circling back around again
4 Jul 2009 04:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouAwhile ago -- like, hrm, over a year ago -- I posted yet another reflection on issues burbling in my head, that particular time riffing on the question of exclusionary subgroups at writing conferences. I had it up for a bit (maybe a few days?) and took it down on second thought, because I mangled more than communicated. Although, admittedly, I do that plenty, anyway, because it's just part of the process of processing. For me, at least.
Keeping silent or dancing around stuff never did me any good. Never learned from it, at least. Sometimes you just don't realize how stupid something sounds until you say it out loud, realize what you just said, and the next words out of your mouth are: okay, that's pretty stupid. And sometimes you gotta say it out loud to realize: the reason this sounds stupid is because I'm missing some crucial info, here.
I'd always meant to come back around again, and I did, sort of, in recent post. But I didn't really address the first post's root cause in the second post, which is this: on what grounds can someone participate in this discussion? I think that's where my confusion came in, and the result was that I was trying to juggle two contradictory positions. In other words, I didn't deconstruct far enough. There was an assumption hiding in the statement, "to participate in this discussion," and I didn't go far enough in asking just what hid beneath that.
Because it is entitlement on one level, and a justified one, but if the context is different then I agree that entitlement is inappropriate. That is: the original triggering post, as I recall, only explicitly defined attendees in a group but did not explicitly define participants in the meta-discussion. But if the two get conflated -- or are assumed to be conflated, even -- it can create a contradictory situation for those who read at face-value.
I glossed the issue slightly in the follow-up post, but to state it flatly, my logic was that if you and I meet within a definition of "this is a group of writers," then if one is a writer, one has a valid voice alongside anyone else, and may speak as an equal to any other writer. I sure as hell feel entitled to participate because by that standard, I'm within the group. If the limits of the conversation participants, however, are defined as a subgroup of which I am not part, then any entitlement on my part is definitely beyond the social pale.
In fact, in nearly any of the race-fail or quasi-race-fail discussions, that's almost always the source of my confusion, and sometimes even irritability at what can feel like rules being changed on me mid-game. The conversation begins with (stated or implied by virtue of non-explicitness) "all writers welcome to discussion" -- one's authority to speak being based on one's status as writer -- and at an unseen point it becomes "now we're narrowing down to a certain sub-group" -- one's authority to speak based on membership in sub-group. I can't be the only person baffled (even hurt, sometimes) at the sudden dis-invitation to what I was under the impression was "all writers" -- I mean, I didn't stop being a writer, suddenly, so why am I being told to shut up and listen?
I'd just ask that when the rules do change, please state it clearly for those of us who can't see the cue cards. Sometimes connotations and implications miss me. Drawing a definitive, explicit line in the sand is greatly appreciated.
A'course, other days, I wonder if I should just stop thinking out loud (in pixels?) because my forays can backfire when readers think I've reached a conclusion and it's not one they like, or my arguments don't follow an approved path -- and it sure doesn't help that I process in a dialectical style. I never reach a true conclusion; there is always the potential for a further antithesis and further synthesis. Every possible ending is always a beginning for something else. I don't always write it up here (or plenty of you folks would probably want to kill me for how tedious I can be when processing particularly difficult topics), but silence here doesn't mean silence in my head. In fact, on all but perhaps a very select few topics, if you asked me about something I'd discussed last month or last year, I'd say, "actually, I've been thinking about that recently..."
Tangentially, I've been wondering about this state of being called 'allies' (or is it 'friendlies'?) -- what does that mean, anyway? I mean, how does one define that? Because it always feels to me like it's a word interchangeable in meaning and tone with the label of 'groupie', and I've never cared for nor been inclined to consider myself a groupie. (In fact, I consider it a massive insult.) Probably doesn't help that the only time I've ever seen anyone called 'an ally' online, it's being used in a sarcastic or demeaning way: as in, the person likes to think s/he is an ally, but, y'know, s/he's really just a poser, just another low-rent groupie.
On the other hand, ask me again in six months about the topic, and it'll likely be revised by then. With footnotes.
Keeping silent or dancing around stuff never did me any good. Never learned from it, at least. Sometimes you just don't realize how stupid something sounds until you say it out loud, realize what you just said, and the next words out of your mouth are: okay, that's pretty stupid. And sometimes you gotta say it out loud to realize: the reason this sounds stupid is because I'm missing some crucial info, here.
I'd always meant to come back around again, and I did, sort of, in recent post. But I didn't really address the first post's root cause in the second post, which is this: on what grounds can someone participate in this discussion? I think that's where my confusion came in, and the result was that I was trying to juggle two contradictory positions. In other words, I didn't deconstruct far enough. There was an assumption hiding in the statement, "to participate in this discussion," and I didn't go far enough in asking just what hid beneath that.
Because it is entitlement on one level, and a justified one, but if the context is different then I agree that entitlement is inappropriate. That is: the original triggering post, as I recall, only explicitly defined attendees in a group but did not explicitly define participants in the meta-discussion. But if the two get conflated -- or are assumed to be conflated, even -- it can create a contradictory situation for those who read at face-value.
I glossed the issue slightly in the follow-up post, but to state it flatly, my logic was that if you and I meet within a definition of "this is a group of writers," then if one is a writer, one has a valid voice alongside anyone else, and may speak as an equal to any other writer. I sure as hell feel entitled to participate because by that standard, I'm within the group. If the limits of the conversation participants, however, are defined as a subgroup of which I am not part, then any entitlement on my part is definitely beyond the social pale.
In fact, in nearly any of the race-fail or quasi-race-fail discussions, that's almost always the source of my confusion, and sometimes even irritability at what can feel like rules being changed on me mid-game. The conversation begins with (stated or implied by virtue of non-explicitness) "all writers welcome to discussion" -- one's authority to speak being based on one's status as writer -- and at an unseen point it becomes "now we're narrowing down to a certain sub-group" -- one's authority to speak based on membership in sub-group. I can't be the only person baffled (even hurt, sometimes) at the sudden dis-invitation to what I was under the impression was "all writers" -- I mean, I didn't stop being a writer, suddenly, so why am I being told to shut up and listen?
I'd just ask that when the rules do change, please state it clearly for those of us who can't see the cue cards. Sometimes connotations and implications miss me. Drawing a definitive, explicit line in the sand is greatly appreciated.
A'course, other days, I wonder if I should just stop thinking out loud (in pixels?) because my forays can backfire when readers think I've reached a conclusion and it's not one they like, or my arguments don't follow an approved path -- and it sure doesn't help that I process in a dialectical style. I never reach a true conclusion; there is always the potential for a further antithesis and further synthesis. Every possible ending is always a beginning for something else. I don't always write it up here (or plenty of you folks would probably want to kill me for how tedious I can be when processing particularly difficult topics), but silence here doesn't mean silence in my head. In fact, on all but perhaps a very select few topics, if you asked me about something I'd discussed last month or last year, I'd say, "actually, I've been thinking about that recently..."
Tangentially, I've been wondering about this state of being called 'allies' (or is it 'friendlies'?) -- what does that mean, anyway? I mean, how does one define that? Because it always feels to me like it's a word interchangeable in meaning and tone with the label of 'groupie', and I've never cared for nor been inclined to consider myself a groupie. (In fact, I consider it a massive insult.) Probably doesn't help that the only time I've ever seen anyone called 'an ally' online, it's being used in a sarcastic or demeaning way: as in, the person likes to think s/he is an ally, but, y'know, s/he's really just a poser, just another low-rent groupie.
On the other hand, ask me again in six months about the topic, and it'll likely be revised by then. With footnotes.
no subject
Date: 4 Jul 2009 02:21 pm (UTC)Oh. Is that what it's called? My spouse thinks I'm always picking on him, saying what he's done or said isn't right, but what I am trying to get across is that nothing is ever right and final and perfect - not what he says, not what I do. It's not criticism, it's a refining of process. Dialectic.
Have you ever read, perchance, Freedom and Necessity? Steve Brust and Emma Bull, and Friedrich Engels, and the dialectic. My brain doesn't work the proper way to really get much philosophy, and it's probably taken me ten years to have even the vaguest grasp on what the dialectic they spent so much time talking about really meant. I feel like I'm the blind man groping the elephant. *g*
I'd just ask that when the rules do change, please state it clearly for those of us who can't see the cue cards. Sometimes connotations and implications miss me. Drawing a definitive, explicit line in the sand is greatly appreciated.
Drawing a definitive line in the sand is always appreciated...and so rarely done, because then the drawer can be challenged on where it's drawn and what it defines. I have so very little patience for ephemeral generalities and, as a result, have avoided this entire debate.
no subject
Date: 5 Jul 2009 09:35 am (UTC)I hadn't realized I'd left off the link, so I put it back in -- linking back to a post I did that explains the dialectical process. I suppose you could summarize it as "nothing is ever final" but for the majority of philosophers, the dialectical process is, eventually, supposed to get you to a final resting place of synthesis. For me, personally, no, but that's because I'm someone who tinkers with everything. I can't leave well enough alone. It's a combination of self-doubt and innate curiosity and an endless craving for information: so, more information means finding a way to incorporate that into what I've already got, and the manner by which I do that is one of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. Kinda like playing Devil's Advocate with yourself, over and over, until you've boiled it down to the foundations and can find the lines drawn between the seeming opposite points.
so rarely done, because then the drawer can be challenged on where it's drawn and what it defines
I get that, and there'll always be folks who'll yammer away even asked not to, and want to argue the exclusion on its merits -- which is, to some degree, what I did, because I kept sensing a contradiction and it was the contradiction (and not really the matter of exclusion itself, really) that bothered me.
Problem is, when I can't see an explicit asked-not-to, I end up yammering as well -- and then feel like an idiot to discover after the fact that I was just supposed to know that the context was "only people who are X are welcome to reply". I'm willing to be courteous and shut up and listen if I could just rely on the courtesy of others to tell me, upfront, whether this discussion is open to all or is a shut-up-and-listen.