She had no need to apologise as she did. I was absolutely baffled reading her post trying to work out how someone might take offence.
That first critical comment goes against what I like about HN's rules - the idea of arguing in good faith. Don't look for a way to be offended, but give someone benefit of the doubt. She was excited about being brave to visit somewhere away from home - first with Paris (where she felt some advantage in knowing the language) and then with India (where English will get you by in most places anyway).
Bringing in Mars to talk colonialism was just next level.
> Instead of asking your Indian friends to perform more emotional labor for you and assuage your white women’s tears, maybe do some reflection on how your equation of India with an alien world reinforces an “other” mindset that is at the core of imperialism and colonialism.
Aside from being mean and insane, this sort of thing is an absolute gift to the political right, including its extreme elements. There are people who don't know many 'liberals' or leftists IRL, whose perception of the whole left half of the political spectrum can be significantly shaped by a few links to idiocy like this. And there are people who have had bad experiences at the hands of bullies using 'progressivism' as a cloak for cruelty and status games and intellectual laziness, whose suspicions this will only serve to confirm.
To anyone in those categories: please believe that 'the left' is not all like that, and although this bullshit is more common than it should be (and far more widely tolerated), it is still a fringe thing. And think about how your beliefs and your 'side' would appear to someone focusing on its worst or dumbest elements.
That was the icing on the cake. I went off to google "emotional labour" and still not sure I understand the point.
Might be way off track, but I think of some of this type of response or outrage-on-behalf-of-others as a form of busywork. If you are somewhat housed and somewhat fed, your basic needs are met, do you look for drama or a fight to win?
OK, so the thing to know about "emotional labour" is it's used in at least two ways (that sorta overlap).
Definition 1: Most jobs sometimes require you to demonstrate a certain set of emotions, and if you're feeling differently at the time to succeed you'll have to change gears pronto or be really good at faking sincerity. Some jobs require a lot of this - so much it's the most difficult part of the job.
For example, if you work for a call centre and have to convince people not to cancel their cable service, the company will probably want you to be upbeat and friendly every time you answer a call, while many callers will be frustrated and mad at your employer, and keen to share those feelings with you.
Obviously, every job has a certain element of this - but for some jobs it's a big, difficult part of the job.
Definition 2: The same, but including non-employment activities and reducing the big-and-difficult-part requirement.
For example, I don't much enjoy talking on the telephone, so if I've got to phone several plumbers to get a quote for some work, overcoming that dislike is emotional labour under the second definition.
"emotional labour" is absolutely a real thing, but that isn't it.
Emotional labour normally means stuff like remembering family birthdays, planning gifts, organising visits to friends and family, planning social events, etc. Things that take work that involves thinking about the emotional states and responses of participants involved
If one lived their entire life in Kentucky and has rarely traveled far from home, India absolutely is "culturally alien" to them. Saying you're excited to step outside your comfort zone and go somewhere you don't fully understand the culture is not offensive.
I think it's a mistake to judge intra-community fights based on sample sizes of a single discussion. Much like domestic arguments, the surface disagreement is often not what the fight is really about, and it's not easy to understand it without knowing the context, how long the forum participants have known each other, how disagreements have played out before and so on.
There are a lot of unwritten rules and informal relationships in any forum with a persistent membership, and in my experience it takes months, sometimes years of observation to be able to read them accurately.
I don't know, because I have no context to judge it by. Things like that don't take over a community unless there's some sort of history between the forum participants.
She absolutely had the need to apologize, she was facing forces much more powerful than her who could destroy her livelihood. Don’t fault the peasant for kneeling before the King.
What the article talks about is that as the purity spiral tightens, the number of outcasts grow, and can actually re-form the community, while those on the inside consume each other in increased frenzy.
The spiral will always find new victims, go to new heights, so it might be better to refuse to kneel, weather the frenzy, your 15 minutes of fame, and then move on once it passes.
Maybe. I don't know, it would be fascinating to know what the best way to defeat this phenomenon is.
> "The spiral will always find new victims, go to new heights, so it might be better to refuse to kneel, weather the frenzy, your 15 minutes of fame, and then move on once it passes."
The "transphobia" purity spiral is absolutely maddening, it just hasn't eaten itself completely yet. The current orthodox view inside of it is that anyone who claims to be trans is trans, regardless of their biological gender, psychological gender, gender expression, name, pronouns, or gender dysphoria. So a person who was born female, is female, presents female, uses a female name and female pronouns can still be trans simply by virtue of her saying that she is. Anything else is "gatekeeping", and expressing this view is "transphobic", and sentenced with immediate purity spiral mob justice.
I'm hoping this spiral dies out quickly, so that the LGBT movement can go back to sanity, it's not in a good place right now.
What works for one of the wealthiest and most famous women in the world may or may not work for a knitting blogger. It would a far riskier play for the blogger than for Rowling.
In her case, maybe ignore the comments that were critical in that way? Don't give them oxygen/validation personally.
Alternatively, I tend to play a straight bat (this might be an Australian/English saying) in response to something like this and with minimal text - less you say, less there is to attack in response. If you indulge them too much, it only encourages more.
Right. As the article states, in-groups always attack apostates the hardest. There's a funny related phenomenon where people who try their best at being vegan get attacked for not being "vegan enough", instead of applauded for at least trying.
Because it works. People who want to join the in-group are vulnerable to its criticism, but people who don't want to join don't give a shit in the first place.
So when the woman in the article responded to the attack, the attackers smelled blood, and piled on, and increased their attacks. prompting her to defend herself even more, thereby giving even more material for the attackers. So it seems you have to defuse it before that point in time. Easy for me to say, really hard to recognize in the moment.
Because that's the annoying paradox. If you get attacked, and you start thinking that you maybe were wrong, that you maybe wrote something bad, that you maybe hurt someone else, having those thoughts, those doubts, show that you didn't intend to. Yet the very proof of you not having ill intent, simply invites more attacks.
I agree. I'm not vegan, but I often come across scenarios such as that you described. Same with people making an effort to reduce their environmental footprint. "But you drive a car when you have to pick up three children from separate locations within a short timespan! Practice what you preach!" "I saw you eat red meat last week!"
