Neither, and my point is not personal. Advice isn’t always neutral or benign. It can be condescending or even undermining. Some people are justified in being suspicious of “advice” from the privileged majority, and it perhaps might be prudent for some of them to think twice before being so willing to dispense such advice. Or at least respect a hostile response.
Be just as, if not more, prudent to not act like a jackhole when you get advice on the basis of assuming it must be “condescending or undermining” just because it came from the “privileged majority”.
It’s not necessarily a matter of assumption. Things can be condescending or undermining even with good intent. It’s pretty common, for example, for people to complain about getting un-asked-for advice from others, not just in the context of group bias. Offering advice can inherently be hostile or an assertion of power.
Another problem with it is that it’s another form of generalization. White males might, statistically, have an advantage, but that doesn’t mean all do (“not all men” 
). And neither being white, nor being male, is an entire identity. It’s one of many examples of hypocrisy in modern feminism. I think the problem is that stupid people always outnumber smart people, and the original, smart ideas have been taken and distorted by stupid people who just want a fight. Most click-bait “feminist” articles, even those in actual newspapers, are nothing to do with equality and are ludicrously easy to pick huge holes in.
At some point we have to accept that at least some of the people, men and women, who say they’re for total gender equality but not a fan of feminism in its current form, are telling the truth and not secret misogynists.
What an odd example. For what it’s worth, I don’t think not running away from bees or wasps is anything to do with barely noticing the stings. It’s nothing to do with how much the stings hurt, it’s that running away potentially makes things worse, and definitely looks undignified.
The irony here–that horrible racist/misogynist/homophobic slurs are a sign of utopian freedom, whereas suggesting you’re an ignorant self-absorbed twit is “pure asshole”–is almost too rich to bear.
Mel Brooks once said (I think, I’m too lazy to look up the quote), “Tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall down a manhole and die.” If I may appropriate his form, “Asshole is when I call you a bigot. Utopia is when someone else is called a niggerfag.”
It’s very much a sign of your privilege that you take the mildest criticisms of your own outlook to be so much worse than nasty slurs. Again, almost too rich to bear.
This is some more self-pitying nonsense. Of course you’ve suffered; we all have; it’s part of the human condition. But you’ve aggressively refused to tell us what your suffering is, and you’ve simultaneously used this mysterious suffering to inoculate yourself against charges of insensitivity. I don’t reject the idea that you’ve suffered; rather, I reject as idiotic the implication that, because you’ve suffered, you’re in a position to approve of 4chan’s use of nasty slurs.
Except the people who constantly misunderstand it do so because they have a vested interest in misunderstanding it. Blaming the speaker is inappropriate.
How much she’s suffered doesn’t factor into it greatly, but think about it. If she was someone who actually seemed to have great distress due to her situation - if she was born in the ghetto, if she had been shifted into a crappy school, if she had been abused by homophobic parents - her plight of “everyone’s oppressing me” would sound so much more sensible. But a rich, Asian-American woman who has changed majors multiple times (not one of them being anything worth a damn, mind you) complaining about how oppressed she is? Puh-leaze.
Agree with this 100%. There’s nothing wrong with ending asian stereotypes. There’s nothing bad about lessening racism. But the methods are horribly flawed, and the personality presenting it could hardly be more offensively clueless.
And then there’s a far more significant contingent who doesn’t understand because all they’ve heard from you is what makes the news - the hostile, stupid, and nasty things.
Libertarianism doesn’t fight oppression. Libertarianism PROMOTES oppression. Because in an atomized world where everyone is an autonomous actor, the strong and the rich and the insiders will ALWAYS exploit the weak and the poor and the outsiders. The only protection against this exploitation is collective action. When you support libertarian ideals you are supporting oppression.
And if someone is saying things like “niggerfag” or “tits or gtfo” they really are being racist, homophobic and misogynistic. They’re not fighting the good fight. They’re just being a shitty human being.
No, you’ve lost the plot. All the stuff you’ve said has almost zero to do with Gamergate. Here’s the plot:
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Game designers should be able to make the games they want without being subject to harassment. You don’t like a game, write a scathing review, or better yet, make a better one. But spamming them with anonymous messages threatening to rape them is out of line.
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The same is true if you believe a journalist has behaved unethically. Expose them, or better yet, start your own game review site that does a better job. But harassing and threatening them is wrong.
The only reason Gamergate has any play at all outside the game industry is because of the borderline criminal actions of the gaters. THAT’S the plot, not some crypto-bizarro defense of libertarianism.
Yeah, that’s not usually because of “hostility” or “group bias” or whatever… it’s because the advice didn’t fit into their preconceived notions so it’s rejected out of hand. If the advice was to do what they were already thinking, they wouldn’t be whining about “unasked for advice” but saying how great the advice was.
Even worse in one of these “with us or against us” scenarios where, God forbid, someone would have to admit that the other side (i.e. anyone not already lockstep with them) was correct about something and they were wrong. Anything threatening the notion that the other side is made out of monsters has to be rejected out of hand and the “hostility”, “condescension”, “group bias”, etc is just an excuse to avoid admitting that they had a good point and thus you were misguided on something.
You keep referring to her as “rich” but haven’t provided any evidence other than she got a humanities degree from college which is hardly what I’d consider strong evidence of being rich.
I don’t particularly care for her and thought she made herself look really dumb during the whole colbert fiasco, but you seem to be creating a straw man based on someone who’s fifteen minutes ended a long time ago who will almost certainly be forgotten soon.
I really wish I had spent more time editing this paragraph than I did trying to be cute writing it. Some people are responding as if I hold using emotionally-charged language in the way it gets expressed on 4Chan as some noble thing. I don’t; I believe some of those that use it over there do (and some are just gleefully racist, etc, and/or trolling). I find that to be an interesting bit of subculture, and I also believe that particular viewpoint is, obviously, a large part of why that group of people has clashed with feminists in particular.
I apologize that I was less than clear on that distinction.
I tend to agree with your opinion on libertarianism. While I do appreciate that they hold individual freedom in high regard, I believe they are misguided. As for the language and the ideal of behaving as if the internet is classless (heh), race-less, etc over at 4chan, I believe that’s borne out to be misguided as well.
I meant “lost the plot” as a turn of phrase, but never mind.
Your two bullet points are indeed a part of Gamergate, but it’s clearly more complicated than that. This thing didn’t come from nowhere. “All the stuff” I said goes to noting a few things that fuel the fires. One of those things that has contributed to the butthurt on the 4chan side of things, as it turns out, is indeed a crypto-bizarro defense of libertarianism.
That’s funny, because I have a lot of privileges. There are many things and situations in my life that are much better because of innate aspects of my life I have little to no control over. There are other privileges I don’t have, of course, but overall I recognize that I have a lot of advantages. My kids have even more. Am I planning on giving mine up, or deny them to my kids? Hell, no! But I do plan to a) do what I can to change the system so everyone has equal access and b) when looking at someone else’s situation, especially if I plan to offer advice or criticism, think about the way their life is different from mine and how that effects their options and outcomes.
Telling someone complaining about lack of a working elevator in their building to just take the stairs because it’s better for your anyway makes perfect sense if you assume that everyone is healthy and can do that easily.
Or look Kanye West and stopping a concert to yell at people in wheelchairs to stand up. It never occurred to him that not everyone is able to stand. That is privilege. And guess who I have more sympathy for? The guy jumping around on stage egging a crowd to boo handicapped people because he was made to feel bad or the people in wheel chairs who where booed by thousands of people for something beyond their control?
Ok. Give me a better,short way to say without going through the whole explanation. But on this board it has been used and explained multiple times to people, who then complain about it being used to attack them. The concept is useful in any conversation with a wide audience. Advice or criticism without understanding is rarely constructive.
Thirty years ago, you only meet a limited number of people face to face and rarely communicated with anyone you couldn’t see. The number of people whose words reached more than their friends and family was very small. Now many of us send our thoughts and words out to large groups and, like I am doing now, directly address someone we have never met and whose situation we know nothing about.
So, how should we be informed when don’t full understand the situation we are commenting to real people? IMO the idea behind “check your privilege” is actively needed. I personally think it needs to be spread not relegated to technical discussions among academics. Maybe there is a better way, but I haven’t seen it yet.
Maybe rely less on cutesy phrases?
I don’t think you are getting it. Being white is an advantage. Being white does not guarantee a good outcome, but it makes it more likely. Just having a white sounding name means your resume is more likely to be put in the call back pile. No one outside of a few fringe radicals has ever said that all white males are either evil or powerful. White is the most advantageous color. Male is the most advantageous sex. Straight is the most advantageous orientation. But that doesn’t mean that straight white male can’t be homeless, or mentally ill, or physically disabled. It just means that no matter what his situation he is likely better than he would be if the only thing that changed was his gender, race, or sexual orientation.
This particular person claimed that he did not even notice he was being stung until the fourth sting. That just means he is insensitive to the venom, and good for him. But the then mocks someone else who claims that wasp stings hurt a lot and that they couldn’t just sit there like that. His response was to mock the them for their weakness. Just because he barely feels the sting (he compared it to a mosquito), then anyone who is bothered by them must be weak.
I choose this example because it is a rare form of privilege that doesn’t really threaten anyone’s identity. Bringing class, race, sex, and other types of privilege result in a response like the one you just gave above. My hope was this type of example would be one that not set off the defensive alarms that normally come up in these discussions.
I’m no fan of Suey Park, but this is really a reprehensible line to take against her, especially since it seems to based largely or entirely on assumptions. And it also seems to flow from the whole “model minority” stereotype, which is a form of bigotry.
Indeed, one of the privileges of being a straight, white man is having the freedom to define your own identity without first being put in a box of race, gender, or sexual preference. It’s the privilege of being the “default human” in Anerican society.
Why? She talks herself all about how she had eating disorders, and how she feels it all flowed from the racism aimed at her. Huh, you mean kids are little shits who will often pick on anyone for being different? As for her being rich, it’s also based on backgrounds from interviews with her. It’s not entirely verified, but it’s not exactly an unfair assumption to make. Especially given that she’s changed majors several time and doesn’t seem to have a goal. Poor people generally don’t go to college and dick around in the humanities for several years doing nothing. I don’t even know what you mean by “model minority”.
And this is a basis for you to conclude how privileged and not-discriminated-against she was?
… Because the behavior of children is something that happens outside society?
A whole pile of assumptions and still ones that seem to have nothing to do with whether she experienced racial discrimination.
And all on the derive, apparently, if a claim that a (moderately?) affluent background negates? … Cures? Disproves? … Experience with racial discrimination? And on top of that that her deduced or assumed affluent background disqualifies her from advocating on issues of discrimination?
To top it off, this attack on her identity seems wholly unnecessary since all that’s needed to deface edit her is her actual tactics, actions, and words on the substantive issues of race.
It’s not enough to take apart her arguments, but it’s also necessary to stretch as hard as possible to discredit her as a person? Why does that seem strangely familiar in a discussion that involves people like Quinn, Sarkeesian, etc.?
odd, since it’s not exactly an obscure term. It refers to the trope of holding up Asian-Americans as a model community for the success of minorities in America.
It has a few different impacts and functions, but among them to serve as a basis for
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arguing that discrimination against Asian-Americans doesn’t exist
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Asian-Americans are not subject to harmful stereotypes
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That “positive” stereotypes aren’t harmful
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That complaints about discrimination are invalid
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That all these things can in one way or another be used to support the assertion that there is no discrimination in our society or that nothing needs to be done about discrimination.
Yeah, you know what, you’re right. It’s enough to just call her stupid and call it a day.