Awkward Communication on the Internet
Dec. 12th, 2015 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI upset the acquaintance whose child was wearing the baby onesie I mentioned in my previous post. That's reasonable and predictable, and I should have given more thought to how to broach the topic; I feel bad about it. But even now I'm not sure what the best thing to do is in such situations.
It's become increasingly important to me to be an active voice against many kinds of largely unexamined social ills. If we don't recognize and talk about these things, they will not change. My worldview has become increasingly socially left and activist as time goes by. The popularity of the kind of racist xenophobia right now thanks to Trump's candidacy strengthens those feelings. I want to do more than not make the world worse; I want to be a part of making it better.
Inevitably, that's going to put me in awkward social situations with people who make unexamined statements with no ill-will, but which I see as part of a marginalizing or unjust social paradigm. I'd ask how you, my readers, deal with those situations, except I think the answer to that is entirely contextual. The internet has complicated things, with Facebook or other social media putting me in regular touch with people I only vaguely know. People are naturally defensive when criticized, especially when that criticism comes from someone who, on the face of it, has no standing to criticize their life choices. I don't see any good way to start a conversation in that situation, nor do I feel ok looking in the other direction. Silence too often equates to consent.
Maybe I should be more direct. There have been a couple instances in the past where I directly expressed to someone on Facebook that a particular political position or belief they expressed was odious enough to me that I was going to unfriend and/or block them. That was a much easier choice to make when it was someone saying, for instance, that police violence against African-Americans was justified, or that anti-Muslim xenophobia is acceptable. When it's an attempt at a cute joke that's only funny because it draws on injurious structural power imbalances that are common enough to be the water we swim in for so many people, it's a lot harder.
I'm leaning toward the direct approach being better. Posting an anonymized version of the issue is too much like passive-aggressiveness and feels wrong, especially in retrospect. Whatever communicative potential exists in that approach that doesn't exist in confrontation is out-weighed by the likely offense given. While an unfriending accompanied by an explanation feels like cutting off communication, it at least leaves a door open for a response. In the broader picture, I suspect that I'll just have to get used to the idea that some people will not be interested in interacting with me due to my inclination to be confrontational regarding some of these things. And while that's not direct communication in itself, there is a message conveyed by enough people expressing that same kind of discomfort. I hope to at least be part of a critical mass of society at large saying 'hey, that thing you just expressed deserves a little bit of a second look.'
In the meantime, I offer pre-emptive apologies for offense given!
It's become increasingly important to me to be an active voice against many kinds of largely unexamined social ills. If we don't recognize and talk about these things, they will not change. My worldview has become increasingly socially left and activist as time goes by. The popularity of the kind of racist xenophobia right now thanks to Trump's candidacy strengthens those feelings. I want to do more than not make the world worse; I want to be a part of making it better.
Inevitably, that's going to put me in awkward social situations with people who make unexamined statements with no ill-will, but which I see as part of a marginalizing or unjust social paradigm. I'd ask how you, my readers, deal with those situations, except I think the answer to that is entirely contextual. The internet has complicated things, with Facebook or other social media putting me in regular touch with people I only vaguely know. People are naturally defensive when criticized, especially when that criticism comes from someone who, on the face of it, has no standing to criticize their life choices. I don't see any good way to start a conversation in that situation, nor do I feel ok looking in the other direction. Silence too often equates to consent.
Maybe I should be more direct. There have been a couple instances in the past where I directly expressed to someone on Facebook that a particular political position or belief they expressed was odious enough to me that I was going to unfriend and/or block them. That was a much easier choice to make when it was someone saying, for instance, that police violence against African-Americans was justified, or that anti-Muslim xenophobia is acceptable. When it's an attempt at a cute joke that's only funny because it draws on injurious structural power imbalances that are common enough to be the water we swim in for so many people, it's a lot harder.
I'm leaning toward the direct approach being better. Posting an anonymized version of the issue is too much like passive-aggressiveness and feels wrong, especially in retrospect. Whatever communicative potential exists in that approach that doesn't exist in confrontation is out-weighed by the likely offense given. While an unfriending accompanied by an explanation feels like cutting off communication, it at least leaves a door open for a response. In the broader picture, I suspect that I'll just have to get used to the idea that some people will not be interested in interacting with me due to my inclination to be confrontational regarding some of these things. And while that's not direct communication in itself, there is a message conveyed by enough people expressing that same kind of discomfort. I hope to at least be part of a critical mass of society at large saying 'hey, that thing you just expressed deserves a little bit of a second look.'
In the meantime, I offer pre-emptive apologies for offense given!
