Re-watching Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (the parody movie where the rednecks in the woods are the hapless protagonists and its the bunch of paranoid college kids causing all the problems.)
I’d forgotten how much the situation was escalated by the one teenager who was clearly looking for an excuse to hurt people. The college kid that, at the beginning of the movie, explicitly declares himself a better person than those around him.
Chad.
He’s the one who tells his friends “what’s really going on here is worse than you think.” He’s the one who insists they handle it themselves and not through official channels. He’s the one who casts his opponents as “pure evil” and says “we finally have a chance to fight back without rules.” When some of the other teenagers express uncertainty he’s the one that says if they can’t handle what needs to be done, maybe they deserve to die, too.
“We have to burn this place to the ground. Destroy it completely. You have no IDEA what this is all about, do you Allison? These freaks are evil. And they deserve everything that’s coming to them.”
I’d never realized before how closely every single plot point in the movie mirrors the way mob culture instigators will rile up the masses under the guise of “social justice”:
You assume bad faith in your opponents.
You declare your opponents subhuman and acceptable to hurt by any means.
You discourage the use of peaceful or official methods to address the issue.
You keep your followers in line through fear of the “other” and threats of ousting them into that group if they become “contaminated.”
You revel in as much chaos and pain as you can inflict–
–after all, you’re the good guy.
If I’m stepping out of line, please let me know, and callout culture has definitely been super bad lately, but..
….this applies just as much to anti-social justice stuff, racism, oppression of all kinds, etc. It’s mob violence, period. I’m incredibly, incredibly uncomfortable with this being used explicitly as a “look at this people using social justice as a weapon” thing when the exact same tool is used in the protection of
family values
nationalism
against ‘war on Christianity’
masculinity
capitalism
…etc. It just seems in very bad faith in me to take a very common mob violence issue and make it all about those ‘pesky SJWs’. It doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. It just… puts a lot of the blame on the shoulders of people operating within a functionally flawed culture. Where do you think callout culture even came from? We live in a world that’s finally starting to come around to the concept that being gay shouldn’t be a death sentence for your life or career. It’s not like ‘SJWs’ exist in a vacuum.
I don’t think you’re out of line.
I 100% agree with you that this is a lens that affects all those issues. We like to frame ourselves as the good guys and we are very susceptible to issues being placed into the black and white of moral certainty. An article that has stuck with me hard through the years pointed out how people use their value structures to justify their actions–whether good or bad–rather than the other way around. (Hilariously, it was written by Orson Scott Card. I assume the irony was lost on him.)
I think you have misread my issue when you frame it as a complaint against “those pesky sjws.” I consider myself to be highly involved in social justice issues. I consider this to be a social justice issue. What I specifically wanted to point out was the instigators. The way in which abusers can use our blind spots to manipulate us and our movement. Cloaking oneself in the language of righteousness is a VERY common abuser tactic.
We need to learn to recognize warning signs of the people that want to herd us into being their weapons. We need to recognize the danger of ever applauding ‘this group is okay to enjoy hurting.’
The idea that we can be the heroes in the story where the other party are “pure evil” and “real monsters” and all the answers are really simple and easy is a very, very appealing narrative. And one that shelters and feeds abusers.
I guarantee you there are plenty of young people on tumblr doing their very best to Be A Good Person and make change for the better, and they are learning what is a healthy, safe, constructive method for going about this by watching the rest of us. We NEED to make sure they are hearing voices that point out “anon hate campaigns are harmful.” “Here are some warning flags.” “People that show up in your inbox and tell you to shun someone or you’ll be contaminated and shunned too are NOT THE GOOD GUYS.”
It just seems in very bad faith in me to take a very common mob violence issue and make it all about those ‘pesky SJWs’.
If I frame a broader issue around a specific way it COMMONLY and DIRECTLY affects me and people I care about, I promise you it is neither out of bad faith, nor out of any desire to minimize the importance of other ways in which this issue manifests. (Some of which also affect me. Some of which I have argued against on other platforms.) ((This, by the way, is the only portion of your post I take issue with. I’m totally cool if anyone wants to springboard off this to apply it to other issues or contexts. It’s a neat topic.))
And, since you asked, and I think it’s a pretty interesting and valuable question–personally, I think call out culture came from a very reasonable push to encourage people with more privilege in a situation to not remain silent and to speak up in situations where people are being harmful. It just, like many useful principles, goes awry when stripped of nuance and dogmatized into a black & white cure-all for humanity.
There’s also some really interesting ways call out culture (and more extreme SJ culture in general) parallels the way a lot of us were taught to approach moral issues in conservative evangelical Christianity. (Namely: you assume personal moral culpability for other people’s behavior if you don’t proselytize or chasten them constantly; all people are sinners/prejudiced; all sins are equal; and any sin can lead to hell/ small wrongs contribute directly to a culture which leads to deaths of innocents so all issues are ultra high stakes where anything could be fair game.). I reallllly want to write a post about that some day when I can get my thoughts straight.
Thank you for such an eloquent response! I think that part of my post was influenced by the amount of pushback in my particular part of the community, e.g. “SJWs are telling us we’re awful people for shipping this so we’re going to be deliberately homophobic/racist/etc. in response”, etc.
What I specifically wanted to point out was the instigators. The way in which abusers can use our blind spots to manipulate us and our movement. Cloaking oneself in the language of righteousness is a VERY common abuser tactic.
We need to learn to recognize warning signs of the people that want to herd us into being their weapons. We need to recognize the danger of ever applauding ‘this group is okay to enjoy hurting.’
Thank you so much for this. You’re right, I read your post in a specific way, but as somebody who is still suffering the consequences of this exact tactic, this is very important. One of my most common things that I tell people is that the one posting publicly, the one asking you to choose, the one giving you an ultimatum – that has to be the person you look at with a critical eye instead of whoever they’re directing you towards.
(The ‘all sins are equal’ thing is definitely resonating with me as well. I would love to read that post once you have the energy to write it.)
As a point of how right you are that this is applicable to mob culture in general, I realized tonight that every single one of the five points I listed above….
….can be found in Gaston’s Mob Song from Beauty and the Beast.
Gaston is a *Chad*
“the one asking you to choose, the one giving you an ultimatum – that has to be the person you look at with a critical eye instead of whoever they’re directing you towards.”
This, a hundred times. Since I reframed part of my personal ethical system (still a work in progress of course) to place the highest suspicion and burden of proof on the person demanding I choose, I find it easier to identify/avoid certain types of nastiness.
(It also threw into painful light certain tactics being used on certain family members. But I can’t do anything about that, much as I’d like to.)
numinous
nü-mə-nəs, ˈnyü, (adjective) | The aesthetic value of numinous coincides with its enigmatic definition. Numinous is defined as mysterious or possessing a metaphysical quality, which is intangible. A numinous object or place holds an undetectable sort of beauty and transcendtial atmosphere. You may use this word to describe ancient ruins, art, poetry, overall artistic expression or an experience. It is a quality, which appeals to a higher sense of your being. (via wordsnquotes)
All right, listen. All of you, all of you sending me messages calling me a filthy capitalist and telling me I can’t tell you not to be angry, I am not telling you not to be angry, I am telling you to ensure your rage is Productive.
There is a difference between rage with purpose and rage that you let paralyze you into apathy. The first is the stuff that change and hope is built on, the second is what people want you to fall into so they can get away with shit without ever being challenged, because why challenge what you can’t fight, right?
Do not ever think you cannot fight something, do you hear me? There is always a chance to make something better, whether it’s something big or something small, there will always be options and there will always be people out there willing to fight, not just for themselves but for you too. Because this shit matters, okay? The big and the small. It matters.
But you can’t just rely on others to change the world into a better place for you, you have to be a part of the process too. You don’t get to sit back on your laurels and lament the state of the world with snide cynicism if you are not actively part of the solution. And I know it’s sometimes hard to know where to start, but here’s a helpful suggestion: you can start with not being a snide little gremlin on the internet telling other people that their hope is pointless.
And to the person who told me “not all our lives are sunshine and hallmark moments”, like somehow that justifies their apathy, yea, you’re right. Not all our lives are sunshine and hallmark moments.
I’m a chronically ill disabled immigrant woman who has spent the last two years of her life facing one financial difficulty after another. I’ve had to beg for help to get necessary medical procedures, for house repairs, for food. I am well aware life is not a hallmark moment, thank you.
Positivity does not come naturally to me. I am actually a very broken, depressed, very angry person at my core. It would be so very easy to turn my face away and ignore injustices of the world, both great and small. But that’s a choice I have decided I cannot live with. And YES, kindness is a CHOICE.
Love is a choice, empathy is a choice, hope, is a choice. And it took me the longest time to realize you can use outrage and anger to fuel all of them for the better good.
There is not a single atom of my being that is sunshine and rainbows. What I am however, is 100% exponential rage and exhaustion willing to throw down whenever or wherever my voice and actions will help. A hopeless populace is a docile populace. So even if it burns, my god even if you think you might die under the weight of caring, you take that rage, you take all that anger and pain and fear and you turn into hope and you launch it at those who would keep others down and you burn with it. You burn until you take them with you.
So the night is dark and full of terror? Be a light. However you can. In big ways or small. A thousand tiny gestures of kindness sustained over time will eventually make up a whole. Start somewhere.
But don’t you ever tell people it’s pointless to hope, or to believe in a better world. Don’t you dare take that from them. Do better. For your sake as well as others. You deserve better too.
Hope is not the reserve of the naive, it is the foundation upon which better things are built. So stop trying to tear it down.
Being a good person is a choice. Don’t let people fool you into believing that truly good people never have bad thoughts, are never tempted by the easier path, by the low road, never mess up or act out selfishly. Never believe a person can be good without making a conscious effort.
Every single time you do something good, you’ve made a decision to make the world a little brighter.
Goodness is not an inherent trait, it is a choice. Keep making it! I see you, I’m proud of you, and I’m rooting for you!
