Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2022-11-14 06:27 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2022-11-14 06:27 pm
[ SECRET POST #5792 ]
⌈ Secret Post #5792 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 40 secrets from Secret Submission Post #829.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2022-11-15 10:35 pm (UTC)(link)Putting those same thoughts out into a public forum where the subjects of those thoughts can become aware of them is how an insulting opinion can become hurtful.
Like, I get that you don't want to feel like the bad guy for feeling this way, but unfortunately once you put something out into the world you can't take it back, nor can you control how other people react to it, including being insulted by it. Insulting, as much as you don't want it to be, is in the eye of the beholder, as it were.
As you say, many times people only find out something they thought was actually disrespectful was when they said it outloud and someone said they were hurt by it. And that's okay.
If the intention was not to be insulting, OP should own up and apologise for not thinking through how their words could be interpreted by others. To clarify, it is OP's responsibility to deescalate and apologise in the first instance, not the public forum's. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to have happened here.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2022-11-15 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)Like, I get that you don't want to feel like the bad guy for feeling this way,
To be clear - I have no particularly strong feelings on the object-level part of this argument. I'm not really defending any particular position on the merits of having or not having children. I also am not OP, and I'm not being disingenuous either, if I'm wrong I come by it honestly.
Putting those same thoughts out into a public forum where the subjects of those thoughts can become aware of them is how an insulting opinion can become hurtful
I disagree for a few reasons. One, I think context is important. This is a community for the discussion of fandom secrets. We should have the capacity to recognize that it's possible to have thoughts and feelings which you know are irrational and wrong but which you nevertheless feel anyway. By the nature of the comm, many secrets are going to involve that dynamic. We should have the ability to talk about these things in a way that isn't inflammatory. We should be able to recognize that, if someone makes a secret about an opinion they know to be irrational, they probably aren't intending it as a personal insult and so it shouldn't be taken as one.
Second - I really really strongly disagree with this broader attitude towards emotions. Where like, every emotion and every expression that a person has ought to be internally monitored and scrutinized in a hyper-scrupulous way to ensure that it's not accidentally Improper and Irrational. I think that's a very bad and actively harmful attitude towards emotional life. And I think recognizing the messiness of emotional life, and accepting the messiness of our internal lives, requires having a more accepting attitude towards these kinds of conversations. People should not have to police themselves so aggressively, and it is - to some extent - our responsibility to create a space where they don't need to do so.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2022-11-15 11:49 pm (UTC)(link)Look, both your points basically boil down to 'I want OP to be able to express their opinions in public, irrational or not, without receiving criticism if people disagree or are insulted.
And that could possibly happen in a heavily moderated forum.
But that just isn't how F!S, or real life, works.
OP is entitled to their opinion. Others are entitled to criticise that opinion. That's how "free speech" works. For some reason a lot of people get stuck on the second bit, and think it invalidates the first. It doesn't, it's actually the same thing.
Also, it's ironic that you think OP should be allowed to express irrational, emotional opinions that they choose not to moderate in order to prevent offense being taken - but don't understand that stopping others replying honestly to those opinions is preventing others from expressing themselves in the acme way - including their own irrational, emotional responses, if they have them.
Like, you expect people to go out of their way to be kind to OP and to undertake emotional labour to suppress their own emotional responses and interpret OP's stance in the most favourable light - but you think OP should also get to publically express any thought that comes into their head without thinking about whether it would hurt someone's feelings
There is significant cognitive dissonance there to be unpacked, as well as some serious denial of the messiness of others' emotional lives on your part. You think OP is being scrutinised, when really an organic discussion is taking place for which the tone was set by the content of the original secret, whether or not you or the OP thinks so. Tone is also in the eye of the beholder, especially in writing
Also, fundamentally disagree that there is anything inherent to the unspoken social contact of fandom secrets that implies we all need take a second to think about whether someone intended something to be an insult before you comment. I've been lurking here for almost 2 decades, it's always been a wank fest and that's part of its appeal
+ Infinity
(Anonymous) 2022-11-16 12:24 am (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2022-11-16 12:52 am (UTC)(link)Not at all my position. I think that it would be good if the tenor of the response were informed by the context and nature of the OP's opinion, not that there should be no response at all.
I have no problem with people pointing out that their opinion is irrational and not founded on facts (as OP acknowledges). Similarly, I have no problem at all with other people expressing their own irrational, emotional responses to OP's opinion. But I think it does matter how those responses are framed.
It matters a lot to me that OP is advancing their own emotional feeling knowing that it's an irrational emotional feeling and not treating it as a simple natural fact. For that reason, I don't think it's accurate to say that OP is "publicly expressing any thought that enters into their head without thinking about whether it would hurt people." In much the same way, I think it's helpful and more productive and generally better when the emotional responses to be framed as emotional responses, not as fierce defenses against vile unprovoked insults.
You think OP is being scrutinised, when really an organic discussion is taking place for which the tone was set by the content of the original secret, whether or not you or the OP thinks so.
That's not quite my point about scrutiny. I don't think that OP is being overly-scrutinized by others.
What OP has done is express an emotional belief which they feel despite knowing that it's irrational. The response is that this was wrong of them, and that - knowing the emotion to be irrational - they should have never expressed it, because those emotions are bad and wrong and unacceptable. I think that the implied attitude towards one's own emotions is bad. OP should not have to constantly be weighing whether or not their emotions are objectively reasonable, and aggressively quashing and repressing all those emotions which are not sufficiently objectively reasonable. I think that's an extremely bad internal mindset, but it seems to me that this is what people want OP to have done.
And so when I talk about scrutiny and monitoring and hyper-scrupulosity, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about internal attitudes and self-regulation here, not about external scrutiny. I think that kind of attitude is very bad and I don't think it should be promoted. It is acceptable for OP to have emotions that are messy and not objectively factual, and if it's OK for them to have those emotions, it's also OK for OP to express those emotions in the proper context and setting.
Also, fundamentally disagree that there is anything inherent to the unspoken social contact of fandom secrets that implies we all need take a second to think about whether someone intended something to be an insult before you comment. I've been lurking here for almost 2 decades, it's always been a wank fest and that's part of its appeal
Oh sure people are always going to be wanky. But if it's being wanky you're after, you can't complain about being hard done by and other people are treating you unfairly. To the extent that a conversation is supposed to be an actual conversation, then I do think it's reasonable to want people to think about what the person actually said before just coming over the top with the flamethrower response.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2022-11-16 01:20 am (UTC)(link)You also have repeated in general that OP should be allowed to express their opinion how they want to, but are continuing to say that other people should moderate themselves in response, and are continuing not to address my points re the hypocrisy of that
To your second point, yes I realised after I posted I misinterpreted your point on scrutiny
However, I still disagree. You think OP should be free from having to internally moderate their own thoughts. I agree. I just think OP should moderate their expression of their opinions if they want more civil responses to those thoughts in a public forum. If they don't want a civil response, they don't have to moderate. It's that simple.
You continue to hypocritically say you think OP should be able to be free from internal moderation in public expression, but that all responders to OP should have to scrutinise their responses before they reply. You continue to not address my points on that matter.
Re: your third pont, I don't think anyone except you thinks anyone is being hard done by ITT (in that you think OP is being hard done by by the critical responses they've received). Most people either are agreeing with OP, or saying 'gosh that's rude and silly'. Thinking an opinion is rude =/= thinking you are hard done by, btw. So I agree with your point, because it supports my argument more than yours. For instance, turn your last sentence around - if OP wanted an actual conversation, they could have rephrased before posting.
That said, there has been an actual interesting conversation going on in these threads - and it's mostly been about tone rather than the content of the secret itself. Which I think says something.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2022-11-16 02:13 am (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2022-11-16 03:44 am (UTC)(link)