Saturday, January 31, 2015

Saturday roundup: Chaitgate edition

I try to check Twitter at work periodically because I use Twitter primarily to keep up on work-related matters; I skim past the other stuff, maybe star it to read later. Sometimes I can't help but notice that something's up, or trending, as the kids say these days. And earlier this week, Jonathan Chait was certainly trending.

I saw hundreds of Chait-slamming tweets long before I could actually read the offending essay. There were one or two tweets in his defense--from Julia Ioffe. When I did read the essay, I found it rambling and incoherent: while I found each of the examples aggravating, Chait failed to convince me that they supported his narrative. The first example in particular wasn't an example of political correctness gone wild; it was an example of a hate crime. And singling out Melissa Harris Perry for deviating from the "original" meaning of "mansplaining"?


And yet, I don't entirely disagree with the point he tried to make (actually, scratch that: I do; but I don't disagree that there's something to it). And I have to admit, I was frustrated by some of the reactions (by people I otherwise respect). Many fit the point Chait was trying to make: they were deflecting with unrelated things, and, as he wrote in his (better) follow-up, unnecessarily ad-hominem. Yes, the Marissa Alexander case was a travesty and the day Chait's piece was published was the day she was released from jail. No, it wasn't petty of Chait  to (try to) raise the issue of internet discourse just because there were Serious Things going on that day. There are always serious things going on--and that argument is just as silly from the left as it is from the right (i.e., don't complain about street harassment because women in some other countries don't get to vote). I also didn't get the sense that Chait was trying to shut anybody up (nor did I get that sense from Michelle Goldberg's piece, although I thought she was unnecessarily hostile to Mikki Kendall). Chait's detractors say that disagreement isn't censorship, and that goes both ways. Jon Hodgman's response--I wish someone would storify it, as he didn't link them--was spot on. He acknowledges the phenomenon Chait attempts to describe as "an actual thing." Here, I'll embed the key tweets:





Furthermore, Chait stepped in it by excerpting from a private online community.

I get the passion on the detractors. I get that women--particularly women of color, as I observe the relentless bull$hit they have to contend with online--are having none of it. I get that disagreement isn't the same as censorship, that faux calls for civility, as well as tone-policing, are often wielded to reinforce the status quo (one where marginalized voices are blunted). I get that there are limits to reasoning and that there's a fine line between areas of civil disagreement and abuse. We can civilly debate--another of Chait's examples--whether Mt. Holyoke was misguided in dropping "The Vagina Monologues" (and I would argue that it was, and this comment from a trans woman says it better than I could); we can't, shouldn't be able to abuse or dehumanize trans people online, or anyone else for that matter.

But wouldn't we all benefit from a more forgiving environment? Or at least one less forgiving of trolls and abusers and more forgiving of those appearing in good faith--even the misguided ones? I've seen pile-ons and snowballing attacks. For example: Twitter did well to communicate to Ani DiFranco, unequivocally, that hosting an event at a former slave plantation would be horrible. Ani DiFranco did well to get the message and apologize. What does it accomplish to throw her in with people who make racism their life's work, when she has otherwise been on the side of social justice her entire life? Not because of hurt feelings, but because of collective energy, resources, etc.

Conor Friedersdorf successfully takes on the conversation that Chait attempted to launch. In fact, he directly poses the questions, "Is an even better conversation possible?" and "What if everyone involved in this conversation is ill-served by the present state of public discourse?" I supported Laurie Penny's response to Scott Aaronson (as I wrote in December). I wouldn't have supported Amanda Marcotte's, reprinted at the end of Friedersdorf's piece. We have to be able to tackle these ideas head-on without misrepresenting the view (Penny does; Marcotte does not).

Actually, Bryan Lowder's take was quite good (I avoided initially because I didn't think the man was capable of critical thinking after his inane piece about how vegetarians should eat chicken).

***
I thought about whether I'd ever felt "censored" on Twitter. I've seen things I've found offensive and needlessly antagonistic, but I decided that it wasn't my place (or that it wasn't worth my time) to pipe in. That's not the same as censorship. Most recently, I came upon a (re)tweet that made me roll my eyes, but I thought better of it; it wasn't up to me to question or undermine someone else's experience. Specifically, someone had written about the burden of constant code-switching, something that every immigrant knows well. I thought, yeah, it's tough, but once you master it, the ability to do it effortlessly becomes an advantage--and most of the world does full-time. But I hadn't mastered it until after college, and the tweeter deserved her own reaction to her own experiences. I would have been responding to the overall statement, but it would have come off as a personal attack. Even in this case--where my experience is valid--it's not my place to pipe in. When the tweeter's my age, she'll have learned that immigrant code-switching is a growth experience, not a burden. It's not my place to derail her experience with my own, except to be supportive.

The point of all that is, there's value in knowing when to shut up and listen.

  
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