Weasel language

[kainrocket]

Hi Internet,

If you dog pile someone from a socially accepted unassailable position of strength you are not a hero. Particularly if you engage in dissent shaming and complain about people being mindless. Then go on to imply that this person is engaging in behaviour, or in this case thinking, that contributes to a pretty damn serious issues like

Comments

[kainrocket]

We appear to have a very similar background. My mum's a strong person and my dad is quite happy to have her that way. Basically I learned very early that you treat people the way you want to be treated.

You basically don't be a jerk to anyone. The end. As far as I'm concerned that should negate the very need for feminist thought because treating women as equals shouldn't be an issue. Women get treated as equals. Men get treated as equals. End of story.

I do not feel any kind of privilege or superiority in having a penis or having a Y chromosome. I have been from a very young age expected to clean up, make my dad a coffee and clean things. No women only bullshit in my household when I was a boy.

However there was men only bullshit like digging holes and doing the dirty jobs. That's okay, my mum has rheumatism. Besides her time could be better spent taking a break from time to time. She works hard.

To address your point about malice? You're cool. We're still meant to have drinks one day. Though I'm planning on unilaterally getting everybody on M3 (and other mushes) drunk when I finally get you all in a bar together.

As to the motivations of the people who attacked James and belittled his intelligence, spoke to him in very unkind and harsh tones I ascribe no motivation beyond being passionate about their point of view. The fact that they felt the need to make him feel small to make their point, and in no uncertain terms telling him to "Smarten up" is crime enough.

The truth is I don't know these people. James himself described these people to me as his friends. If they're friends of James, they're unwittingly friends of mine. I'm a lad. I ain't got time to make things personal with these people. I have good times, share jokes, and tell people to pull their head in when they're acting silly. I'm simply reminding them that friends don't let friends do certain things. Like demean mutual friends. It's not cool. Go back to being cool and I'm happy.

BUT what they're doing is seeing the mild mannered nice boy posting a contrary opinion, and attempting to shame him into changing his opinion. To 'smarten him up' as it were. I could make some ironic, wry musing as is my wont. But that would just be cruel to those people. Cruelty is not my game.

I hope that my examples given above educate you on my point of view. People used to bully me mentally. Make me feel small for having different opinions. Having a funny name. Making character's called Fatih Mehmet and make crass penis jokes like Fatty Helmet when I dare to share a piece of my culture with an American audience. You may not think I have been bullied. You might see my confidence, and if you ask people like Prismatic Spider or the vent crew about how it is 'impossible to insult me'. Those aren't my words, ask James and Ryan.

But people have been. And those mutual friends of yours and James used the same tactics on James that people used to use on me. And I will put it plainly.

If you have an opinion worth making, you can do it without being cruel and hurtful to someone who is meant to be your friend. I might be Turkish, but I am speaking pretty okay English. Making James feel small is not how you treat someone for thinking it might be possible that people take a good idea too far. Or abuse people who are passionate about the idea that women are just as deserving as men.

Guess what. James is as deserving of kindness as any of you.

[unclejam]

I feel that I should be clear, and to say this publically and explicitly.

I do not deny that any given person has been bullied in their past. The fact that I have a physical scar rather than purely mental ones is my misfortune but does not mean other people were not also abused.

I believe that calling others the name of the abuser is not a good way to cause them to shape up their behavior. It would be better, for instance, to say 'I feel you're being rather unfair to James personally here, as in (short quote) and as his friend I would appreciate it if you could focus upon the topic without what seem to me to be digs at his person.' I feel that it would be better because you are focusing upon the sin and not the sinner (so to speak).