Opinions and Commentary
For those not following along, I am a contestant in a writing contest called LJ Idol, and have somehow survived this long. The latest round is "Intersection," in which one survivor teams up with another survivor, and you write separate pieces that tie together however you see fit. It’s a voting contest, so your success in the round depends on the success of your partner, and vice versa.
This time, I was among the last contestants to partner up, which put me with supremegoddess1. I say put with and not stuck with because this was a blessing. I have been a fan of her work because of its sheer nerve. This one in particular really struck me, but her whole catalogue is something else.
This week, she asked me to write first, and then she would riff off of it. My entry is here, and her response is here. I will let you read them for yourself to appreciate the contrast, but it’s pretty wild and, in my opinion, the very reason the Intersection part of the game exists.
And then, this morning, I received a very angry comment about what I wrote. I feel that the comment is worth reading, because it raises an important point. I also disagree with it, and so I’ve included the response I made to the comment below it. Feel free to share your thoughts with me; if not, I hope it did at least stir up some thoughts.
This is what she wrote, verbatim:
I love supremegoddess1but I was so offended by the ending to yours, I can't ethically vote for you two. I'm a big fan of hyberbole and I get what you were trying to do, but quipping that seeing evidence of millions of people who were brutally tortured and killed was less traumatizing than having a storekeeper tell you you were looking at clothes wrong is just... there's some things you don't use for lulz unless you're a sociopath or an asshole, and the Holocaust is one of them. Turning the extreme agony and suffering of millions of people into a quip diminishes what they went through, and they deserve more respect than that. Next time you feel like using it for lulz, stop and really think about it first. Think about children being separated from their parents and starved. Think about people dying of being gassed, clawing at their throats until they bled. Think about babies getting shot in the face. That's what the Holicaust was. It isn't a fucking punchline.
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This is my reply:
I'm not going to try to explain to you the complexity of the line as I wrote it. It's not because I question your intelligence or anything like that; it's that what you felt when you read the line was a visceral reaction that is not at all what I intended.
I'm also not going to describe to you how much I take the Holocaust Museum seriously; I could go on for pages and pages about how this period of history (as well as the much larger scale torture and death of American slaves and Native Americans, neither of which get the level of attention of the Holocaust) haunts me and disturbs me, but you wouldn't believe me, as you have already made up your mind about who I am. If you wish to take a moment, take a look at this entry that immediately proceeds this one. No LULZ there.
I'm not going to take this comment down as much as I want to. Your reaction is valid, and deserves to be considered (though, in the future, keep in mind that it cheapens your argument when you say "I'm not/I understand [something], but [opposite of something]." Keep in mind, it's the exact same thing as someone saying, "I'm not racist, but [racist thing]..."). I had thought long and hard about putting that line in, and I decided to keep it, because I believe it said a lot more than you read into it. That may have been a mistake.
However, I am going to scold you for punishing supremegoddess1 for that line. Her piece was fantastic; it was beautiful, mournful, and the exact opposite of mine, adding a layer of melancholy and perspective that hadn't existed before. She didn't choose me as a partner--she was stuck with me because there were no other partners available for whatever reason. Technically, a vote for her will advance me, and we can't have that because I am a sociopath or an asshole. Not voting for her because her partner is a sociopath or an asshole also risks kicking someone you love out of the contest for something completely out of her control.
Also, and more importantly, you didn't put this post on her journal. If you feel so strongly that she has done wrong by partnering with a sociopath or an asshole, then she needs to be informed of it. If she's not going to get your vote for her associations, then you need to tell her. A private message could potentially do the trick, but if the point you're trying to make is shame--and it clearly it is since you posted a comment as opposed to sending me a private message, then let's go all the way with it.
Speaking of shame, I'm going to crosspost this comment and my response to the places where my journal is crossposted (i.e. facebook and dreamwidth), and create a new livejournal entry so the folks on my friends page who wouldn't ordinarily read your comment can see it. It's likely that they feel the same way you did and haven't taken the time to tell me so. I look forward to the discussion.
Finally, I would like to apologize genuinely for upsetting you and thank you for bringing it to my attention. Please don't take what I've written as a reflection to the warmth, kindness, empathy, and passion for justice I have seen consistently seen from supremegoddess1.
And it keeps going...