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Regarding the recent discussions, this is something that seems to come up in fandom a lot.
The question of
No, I don't mean the meme, but that's one example. I mean putting your opinion out there for people to read and respond to. Certain opinions tend to be considered braver than others.
Everybody knows how stressful it can be to say something that's going to bring disagreement or worse yet, make people angry. Sometimes you just want to deal with that. Especially when, for instance, you say something snarky off the cuff, assuming it's for the regulars on your f-list who understand what you really mean, and strangers take it the wrong way and get angry etc. That can just be a headache.
Then there are confessions one can make on lj that one doesn't have to. On lj no one has to know your race, gender, sexual orientation, physical condition, nationality, religion-anything. Knowing that there are racists, sexists, homophobes, bigots everywhere, if you choose to identify yourself as a minority you're opening yourself to things you might have been able to avoid. So I can see why it would be called brave to do that. And in my experience when people make that kind of declaration they're ready for all comers. The deal with it in real life, they can deal with it here.
But then there are these posts I don't ever really get, which tend to be called brave. In these posts, someone says something they believe, something that they know will make people angry--for instance, something about how slash or homosexuality is wrong. Recently this surrounded people saying who they were voting for, leading some people to challenge them on the grounds that this person is anti-gay (or any number of other reasons), so does this person agree with that? And the weird thing is that...that seemed to often be where it stopped. I didn't see much of a dialogue after that. Like it was a shocking faux pas when people actually showed up and disagreed. The response--and this is something that just always bugs me when people do this anywhere--seemed to be to say, "I knew I was would be attacked for my beliefs because people have irrational hatred for what I am, so there is no point in speaking to you." It sets up this completely unfair situation by pre-emptively labeling anyone who disagrees as attacking or bigoted. Sometimes yes, people are doing that. But sometimes they're seriously challenging your opinion with facts and logic. Calling the latter the former seems pretty shady to me. If people care about an issue they're going to engage you in conversation about it. Seems to me that's a mark of respect, not an attack.
What confuses me is that to me it stands to reason that the point of a "brave" post, one where you're putting your beliefs in the thing, is that this is something you believe and can therefore explain or defend. I mean, I put stuff up all the time that people don't agree with or challenge, and almost always they have valid points that change the way I saw the thing before. But my basic beliefs about things don't really change--those I defend. Not because I have to be considered right but because they make sense to me. They wouldn't be my beliefs if they didn't. Maybe I can't always articulate things as well as I'd like to, but even then I try to be honest and say, "I'm having trouble explaining it but I just feel like this is what's wrong with what you're saying..." Discussions help me refine what I think. Sometimes disagreements make me feel even more like I'm right. You just don't know if you don't actually listen to the other side.
If we're talking about bravery, and we're in HP fandom, let's look at Neville here, who has the courage to stand up to his friends. That, to me, means talking to them seriously. Not putting up with abuse, of course, but actually defending your beliefs. Posting SLASH IS WRONG! (which I haven't seen recently but I'm using it as an example) and then playing the martyr when people explain how it isn't and your friends call them big meanies and applaud you for having an opinion doesn't seem all that brave to me. Weird, but not brave. Because it makes it seem like you're not defending your beliefs at all (or perhaps you can't, I don't know), but finding a way to say something (often something inflammatory) and not have to defend it. Sometimes it even means you're making it a condition of your friendship that you don't have to show your friends basic respect but they have to give you special treatment. (For example, perhaps: "I get to say the fact that I am married and you're not allowed to be is inconsequential because it doesn't effect me, but you have to pretend you consider me a good friend anyway.") Sometimes people aren't even taking responsibility for being insulting--they tend to say, "I know this is going to make people mad..." which somehow suggests that "people" are going to have an irrational emotional reaction, when really the reason you know it's going to make people mad is because you're saying something insulting or otherwise troubling to them. To do that and then name yourself the victim just seems very strange to me.
::sigh:: And people ask why Neville is in Gryffindor. He actually is brave. Take some notes.
The question of
No, I don't mean the meme, but that's one example. I mean putting your opinion out there for people to read and respond to. Certain opinions tend to be considered braver than others.
Everybody knows how stressful it can be to say something that's going to bring disagreement or worse yet, make people angry. Sometimes you just want to deal with that. Especially when, for instance, you say something snarky off the cuff, assuming it's for the regulars on your f-list who understand what you really mean, and strangers take it the wrong way and get angry etc. That can just be a headache.
Then there are confessions one can make on lj that one doesn't have to. On lj no one has to know your race, gender, sexual orientation, physical condition, nationality, religion-anything. Knowing that there are racists, sexists, homophobes, bigots everywhere, if you choose to identify yourself as a minority you're opening yourself to things you might have been able to avoid. So I can see why it would be called brave to do that. And in my experience when people make that kind of declaration they're ready for all comers. The deal with it in real life, they can deal with it here.
But then there are these posts I don't ever really get, which tend to be called brave. In these posts, someone says something they believe, something that they know will make people angry--for instance, something about how slash or homosexuality is wrong. Recently this surrounded people saying who they were voting for, leading some people to challenge them on the grounds that this person is anti-gay (or any number of other reasons), so does this person agree with that? And the weird thing is that...that seemed to often be where it stopped. I didn't see much of a dialogue after that. Like it was a shocking faux pas when people actually showed up and disagreed. The response--and this is something that just always bugs me when people do this anywhere--seemed to be to say, "I knew I was would be attacked for my beliefs because people have irrational hatred for what I am, so there is no point in speaking to you." It sets up this completely unfair situation by pre-emptively labeling anyone who disagrees as attacking or bigoted. Sometimes yes, people are doing that. But sometimes they're seriously challenging your opinion with facts and logic. Calling the latter the former seems pretty shady to me. If people care about an issue they're going to engage you in conversation about it. Seems to me that's a mark of respect, not an attack.
What confuses me is that to me it stands to reason that the point of a "brave" post, one where you're putting your beliefs in the thing, is that this is something you believe and can therefore explain or defend. I mean, I put stuff up all the time that people don't agree with or challenge, and almost always they have valid points that change the way I saw the thing before. But my basic beliefs about things don't really change--those I defend. Not because I have to be considered right but because they make sense to me. They wouldn't be my beliefs if they didn't. Maybe I can't always articulate things as well as I'd like to, but even then I try to be honest and say, "I'm having trouble explaining it but I just feel like this is what's wrong with what you're saying..." Discussions help me refine what I think. Sometimes disagreements make me feel even more like I'm right. You just don't know if you don't actually listen to the other side.
If we're talking about bravery, and we're in HP fandom, let's look at Neville here, who has the courage to stand up to his friends. That, to me, means talking to them seriously. Not putting up with abuse, of course, but actually defending your beliefs. Posting SLASH IS WRONG! (which I haven't seen recently but I'm using it as an example) and then playing the martyr when people explain how it isn't and your friends call them big meanies and applaud you for having an opinion doesn't seem all that brave to me. Weird, but not brave. Because it makes it seem like you're not defending your beliefs at all (or perhaps you can't, I don't know), but finding a way to say something (often something inflammatory) and not have to defend it. Sometimes it even means you're making it a condition of your friendship that you don't have to show your friends basic respect but they have to give you special treatment. (For example, perhaps: "I get to say the fact that I am married and you're not allowed to be is inconsequential because it doesn't effect me, but you have to pretend you consider me a good friend anyway.") Sometimes people aren't even taking responsibility for being insulting--they tend to say, "I know this is going to make people mad..." which somehow suggests that "people" are going to have an irrational emotional reaction, when really the reason you know it's going to make people mad is because you're saying something insulting or otherwise troubling to them. To do that and then name yourself the victim just seems very strange to me.
::sigh:: And people ask why Neville is in Gryffindor. He actually is brave. Take some notes.
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When we make public statements, we have to expect that people might disagree and tell us so. They may perhaps even ask us to explain why we hold these beliefs. If we're unwilling to respond or uninterested in doing so, that's our prerogative, but it hardly constitutes bravery, and we can't be surprised when people leave us with the impression that we either don't have anything with which to back up our beliefs, or we don't care about them enough to want them to understand. The latter, in particular, is likely to cause some hurt or discontent among our friends.
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And sometimes I don't even think people need a debate so much as they need to know their pov has been heard and understood. I know I tend to get really frustrated if my pov is just considered worthless from the get-go. For instance, if you're talking about something race related, if someone just decides that because of the speaker's race their just "overly sensitive" or "don't understand."
I guess it seems strange also in fandom when people accept we can argue about canon--so why couldn't we also talk about other things?
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Well, yes that's true, anyone has a right to say whatever they want on their LJ....but as long as the post is public, than anyone ELSE has a right to come on in there and---not attack the person for it, but definitely disagree with it. If anyone has an unpopular, controversial, or, in some cases, downright senseless opinion that they want to air without being challenged, then they should lock the post to like-minded friends only.
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That always makes me very suspicious, when people start talking about their "right to say whatever I want here" as if anyone is taking that away by disagreeing. There's nothing in the ToS that says only agreement is allowed.
I guess sometimes people get lulled into thinking they are writing to like-minded friends, since like-minded people often get on each other's f-lists, but in posting publically you're always implicitly agreeing that anybody can comment, it seems to me. What particularly bugs me also is when people use "say whatever I want without being attacked" to mean "make false statements without being corrected."
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I'm a lot less charitable toward this sort of proclamation than you have been in your post (I should probably learn from that... :-)
But, every time I see such a "disclaimer", followed by a strongly stated and controversial opinion, this nagging voice in my head immediately says, "here's someone who wants to start a (verbal) fight." By this I don't mean that people don't have the right to state their beliefs - they do, and they should. The cynic in me, though, wants to know the ulterior motive behind the "belief" post. If it's a rant, or a need to vent, I can understand that; but an inflammatory public post, even one labeled as a "rant", is bound to bring in at least one dissenting opinion.
And some beliefs are just that, by definition - they're visceral, emotional things. They can be discussed rationally and logically, sure; but very few people who believe passionately in something are able to keep up a rational debate in the face of heated disagreement - myself included.
This is, I guess, why I tend to stay away from most discussions on topics that I know will take me from rational to emotional. Which may be cowardice, to an extent. But then, none of the quizzes have ever sorted me into Gryffindor :-)
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Yeah, understanding where the person is coming from is always helpful. Though sometimes even then it's difficult for people to understand that while their intention might not be to be harsh (as it might be in a rant) that doesn't mean what they're saying won't still bring up disagreement. I can even deal with the person eventually saying, "Look, I don't think I can debate about this I'm just saying this is how I feel..." as long as that's not taken to mean anything than other than what it is.
This is, I guess, why I tend to stay away from most discussions on topics that I know will take me from rational to emotional. Which may be cowardice, to an extent. But then, none of the quizzes have ever sorted me into Gryffindor :-)
LOL! Right there with ya--but we need all 4 houses, luckily!
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Don't you hate that? When I read something like that I'm immediately put on the defensive. Even though, I might have agreed with them otherwise or at least gained some insight into their argument. Really, don't presume to know what I opinions I have.
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The only thing I can say in defence to the kind of 'weird/brave' posts you are referring to though, is that sometimes one's supposed "friends" (even though merely in the capacity of internetdom) can be overly hostile with their wording when challenging the particular unpopular viewpoint, it's very unpleasant when that happens and can make other civilly disagreeing posts look bad- being on the "same side" of the hostile attackers.
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ROTFL! What a perfect description!
But yeah, I totally know what you mean about saying something and then being like, "Oh, shit. What did I do?" And if people are being really hostile it can be difficult to talk to them, period. It's like anytime when you've said something that gets a hostile reaction. There's times when it's not your fault, too--I'm talking about this from one side, but of course there are other times when the responses really aren't reasonable reactions. It's not always the original poster who's not trying to discuss things rationally!
And you're definitely right about it when disagreement comes en masse--you just need a few angry people to make the whole tone seem angrier. Not to mention, just having a ton of people agreeing with each other can be intimidating. Though that can sometimes annoy me too--when people who agree with each other get characterized as a "gang" who can't think for themselves and just like to travel in a pack. There was one person I couldn't stand on an mb who would always make snide remarks about this "pack" of people, like we were all friends, when really it was just he'd say something that didn't hold up and many individual people would disagree. Holding the same opinion on something doesn't make you someone's personal friend, or mean you have to be acting in concert with them.
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More things to consider...
Reading the words of a ranter on screen, or listening to them through a computer's cynthesized voice takes all that richness of detail away. Hell, almost 85 percent of what sighted people perceive is seen through visual cues alone, so even my listening skills can be fooled from time to time. If you tell anyone I said that though, I'll grimace, and gladly admit I'm not perfect, yet. :-)
As an aside, I do tend to be accused by people who have just met me of being a little... off, or uninhibited. Part of the reason I'm like that though has to do with people's reaction, or lack of reaction to what I've just said. Since about 2/3 of a person's reactions are visual cues, however, widening of the eyes, raising of eyebrows, grimacing, etc, I can hardly be accused of insensitivity, can I? :-)
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Re: More things to consider...
As an aside, I do tend to be accused by people who have just met me of being a little... off, or uninhibited. Part of the reason I'm like that though has to do with people's reaction, or lack of reaction to what I've just said. Since about 2/3 of a person's reactions are visual cues, however, widening of the eyes, raising of eyebrows, grimacing, etc, I can hardly be accused of insensitivity, can I? :-)
Definitely. We're probably unaware of most of the subtle things we're reacting to all the time. It's like someone I knew who worked with deaf childern was once talking about how hearing people tended to think of deaf schools as being very silent since nobody could hear, so they assume nobody makes noises *to* hear. But really they can be the opposite--LOUD because they're unaware of the sound!
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Neville's one of the best types of brave. Percy's another. Why the rest of them are in Gryffindor, not so sure. ;-)
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That's true. Especially given recent discussions! But I wouldn't want to get lulled into thinking this kind of thing couldn't apply to completely opposite political opinions too.
I think there's a problem in society right now that an intellectual disagreement is somehow considered a personal betrayal.
Yes, that is exactly what I have noticed too. This is probably the main social faux pas I commit in RL, is saying something that just seems true that is somehow considered rude.
someone referred to it once as a place for people to pat you on the back and tell you how right you were, no matter how wrong you obviously were.
It's true--and I've gotten impatient with this aspect too, though like everyone else I like to read agreement to things I actually agree with. I only get annoyed when it seems obviously wrong! Yet it seems like there's nothing somebody could post that wouldn't get a string of "Word!"--and of course sometimes I say that as well. This format really does encourage it, probably, since it encourages like friending like. I try to be aware of that when I post but it's hard to not take things for granted. Like, things that would be considered a given in one place will irritate people in the next, fandom or otherwise (in an R/Hr shipping community where everyone takes it as canon, it's not controversial to say they will be happily married one day; if you do that elsewhere, you'll understandably annoy people).
Worse yet, when you've got a bunch of people agreeing with each other they start presenting a completely twisted version of what the other person has actually said. So, like, everybody's agreeing Poster X is a bitch for saying Poster Y kicks puppies, only if you look at the original comment nobody said that. (Ugh, that reminds me of my XF days when this one poster continually harped on being told she didn't love her daughter when really all that had happened was somebody disagreed with her personal version of How Parental Love Works.)
Neville's one of the best types of brave. Percy's another. Why the rest of them are in Gryffindor, not so sure. ;-)
A question for the ages...
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Er, so. What was your alternative view?
;p
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More power to anyone who has an opinion and is not afraid to express it, but if they fail to defend/explain their opinion, and just conveniantely hide behind their more loudmouth friends, I can't really call them 'brave'. One's lj is a place where you can freely express your opinions, certainly, but unless the entry is private, there's always the chance you'll get dissenting opinions. Freedom of speech does not mean shielding from differant opinions.
Plus, there are certain opinions that cause such a strong feeling of repulsion in some people, I don't think it's unreasonnable for them to effect your opinion of the person expressing it. I'm not going to defriend anyone from bashing one of my favorite characters or some other fandom issue, but if someone expressed an outright racist/homophobic POV, I wouldn't want to associate with that person.
As for the topic that started that post...well, I avoid throwing my two cents in too much, because I'm not American. Though I find it hard to disguise my loathing for Bush, and my multitude of reasons for feeling that way.
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Yes, and that's a whole other issue that comes up--I think Cassie wrote a post on it I want to go over and read. Yes, friendship means you accept the person despite differences of opinion, but surely everyone has some issues that make you not consider the person a friend. That's just a fact of life. Not everybody is going to be your friend. They don't owe it to you. There are some issues where you do have to take a stand somewhere.
As for the topic that started that post...well, I avoid throwing my two cents in too much, because I'm not American. Though I find it hard to disguise my loathing for Bush, and my multitude of reasons for feeling that way.
And even not being American you're affected by him, so it's not surprising he's somebody many non-Americans have strong opinions about! I'll think of myself as voting for both of us when I don't vote for him.;-)
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Discussion of this on F_W of all places made go through a crisis of coscience. I think in the end, for me, I could become friends with anyone, could come to love anyone, even people whose opinions are more repulsive to me than the mere voting for Bush. It still remains that those opinions would be repulsive; I would hate them; and to get to know each other I would need some great incentive to overcome my initial dislike.
It's not a matter of judging someone, in the end. It's just a matter of defining the company you keep, friends that give you joy. A racist could become my friend if we ended up on a desert island together and bonded on our innermost fears. But if hear someone sprouting racist bullshit during a dinner with common friends (it has happened) my first thought is not, hey, let's hang around, her difference could be a challenging.
That said, I agree on bravery as well, of course. Especially, I am always kinda stunned at the attempt to gain points for martyrdon with claims of bravery for holding mainstream opinions. Because Bush? Is the President of the US. He's not the leader of an underground freemasonry group. I know there are opinions or choices that's hard to make public. I imagine the gay son of a conservative catholic family would need a good dose of courage to come out to his parents.
Oh, and I am trusting my vote to you as well. I'll do my best to kick my own local asshat out of his office.
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Perfectly put--yes! Particularly when it's not somebody you're close to anyway. I've never stopped speaking to my mother for being Republican (nor has it occurred to me to do that), but that's my mother. There's always a balance of positive and negative. Sometimes there's not enough positive to stick around for the negative, even if it's something as innocuous as a ship you don't like.
That said, I agree on bravery as well, of course. Especially, I am always kinda stunned at the attempt to gain points for martyrdon with claims of bravery for holding mainstream opinions. Because Bush? Is the President of the US. He's not the leader of an underground freemasonry group.
LOL! Yeah, that's the other thing. One of the reasons people are so vocal is that the polls are running so close and last time, you know, even getting more votes for one candidate didn't get him the job. So nobody's made their choice until November. But while one's friends-list may lean one way or the other, it's not like you're really in a minority. Depends on what kind of Bush/Kerry people you're surrounded by. There are people whose family's aren't speaking to them because they're voting for/not voting for Bush. Personally, given what's at stake, I don't think I'd be able to vote for Bush to please other people. I don't know how much pro-Bush stuff I'd be able to listen to without arguing back because so much of what I've seen seems just kind of crazy.
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PS: Would you mind voting on my non-American behalf too?
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Will do! It's an international election!
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I knew there was an appropriate Boromir quote for this situation! (I was just very slow finding it...)
:-D
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*stands up to her friend*
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It is my belief that these people are
idiotssadly narrowminded in the worst way. And no matter how many people fail to grasp the fact that freedom of speech does *not* mean freedom from debate, I will still continue to profess that belief, and continue to challenge the beliefs of others that I feel are harmful to society and to themselves.In short, a whole worldful of WORD.
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But then, you are the poster child of posting an opinion and opening yourself up to challenges and listening to what other people say. I seem to recall your even saying people had made you see the other side!
And really, I think that's part of why you can defend your beliefs as well as you can, because you're willing to think about them!
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Well, I mean, that's how you learn, by discussing and debating things. I don't ever want to be accused of being closed-minded, or worse, of being ungracious to people I disagree with, even though I think I can be really passionate in my zeal about something I feel strongly about, so that it comes across as being overly harsh when really I'm just excited and want everyone to really see and think about my point of view.
And from a personal perspective, coming from a very conservative religious background wherein my grandmother and I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh together every afternoon, I'd be pretty hard pressed if I were anything but tolerant of opinions I disagree with. I know what it's like to have your opinions slowly and painfully changed over time by personal experiences, and gay rights have always been at the center of that change for me. Had my best friend not come out to me 5 years ago I feel very confident that I would not be as liberal as I am today. Or maybe I would have, but I am sure it would have involved my continued searching for answers regarding the gay-christian debate, which is really the axis my political beliefs spin around.
Beyond that there are a great many issues that I never thought twice about until I heard what my friends on LJ had to say on the subjects: certain aspects of reproductive rights, for example, or the debate about whether Muslims should be allowed to wear head scarfs in French schools. That was definitely an issue in which I started out with one opinion and ended up with a completely different one because I'd never considered all viewpoints and I got to hear from people in France about how and why they felt the way they did.
I really believe that sometimes all you need is one more person expressing their point of view in order to really understand what's important about an issue and be able to get behind it in a different way than before. Which is why I really encourage everybody to just speak out and use their voices as much as they can.
And now that I feel like a politician, I'm going to stop ranting at you. :)
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Definitely. When you're just listening to people like yourself it's scary how quickly you can get off-track.
I know what it's like to have your opinions slowly and painfully changed over time by personal experiences, and gay rights have always been at the center of that change for me. Had my best friend not come out to me 5 years ago I feel very confident that I would not be as liberal as I am today.
I think that is so important and it's also why I don't understand why with Bush in particular people seem to consider it important that he never change his opinion on anything. I was listening to something recently where they said one of his speeches went over really well just because he hadn't changed his mind on Iraq, whereas if Kerry originally voted to give him the power to go to war if necessary and now said the war was being handled really badly he was flip-flopping. He offered no plan on how he was going to help put Iraq in order now, but that didn't bother the people in the crowd. It was like it was a good thing that he wasn't learning anything from anything that was happening and was promising not to start learning anything either.
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ha ha ha ha
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That was one of the craziest things about recent discussions. I mean, if somebody tells you that you appear to be agreeing with someone who thinks they are sub-human, and you don't see why that should be an issue, why would you think the person wouldn't react to that?
It does seem like some people just can't take disagreement in general. It drove me crazy seeing people complain how they weren't "allowed" to say they were voting for Bush, or that it was bad they were "afraid" to say so, without looking at the facts: everybody's "allowed" to post how they feel, so that's just a lie to say you aren't. As for being afraid, it begs the question of what you are afraid of. Just because you don't like the reaction something you say might get doesn't mean the reaction is horrible or bigotted or whatever. Everybody knows that when it's their own issue.