W

Then there's the aristocrats pizza.

Wed, 2015-03-04 20:23

Mr. Magoo

Is it topped with Kobe Lobster?

If you're not a HIMYM fan, that's lobster fed on Kobe beef.

Wed, 2015-03-04 20:39

6079_Smith_W

Topped with Bob Saget, last time I watched it.

Thu, 2015-03-05 04:21

Slumberjack

6079_Smith_W wrote:
I'm curious who you think is on this posse of yours, and why you imaging anything "naturally falls" to you. Me, I generally let most of that nonsense pass.

Just whomever has the misfortune. There's been plenty I'm sure.

Thu, 2015-03-05 18:04

Mr. Magoo

So 6079_Smith_W gets called out in a thread about call-out culture. I guess we're not getting enough irony in our diet.

What if all the enemies, traitors and quislings at babble could have their screen names appear in yellow, or something? Sort of like a discussion-board version of an armband?

Thu, 2015-03-05 18:10

Pondering

Mr. Magoo wrote:

So 6079_Smith_W gets called out in a thread about call-out culture. I guess we're not getting enough irony in our diet.

What if all the enemies, traitors and quislings at babble could have their screen names appear in yellow, or something? Sort of like a discussion-board version of an armband?

Mine would have to be flashing.

Thu, 2015-03-05 20:27

Bacchus

Maybe a Star of David in yellow beside their name?

Thu, 2015-03-05 21:52

Slumberjack

Mr. Magoo wrote:
So 6079_Smith_W gets called out in a thread about call-out culture. I guess we're not getting enough irony in our diet.

For me irony is in the timing of and reason for this thread. The sensitivity on dislplay here is quite understandable considering what's been going on in the Ukrainian/Russian threads. I suppose we're all guilty at times of getting lost in our own linguistic misfirings. Calling out is a type of complaint about some social situation or compact gone wrong. It could be in reference to oppressive language or about aggressive actions on the part of the state. You seem to be saying that there's too much of that going on which I agree with, but I'm not sure if I understnad which element should be stopped, the complainers or the ones being complained about.

Thu, 2015-03-05 22:27

6079_Smith_W

The reason for the thread is that I saw an interesting article on facebook with a few lessons for all of us, and decided to share it.

The timing might have something to do with it being published March 2, the same day I posted it. It's right there on the byline.

I am not sure what "compact" you are talking about, but the only one of relevance here is babble policy.

I certainly don't expect everyone to voice every concern through PMs; I know I don't plan to. But the article raises some good points about grandstanding, theatrics and personal attacks, and of course trying to police and silence others' views just because you don't agree.

Thu, 2015-03-05 22:39

Pondering

Most people progressives claim to be fighting on behalf of could never pass the progressive test so become part of the group.

I think the environmental movement is growing and winning battles because it transcends political ideology, class and religion.

That is what Occupy did momentarily too, when it momentarily focused on the oligarchs.

In my opinion activists should be concentrating all their firepower on the oligarchs of Canada and how our wealth was and continues to be funneled into their hands.

Wed, 2015-03-11 13:51

6079_Smith_W

Published and posted March 11. Maybe there's some ulterior motive in the timing:

Quote:

If leftwingers like me are condemned as rightwing, then what's left?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/11/mainstream-left-sil...

I don't tend to self-censor, though.

Wed, 2015-03-11 14:53

Mr. Magoo

I've long thought that the radicals and fundamentalists (in pretty much ANY context) have the advantage that they can shame the moderates.

You can see it when new parents get scolded by "attachment" parents, or breastfeeding purists.

You can see it when conservative religious folk claim higher ground because their mass is said in Latin, as God intended.

And of course in politics, surely on both sides of the spectrum.

Here's an interesting animation (YouTube, about 7 minutes) that, among other things, makes a few suggestions about why the radical left is happier chastising the moderate left than going after the far right.

Wed, 2015-03-18 11:52

6079_Smith_W

Something for all of us to disagree with here. I know there are a few zingers I think go over the line - though fewer than his valid points, and it is an editorialist's job to challenge. And it's not really about mansplaining specifically:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mansplaining-the-return-of-political-correc...

But where I think Macdonald hits the nail on the head with his admitted "old man talk" is in pointing out that as progressive as we might think we are we are destined to be dinosaurs in the service of oppression in someone's future revisionist retelling:

Quote:

My grandchildren will no doubt someday stare agape at their parents for using the term "people of colour," and inform them that any reference to colour is divisive and ugly.

Or that "transgender" implies that there was ever any validity to "gender" in the first place.

And I thought the "crypto-salafist orthodoxy" reached its peak in the mid 80s. Clearly I had no idea how easy I had it.