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kaigouETA: I'm aware this has been linked on at least one of the digests. Before you jump in with both feet, it might help to know that this is me verbalizing my way through the dynamics. The goal is a reasonable yet flexible understanding. That way in future I'll be better equipped to know when I'm dealing with digression or derailment in myself or others, and how to better express myself to reduce what ambiguity and misunderstanding that I can.
Towards that end, civil, logical, and trend-supported arguments are most persuasive. I say 'trend-supported,' because too-specific instances are too easily dismissed as 'exceptions'; I do use examples but only when I can think of at least four other instances of similar. Otherwise... well, we do all have our bad days, eh.
This post is in itself a digression from what's actually been on my mind, but partially references the discussions in my linkspam reset post and the preliminary pokings I did in re derailment. (Side note to this side note: there's a lack of replies-to-replies on the second linked post, b/c I had notes saved, blue-screened my mac -- because yes, I really can do that -- and lost them and just didn't have the energy to recreate... so, uhm, there it is.)
This may not be as detailed-thought-out as usual, because I'm busy with other stuff and have limited brainpan space right now for heavy editing... but on the plus side, that also means it's a lot shorter than usual. So, yay for that, and please to be excusing any really awkward stuff. Oh, hell, I'll probably be smoothing the worst of any rough spots over the next day or so, or as they're pointed out.
Anyway, the various discussions have had me contemplating how one can identify digression versus derailment, because sometimes it seems as though digressions get labeled as derailment when perhaps they aren't. So let's see, and if you have better/clearer definitions, speak up.
From Irenes Daughters' Derailment Monday series:
Also, there's what's become the final (or close-to-final) word on derailment tactics: Derailing for Dummies. The latter is more inclusive; in the quoted definition, replace "anti-racist" with "anti-sexist", "anti-homophobic", "anti-ableist", or any other non-privileged area, as needed and it still applies.
In actual practice, from what I've seen, derailment seems to boil down to one of three basic maneuvers: "you don't really suffer", or, "I also suffer, feel my pain, too!", or, "even if you do suffer, I can ignore it/you because of ____". Frex, if the topic is, say, sexism, and someone replies saying "your experience is akin to my experience as [insert serious or trivial marginalization here]", this is treated as a But That Happens To Me Too!. And in the instances as given in the linked site, yeah, those are trivial instances.
At the same time, I do think that sometimes the "I can relate" response can be problematic solely due to phrasing, especially when -- in a objective view -- the respondent may in fact be offering what's awkward support. "Yeah, as a [different kind of marginalized person], I go through something like that, too. I'm totally with you on how aggravating it can be. You've got every right to be furious."
It's only human nature to feel that we must justify in what way we could even relate, especially in the face of someone's (especially if righteous) anger; the inclusion of our means of 'relating' is meant to defuse the person from seeing us as an object of attack: "hey, I'm not clueless about how that might feel. I get what you're saying."
That response is not automatically a derailment, I think. When awkwardly phrased -- particularly when the OP has already gotten the full version one time too many -- it can produce an immediate flag of potential derailment, if by sheer force of habit. But I don't think it's necessarily a derailment if the reply stops there: if the reply started and stopped with simply, "You're right, the fashion industry sucks! They just do not make clothes for real bodies!" The respondent is confirming the marginalized person's complaints, agreeing, supporting -- and yet not requiring any affirmation in return.
The real derailment, from what I've seen, takes place when what could be a well-intentioned reply of empathy becomes, "and now we should really talk about how I've experienced discrimination, too."
But I've also seen such supportive replies get charged with "derailment", at the same time that derailment has come to mean an intentional reaction, if not outright malicious (as opposed to 'kneejerk' and 'stupid'). The very charge of 'derailment!' is so loaded that, from what I've seen, it can clear football-field-sized holes in a journal. It simply reduces any potential defense to rubble. It's like how the Reductio ad Hitlerum maneuver used to work, before it got used one too many times and we ended up with Godwin's Law and learned to laugh hysterically whenever Hitler's invoked.
That's definitely not the response one would wish for any charge of derailment, which is a significantly more serious issue as relates to anti-ism discussions. Calling out unchecked privilege should not (I hope) ever be trivialized as something that can be laughed off as easily as we now laugh off references to Hitler and the Nazis. Problem is, it seems to be getting there.
Have a real-world example of the kind of instance I have in mind. (I am keeping this name-free and somewhat vague, because the intention is for a post-mortem rather than a rehashing per se, because I don't believe anyone was intentionally malicious per se, or at least I'm not willing to ascribe that motivation when stupidity will suffice.)
The players: a digest of community posts, a single post, and a referencing post.
A. Metafandom posts the day's links. Topics are roughly: slash and gender (4); writing (1).
B. OP#1 critiques historical-AU slash; notes trends of erasing/ignoring historical fact of racism.
C. OP#2 links to (A) and to (B); notes trend in (profic, non-slash) historical romance to erase only those historical limitations that affect white women. (That is, increase female agency to reflect modern reader perspectives, without corresponding regard for homophobia or racism issues.)
Where's the derailment?
If you say it's Step B, I wouldn't blame you, but then Step C is also a derailment, speaking as it does to non-slash. Or, if you see the topic as "gender" in fiction (above and beyond slash), then Step B is derailment, seeing how it diverts attention to issues of race and away from issues of gender -- and Step C is gets the train back on track with discussion of gender, except not, because it's not squarely on the issue of slash. That is, Step B treats slash-in-history as tangential or peripheral to the issue of racism-in-history, while Step C treats slash-in-history and racism-in-history as symptoms of a problem identifiable only by looking at sexism-in-history.
My point is that I don't think you can logically claim that only Step C is derailment. That's a contradiction, because either both are diverting from the main issue -- the intersection of gay relationships and gender issues -- or each are talking about a subset within one of the two topics.
The problem? If you read the comments, only Step C got slammed for derailment, and it appears to have shut down the conversation entirely, as well as any potential further discussion of Step C's thesis. That's really a pity, too, because if you do not view either Step B or Step C as derailments -- but as logical and informative digressions -- then you do consider it a loss to have that secondary branch cut abruptly short. And it's especially a loss in that it's cut short by what amounts to a kind of public shaming, for which the irony is only compounded that the shaming occurs on behalf of a post that, by the standards that say Step C is a derailment, thus is also a derailment on its own.
When someone makes a statement, you can say "yes" or "no". When you say "Yes, and..." it's not automatically a digression.
A: Racism against Hispanic people takes ___ forms.
B: Yes, and these forms are also used in racism against ____ people.
The point of B contains a digression in that it expands A to apply to B. Where it becomes a diversion -- and where, I think, people are most likely to mistake "digression" for "derailment" -- is if B uses this agreement to segue into, "and thus we should discuss this expanded point instead of the original thesis."
However -- and this is very important, I think -- derailment is specifically, by common definition, when someone uses privilege to enforce the status quo. The subtext of that privilege is because the speaker is uncomfortable with, or wishes to divert attention from, their own alliance/guilt with the privilege being called out in the original statement. A clear example of what I mean:
A: The rape culture condones and even encourages men to treat women as sex objects.
B: Hey, men get raped, too. [expansion] We should talk about how the pain those men feel [diversion] because that's even worse [privilege].
And by "clear", I mean, "especially obvious when it's a woman calling out male participation in, or uncaring blindness to, social patterns, and the respondent is a man who'd rather not have to address his own contribution to those social patterns". That's where and why we get the "I've suffered, too, [and my privilege allows me to demand that] we should discuss my suffering instead, because [my privilege has taught me that] my issues are [more] important [than yours]."
That's belaboring the nitty-gritty of derailment, but I think it's important, because that's not really a true "Yes, and..." -- it's a "Yes, but." Essentially, the replies above are saying, "Yes, you're hurt, but my hurt is more important."
A "Yes, and..." is how I classify both Step B and Step C, in the real-world example. If we categorize the original topic (Step A) as "slash (with a side-order of gender)", then it seems perfectly reasonable for Step B to be giving a positive "Yes, and..." reply. "Yes, slash has problems, and these also include how it treats race alongside its treatment of homosexuality." In other words, Step B could be read as saying, the problem is larger than the original thesis -- and in turn, Step C is tying this digression back into the main track via the topic of romance (of which slash is really a subset) and how it handles gender and homosexuality (the original topic areas) and racism (the digressive topic area).
That is a well-evolved conversation, one in which the disparate parts -- digressive though they may appear on the surface -- in fact are informing each other in turn. Shutting down Step C via public chiding and a liberal tossing of the derailment grenades stunted the discussion's potential growth right there. That's not fair to the posting parties, nor is it fair to we readers who seek out and wish to continue with a discussion's evolution.
I do think it's entirely feasible -- and reasonable -- to say, "this is digressing from the main topic," without also shutting down what is a supportive response, though perhaps one outside the OP's scope to either address or to possibly moderate, should the expansion inflame the commentaries. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the OP to say, "ah, I see your point, but I've set the topic to these edges."
At this point, I do think it's important to note that the respondent does not, in my opinion, have an ethical leg to stand on if s/he then charges the OP with being racist, sexist, homophobic, or any other category. It doesn't really matter to me whether or not the OP really is; the fact is that the OP has the right to set the limits of the thesis as it's being discussed. Nor do I think it's acceptable to force the OP to justify those choices; the fact that someone may not wish to expand the thesis into areas they're not expert in, or are not personally experienced in, or are already looking at a massive time-sink in dealing with replies and don't want to increase the traffic, does not automatically mean that their agreement must be hollow simply because they don't then take up the banner to expand their thesis to include your additions.
It just means their thesis is what it is, and for their own reasons -- which they have the right to have -- they aren't able or willing (or comfortable) doing more than agreeing while keeping the thesis limited to its original points.
To push past those limits is like showing up at someone's party and insisting that when you discover there's a hot tub in the backyard, that the host is the one in the wrong for refusing to let you use it. No; when you are a guest in someone's journal, you abide by the journal-owner's request -- if you want a party with a hot tub, then you get a hot tub and host that party yourself.
That might seem like a silly example, but I think it's what makes the internets such a vibrant place: we're constantly at other parties, seeing hot tubs and liking them, and coming back to our own spaces and opening up a hot tub of our own for people to enjoy. At the same time, even as we open this metaphorical hot tub for additional enjoyment, we sometimes find ourselves annoyed by the insistence of particular guests who don't see why we won't cut down our backyard trees for a bonfire. But I provided this lovely hot tub, we'd say, isn't that enough? No, the guest replies, it's not; we want a bonfire, and if you weren't selfish [racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist, etc], you'd be willing to put forth the energy to entertain us in the way we'd prefer."
To which the proper answer is, "you're perfectly welcome to have a bonfire... in your own backyard." Thus the circle continues, with those guests going home and starting up their own party, with hot tub and bonfire, and inviting everyone (or possibly a limited few, if tempers got involved) to enjoy the combination. Hell, for that matter, the guests may decide bonfires are way better than hot tubs, and just have a bonfire. It's their party; they can do that.
I've not yet seen a label for counter-derailment, but I'm sure it's coming soon enough. I suppose you might call it a reverse derailment, except that within the metaphor that makes for a really bizarre image (not to mention one that completely wrecks my points that the OP, as the engineer, is the one driving the train and has the right to say which is the 'right' track). What I'm describing here is more like track-jumping.
The OP makes a post about slash and gender. I should note, for the purposes of this illustration we must also presume that this is all taking place inside the same conversation ring, hereby defined as "the OP's post and its comments" -- although inside the metaphor we could say, "all taking place on the same train." If a commenter replies that the slash/gender thesis could be expanded to ableism, for instance, and the OP won't allow, entertain, or encourage (regardless of agreement) this diversion, then a commenter who slams the OP with anti-____ privilege is not derailing in the classical sense. The commenter is, however, attempting to jump the train to a different track: one no longer guided by the OP but instead steered by the commenter's perspective.
I say it's not derailing because derailment hinges on privilege to deny or dismiss the posted thesis. "You're not really that marginalized," and, "oh, I get that all the time," are dismissals. "I absolutely agree with you" is not, on its own, a dismiss but an affirmation. Furthermore, I won't say the OP is derailing (denying via privilege), because I don't think you can really derail your own train, so long as you remain on the thesis-track you'd laid down*. (Though I concede an OP can definitely assist a derailment, if unintentionally; all it takes is getting caught in a back-and-forth with a respondent especially skilled in classical derailing.)
* I'm sure there are people who've posited an anti-oppression thesis and then, in the course of their own arguments for that thesis, end up proving the opposite. But I think that's a result of unexamined privilege, some incredibly fuzzy logic and/or muddy writing, not derailment as it's usually defined: a defensive reply from the audience. Hard to argue well upon one thesis and then post your own defensive reply attempting to derail that thesis... though I suppose you could, but I'd also expect most visitors to think you're just a little crazy for it, too.
But neither do I think you can say the commenter is derailing, per se, unless you want to get into Oppression Olympics to justify arguing the commenter is speaking from a position of privilege -- and if the commenter is not, that's when I think it's more an attempted track-jump than the much more loaded and negative version of true derailment.
The reason I specify the difference is because a track-jump is the postulation of an anti-oppression thesis in its own right. Or to use the party metaphor, it's the difference between hosting your own party but with hot tub, versus hosting a party that consists of people holding signs and walking the sidewalk in front of someone else's party. If the original response was, "Yes, but I've suffered more," this makes the track-jumped thesis into a declaration of the oppression olympics (to use a really clear and simple example, though real-life would be muddier, of course). Compare that to "Yes, and this also applies to ___." Can you see the distinction?
The first digression creates a thesis that measures itself against the original while the second contains a thesis that builds on the first. To use the train metaphor, stating the first reply as a thesis requires taking someone else's thesis and driving it intentionally off the rails as part of your own thesis. Stating the second reply as a thesis means taking someone else's starting point and carrying it past the original thesis' destination to somewhere farther down the line.
Yes, I'm aware that when writing from privilege, it may not be obvious to the respondent of the first type that this is what they're doing. But if their separately-stated thesis can be rephrased to generally mean, "someone is talking about X, but X isn't really that important" or its fuller corollary, "someone is talking about X, but Y is more hurtful to me and we should talk about that", then it's probably an intentional and argumentative oppression train. Even if it's not directly derailing someone else's discussion-train within the comments to that actual post, I think. It is, at the very least, creating an echo of the first train as a separate post and derailing that echo instead.
And yes, also, I can see that in the light of that paragraph, Step C might be judged as a kind of derailment, in that it prefaces and references several other train-paths. But for that to be true, then Step B is also a derailment -- and, I'd posit, we must also then participate in oppression olympics to gauge who is oppressed enough to be able to claim their track is the One True Track and all others must be derailment. I don't know about you, but that game is one I see no value in playing, because all it does is blow up the tracks so no trains will come through at all.
That's why it's of crucial importance to me that spaces be delineated, and that derailment be limited to those times and instances where it really does fit the crime. Throwing it around, such as at someone's decision to lay a route for a train that's track-jumped from someone else's starting point, is going to get us nowhere -- with the added benefit of turning 'derailment' into a ridiculed term that means nothing, and is tossed out only by the desperate.
Towards that end, civil, logical, and trend-supported arguments are most persuasive. I say 'trend-supported,' because too-specific instances are too easily dismissed as 'exceptions'; I do use examples but only when I can think of at least four other instances of similar. Otherwise... well, we do all have our bad days, eh.
This post is in itself a digression from what's actually been on my mind, but partially references the discussions in my linkspam reset post and the preliminary pokings I did in re derailment. (Side note to this side note: there's a lack of replies-to-replies on the second linked post, b/c I had notes saved, blue-screened my mac -- because yes, I really can do that -- and lost them and just didn't have the energy to recreate... so, uhm, there it is.)
This may not be as detailed-thought-out as usual, because I'm busy with other stuff and have limited brainpan space right now for heavy editing... but on the plus side, that also means it's a lot shorter than usual. So, yay for that, and please to be excusing any really awkward stuff. Oh, hell, I'll probably be smoothing the worst of any rough spots over the next day or so, or as they're pointed out.
Anyway, the various discussions have had me contemplating how one can identify digression versus derailment, because sometimes it seems as though digressions get labeled as derailment when perhaps they aren't. So let's see, and if you have better/clearer definitions, speak up.
From Irenes Daughters' Derailment Monday series:
derailment [n]: a defensive argument, statement, or question that dismisses or seeks to undermine anti-racist arguments in an effort to preserve privilege or the status quo.
Also, there's what's become the final (or close-to-final) word on derailment tactics: Derailing for Dummies. The latter is more inclusive; in the quoted definition, replace "anti-racist" with "anti-sexist", "anti-homophobic", "anti-ableist", or any other non-privileged area, as needed and it still applies.
In actual practice, from what I've seen, derailment seems to boil down to one of three basic maneuvers: "you don't really suffer", or, "I also suffer, feel my pain, too!", or, "even if you do suffer, I can ignore it/you because of ____". Frex, if the topic is, say, sexism, and someone replies saying "your experience is akin to my experience as [insert serious or trivial marginalization here]", this is treated as a But That Happens To Me Too!. And in the instances as given in the linked site, yeah, those are trivial instances.
If you are speaking to a fat person who is complaining about the lack of fashion-forward and beautiful clothing made in their size, try something like: “The fashion industry sucks! They just do not make clothes for real bodies - I mean, just because I am a size four doesn’t mean I’m short! Jeans are always too short on me!”
At the same time, I do think that sometimes the "I can relate" response can be problematic solely due to phrasing, especially when -- in a objective view -- the respondent may in fact be offering what's awkward support. "Yeah, as a [different kind of marginalized person], I go through something like that, too. I'm totally with you on how aggravating it can be. You've got every right to be furious."
It's only human nature to feel that we must justify in what way we could even relate, especially in the face of someone's (especially if righteous) anger; the inclusion of our means of 'relating' is meant to defuse the person from seeing us as an object of attack: "hey, I'm not clueless about how that might feel. I get what you're saying."
That response is not automatically a derailment, I think. When awkwardly phrased -- particularly when the OP has already gotten the full version one time too many -- it can produce an immediate flag of potential derailment, if by sheer force of habit. But I don't think it's necessarily a derailment if the reply stops there: if the reply started and stopped with simply, "You're right, the fashion industry sucks! They just do not make clothes for real bodies!" The respondent is confirming the marginalized person's complaints, agreeing, supporting -- and yet not requiring any affirmation in return.
The real derailment, from what I've seen, takes place when what could be a well-intentioned reply of empathy becomes, "and now we should really talk about how I've experienced discrimination, too."
But I've also seen such supportive replies get charged with "derailment", at the same time that derailment has come to mean an intentional reaction, if not outright malicious (as opposed to 'kneejerk' and 'stupid'). The very charge of 'derailment!' is so loaded that, from what I've seen, it can clear football-field-sized holes in a journal. It simply reduces any potential defense to rubble. It's like how the Reductio ad Hitlerum maneuver used to work, before it got used one too many times and we ended up with Godwin's Law and learned to laugh hysterically whenever Hitler's invoked.
That's definitely not the response one would wish for any charge of derailment, which is a significantly more serious issue as relates to anti-ism discussions. Calling out unchecked privilege should not (I hope) ever be trivialized as something that can be laughed off as easily as we now laugh off references to Hitler and the Nazis. Problem is, it seems to be getting there.
Have a real-world example of the kind of instance I have in mind. (I am keeping this name-free and somewhat vague, because the intention is for a post-mortem rather than a rehashing per se, because I don't believe anyone was intentionally malicious per se, or at least I'm not willing to ascribe that motivation when stupidity will suffice.)
The players: a digest of community posts, a single post, and a referencing post.
A. Metafandom posts the day's links. Topics are roughly: slash and gender (4); writing (1).
B. OP#1 critiques historical-AU slash; notes trends of erasing/ignoring historical fact of racism.
C. OP#2 links to (A) and to (B); notes trend in (profic, non-slash) historical romance to erase only those historical limitations that affect white women. (That is, increase female agency to reflect modern reader perspectives, without corresponding regard for homophobia or racism issues.)
Where's the derailment?
If you say it's Step B, I wouldn't blame you, but then Step C is also a derailment, speaking as it does to non-slash. Or, if you see the topic as "gender" in fiction (above and beyond slash), then Step B is derailment, seeing how it diverts attention to issues of race and away from issues of gender -- and Step C is gets the train back on track with discussion of gender, except not, because it's not squarely on the issue of slash. That is, Step B treats slash-in-history as tangential or peripheral to the issue of racism-in-history, while Step C treats slash-in-history and racism-in-history as symptoms of a problem identifiable only by looking at sexism-in-history.
My point is that I don't think you can logically claim that only Step C is derailment. That's a contradiction, because either both are diverting from the main issue -- the intersection of gay relationships and gender issues -- or each are talking about a subset within one of the two topics.
The problem? If you read the comments, only Step C got slammed for derailment, and it appears to have shut down the conversation entirely, as well as any potential further discussion of Step C's thesis. That's really a pity, too, because if you do not view either Step B or Step C as derailments -- but as logical and informative digressions -- then you do consider it a loss to have that secondary branch cut abruptly short. And it's especially a loss in that it's cut short by what amounts to a kind of public shaming, for which the irony is only compounded that the shaming occurs on behalf of a post that, by the standards that say Step C is a derailment, thus is also a derailment on its own.
When someone makes a statement, you can say "yes" or "no". When you say "Yes, and..." it's not automatically a digression.
A: Racism against Hispanic people takes ___ forms.
B: Yes, and these forms are also used in racism against ____ people.
The point of B contains a digression in that it expands A to apply to B. Where it becomes a diversion -- and where, I think, people are most likely to mistake "digression" for "derailment" -- is if B uses this agreement to segue into, "and thus we should discuss this expanded point instead of the original thesis."
However -- and this is very important, I think -- derailment is specifically, by common definition, when someone uses privilege to enforce the status quo. The subtext of that privilege is because the speaker is uncomfortable with, or wishes to divert attention from, their own alliance/guilt with the privilege being called out in the original statement. A clear example of what I mean:
A: The rape culture condones and even encourages men to treat women as sex objects.
B: Hey, men get raped, too. [expansion] We should talk about how the pain those men feel [diversion] because that's even worse [privilege].
And by "clear", I mean, "especially obvious when it's a woman calling out male participation in, or uncaring blindness to, social patterns, and the respondent is a man who'd rather not have to address his own contribution to those social patterns". That's where and why we get the "I've suffered, too, [and my privilege allows me to demand that] we should discuss my suffering instead, because [my privilege has taught me that] my issues are [more] important [than yours]."
That's belaboring the nitty-gritty of derailment, but I think it's important, because that's not really a true "Yes, and..." -- it's a "Yes, but." Essentially, the replies above are saying, "Yes, you're hurt, but my hurt is more important."
A "Yes, and..." is how I classify both Step B and Step C, in the real-world example. If we categorize the original topic (Step A) as "slash (with a side-order of gender)", then it seems perfectly reasonable for Step B to be giving a positive "Yes, and..." reply. "Yes, slash has problems, and these also include how it treats race alongside its treatment of homosexuality." In other words, Step B could be read as saying, the problem is larger than the original thesis -- and in turn, Step C is tying this digression back into the main track via the topic of romance (of which slash is really a subset) and how it handles gender and homosexuality (the original topic areas) and racism (the digressive topic area).
That is a well-evolved conversation, one in which the disparate parts -- digressive though they may appear on the surface -- in fact are informing each other in turn. Shutting down Step C via public chiding and a liberal tossing of the derailment grenades stunted the discussion's potential growth right there. That's not fair to the posting parties, nor is it fair to we readers who seek out and wish to continue with a discussion's evolution.
I do think it's entirely feasible -- and reasonable -- to say, "this is digressing from the main topic," without also shutting down what is a supportive response, though perhaps one outside the OP's scope to either address or to possibly moderate, should the expansion inflame the commentaries. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the OP to say, "ah, I see your point, but I've set the topic to these edges."
At this point, I do think it's important to note that the respondent does not, in my opinion, have an ethical leg to stand on if s/he then charges the OP with being racist, sexist, homophobic, or any other category. It doesn't really matter to me whether or not the OP really is; the fact is that the OP has the right to set the limits of the thesis as it's being discussed. Nor do I think it's acceptable to force the OP to justify those choices; the fact that someone may not wish to expand the thesis into areas they're not expert in, or are not personally experienced in, or are already looking at a massive time-sink in dealing with replies and don't want to increase the traffic, does not automatically mean that their agreement must be hollow simply because they don't then take up the banner to expand their thesis to include your additions.
It just means their thesis is what it is, and for their own reasons -- which they have the right to have -- they aren't able or willing (or comfortable) doing more than agreeing while keeping the thesis limited to its original points.
To push past those limits is like showing up at someone's party and insisting that when you discover there's a hot tub in the backyard, that the host is the one in the wrong for refusing to let you use it. No; when you are a guest in someone's journal, you abide by the journal-owner's request -- if you want a party with a hot tub, then you get a hot tub and host that party yourself.
That might seem like a silly example, but I think it's what makes the internets such a vibrant place: we're constantly at other parties, seeing hot tubs and liking them, and coming back to our own spaces and opening up a hot tub of our own for people to enjoy. At the same time, even as we open this metaphorical hot tub for additional enjoyment, we sometimes find ourselves annoyed by the insistence of particular guests who don't see why we won't cut down our backyard trees for a bonfire. But I provided this lovely hot tub, we'd say, isn't that enough? No, the guest replies, it's not; we want a bonfire, and if you weren't selfish [racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist, etc], you'd be willing to put forth the energy to entertain us in the way we'd prefer."
To which the proper answer is, "you're perfectly welcome to have a bonfire... in your own backyard." Thus the circle continues, with those guests going home and starting up their own party, with hot tub and bonfire, and inviting everyone (or possibly a limited few, if tempers got involved) to enjoy the combination. Hell, for that matter, the guests may decide bonfires are way better than hot tubs, and just have a bonfire. It's their party; they can do that.
I've not yet seen a label for counter-derailment, but I'm sure it's coming soon enough. I suppose you might call it a reverse derailment, except that within the metaphor that makes for a really bizarre image (not to mention one that completely wrecks my points that the OP, as the engineer, is the one driving the train and has the right to say which is the 'right' track). What I'm describing here is more like track-jumping.
The OP makes a post about slash and gender. I should note, for the purposes of this illustration we must also presume that this is all taking place inside the same conversation ring, hereby defined as "the OP's post and its comments" -- although inside the metaphor we could say, "all taking place on the same train." If a commenter replies that the slash/gender thesis could be expanded to ableism, for instance, and the OP won't allow, entertain, or encourage (regardless of agreement) this diversion, then a commenter who slams the OP with anti-____ privilege is not derailing in the classical sense. The commenter is, however, attempting to jump the train to a different track: one no longer guided by the OP but instead steered by the commenter's perspective.
I say it's not derailing because derailment hinges on privilege to deny or dismiss the posted thesis. "You're not really that marginalized," and, "oh, I get that all the time," are dismissals. "I absolutely agree with you" is not, on its own, a dismiss but an affirmation. Furthermore, I won't say the OP is derailing (denying via privilege), because I don't think you can really derail your own train, so long as you remain on the thesis-track you'd laid down*. (Though I concede an OP can definitely assist a derailment, if unintentionally; all it takes is getting caught in a back-and-forth with a respondent especially skilled in classical derailing.)
* I'm sure there are people who've posited an anti-oppression thesis and then, in the course of their own arguments for that thesis, end up proving the opposite. But I think that's a result of unexamined privilege, some incredibly fuzzy logic and/or muddy writing, not derailment as it's usually defined: a defensive reply from the audience. Hard to argue well upon one thesis and then post your own defensive reply attempting to derail that thesis... though I suppose you could, but I'd also expect most visitors to think you're just a little crazy for it, too.
But neither do I think you can say the commenter is derailing, per se, unless you want to get into Oppression Olympics to justify arguing the commenter is speaking from a position of privilege -- and if the commenter is not, that's when I think it's more an attempted track-jump than the much more loaded and negative version of true derailment.
The reason I specify the difference is because a track-jump is the postulation of an anti-oppression thesis in its own right. Or to use the party metaphor, it's the difference between hosting your own party but with hot tub, versus hosting a party that consists of people holding signs and walking the sidewalk in front of someone else's party. If the original response was, "Yes, but I've suffered more," this makes the track-jumped thesis into a declaration of the oppression olympics (to use a really clear and simple example, though real-life would be muddier, of course). Compare that to "Yes, and this also applies to ___." Can you see the distinction?
The first digression creates a thesis that measures itself against the original while the second contains a thesis that builds on the first. To use the train metaphor, stating the first reply as a thesis requires taking someone else's thesis and driving it intentionally off the rails as part of your own thesis. Stating the second reply as a thesis means taking someone else's starting point and carrying it past the original thesis' destination to somewhere farther down the line.
Yes, I'm aware that when writing from privilege, it may not be obvious to the respondent of the first type that this is what they're doing. But if their separately-stated thesis can be rephrased to generally mean, "someone is talking about X, but X isn't really that important" or its fuller corollary, "someone is talking about X, but Y is more hurtful to me and we should talk about that", then it's probably an intentional and argumentative oppression train. Even if it's not directly derailing someone else's discussion-train within the comments to that actual post, I think. It is, at the very least, creating an echo of the first train as a separate post and derailing that echo instead.
And yes, also, I can see that in the light of that paragraph, Step C might be judged as a kind of derailment, in that it prefaces and references several other train-paths. But for that to be true, then Step B is also a derailment -- and, I'd posit, we must also then participate in oppression olympics to gauge who is oppressed enough to be able to claim their track is the One True Track and all others must be derailment. I don't know about you, but that game is one I see no value in playing, because all it does is blow up the tracks so no trains will come through at all.
That's why it's of crucial importance to me that spaces be delineated, and that derailment be limited to those times and instances where it really does fit the crime. Throwing it around, such as at someone's decision to lay a route for a train that's track-jumped from someone else's starting point, is going to get us nowhere -- with the added benefit of turning 'derailment' into a ridiculed term that means nothing, and is tossed out only by the desperate.
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Date: 14 Mar 2010 03:36 am (UTC)Well, here's the thing--and I am invoking this specific example from my own experience because it's the only situation where I can be sure of all the variables, although I have seen and heard of countless other situations that closely resembled it. I once made a locked post on my reaction to a discussion about x (where I lacked privilege). The following day, my friend (who did possess privilege w/r/t to x) made a post that said basically that since she didn't get upset by reverse x or by y (different issue where she lacked privilege), people should just accept the fact that everyone is a little bit [x/y]-ist and that she was sick of hearing people talk about x. She didn't directly or explicitly reference my post, but later, in a private communication, she told me quite frankly without even being asked that she only made the post because of my locked post on the subject in order to get me to stop talking about x since it made her uncomfortable/upset. Under your definition, this is not a derail because it happened in her journal and she made no reference to my post, but it was clearly a response to the discussion about x and--which only became clear after I had already given her the benefit of the doubt that she hadn't intended it personally for me--a response to my post on the subject.
And well, you know, this addresses one of your later points as well: I have a much larger readership than she does, and we are both on the periphery of metafandom and its kind. She didn't silence the discussion about x at all. She did manage to shut me up quite effectively for a while though. Perhaps there were other people on her friends list that felt the same. And well, you're right that one can post as one chooses in one's personal journal: nothing stopped her from making that post or from making a similar post again in the future.
For what it's worth, I do think that a post that comes from a privileged or contradictory position isn't inherently derailing, and I agree that there is a line where one can present one's post as a separate thesis. But I really don't think the rule as you stated here--"are these in different journals? yes? then unless otherwise explicitly stated as 'this is a direct response to so-and-so and that person's post about such-and-such'"--is sufficient.
(I didn't read your tone as snappish, for what it's worth, but I understand if you would rather reply later.)
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Date: 15 Mar 2010 03:03 pm (UTC)But then, it's also a question as to whether one can derail another's discussion when you add in the details of the first post being locked, and the second being public. It's a lot easier to reroute a loose conglomeration of discussions (as grouped within a general "we're all roughly talking about X") when one voice is locked -- all you have to do is unlock your own post. Okay, and get it linked on a digest and/or linked via friends, and your voice grows exponentially. But as long as the first post is locked, then... I dunno. I have a hard time seeing the second as true derailing, because if the first post is locked, then it's not like just anyone could participate, anyway, y'know?
Definitely a stickier set of dynamics and pre-conditions around that example.
I'm not sure the not-really-a-rule (more a rule-of-thumb?) is sufficient, agreed, but I'm not sure how else to word it. Basically, my idea is that if someone posts elsewhere (and does not respond directly to my post in comments and/or in the preface to their own post, which I have seen done -- "this is a reply to so-and-so, but it got too long there so I'll just post here") -- then we do need to give benefit of the doubt as to whether or not this constitutes derailing, digression, or just someone needing to work through their own understanding on their own.
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Date: 15 Mar 2010 10:44 pm (UTC)I also think that maybe we're sort of at odds in terms of how we're framing the issue here. Because to me, it's not clear how my friend's post wasn't derailing, since both its intention as she revealed it to me and its actual effect was to shut down the conversation from me. Would the assessment be significantly different if my original post had been public and her post still had the same effect? (I have seen that happen too on multiple occasions to friends who are braver than I about posting publicly, though intentions in those cases are not clear.)
For practical purposes, it is already the default mode of behavior to give the benefit of the doubt in personal interactions, even when the benefit of the doubt is not deserved. In those latter cases, my observation has been that the cost is borne primarily by the party trying to have the conversation in the first place and failing to get heard. I can't deny that I am probably too resentful from experiencing it offline to feel charitable about online interactions as well.
I think I will have to stop commenting here because it looks like we are probably not going to be able to reach any agreement on this specific issue anytime soon. Thank you for listening to my points though! I do agree that digression should not automatically equal derail and that not all conversational spaces are the same, and I suppose ultimately we'll all end up drawing those lines differently.
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Date: 15 Mar 2010 11:00 pm (UTC)my observation has been that the cost is borne primarily by the party trying to have the conversation in the first place and failing to get heard.
Absolutely agree with you on that one, and that's the risk of ambiguous/bad communication that I might be interpreted as saying the OP/host has the "duty" to be gracious and let contesting voices be heard. I don't think so; I think the OP has the absolute right to tell commenters to shut the hell up if s/he so chooses (politely or less so). It's just that if one does so, and expects those boundaries to be respected, then one must respect another's wish to discuss that other topic... elsewhere.
Thing is, when the retaliation of that "other topic, elsewhere" is expressly for the purposes of shutting the first person up... that seems even worse than just some ignorant soul not getting why their own pain shouldn't override the OP's thesis. Because really, what you're describing is personal, while derailment's stickyness is that it's not personal in the sense of 'meaning to hurt/offend another' so much as it is sometimes just 'self-centeredness' in not realizing how one is coming across to another. Not at all the same as knowing full well and doing it anyway, eh.
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Date: 16 Mar 2010 02:16 am (UTC)In any case, you're right that there's a fundamental difference between people you know and people who are just strangers on the Internet whom you might never talk to again. I'll have to muse on the rest of your comment, but I think I understand your position much better now so thank you for clarifying.