This Post Brought to You By Procrastination

[alixtii]

I'm so ready for this semester to be over. I just . . . yeah. Over, please. You have no idea how much I want to bang my head against the floor until I am knocked unconscious and they find me passed out in the commuter lounge.

* * *

The "dogpiling" discussions make me laugh. So many interesting and productive conversations as a result of a soi-disant dogpile over whether dogpiles ever result in anything interesting or productive. Erm, case closed?

I mean, really. The Krystalnacht discussion was full of people wondering when it was okay to use historical tragedies and when it wasn't and how we could do it respectfully and whether oversacralizing the Holocaust makes it too easy to believe it can't happen again and there were so many different opinions. I wasn't paying attention to the internets as much during the OSBP because I still had some willpower left then but there were discussions about objectification and enlightenment and good intentions and there were guides how not to objectify and then maybe the guides were objectifying and again, lots of opinions.

So, exactly, where is all this groupthink and quashed dissent that's supposed to be going on? Do people really want to be racist or misogynist or homophobic or anti-Semitic that much?

We're fans. We analyze everything to death; that's what we do. For every two of us there's at least three opinions.

I mean, just looking at a week's worth of metafandom reveals the type of diversity of opinion that I honestly wouldn't know how to find anywhere else. Are people just in a completely different panfandom than I am?

Comments

[quillori.livejournal.com]

Given that both cofax7 and coffeeandink felt it a genuine risk that the OP would be attacked and vilified for bringing up that matter in the first place, and given I can think of several people who reluctant to mention race except in flocked posts or even only in person, it doesn't strike me as inconceivable that interesting and productive conversations are being shut down.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Given that both cofax7 and coffeeandink felt it a genuine risk that the OP would be attacked and vilified for bringing up that matter in the first place

You mean the so-called dogpilers' opinion--the one that supposedly we're all brainwashed to believe and about which dissent is never possible? That in itself shows that one can never predict what people are going to think.

given I can think of several people who reluctant to mention race except in flocked posts or even only in person, it doesn't strike me as inconceivable that interesting and productive conversations are being shut down.

I couldn't--and wouldn't--deny that people think "Is this going to be wanky?" before they post and this influences them; it just seems that there happens to be a healthy dialectic nonetheless. There's always going to be conversations not taking place for one reason or the other, but so many do.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

it just seems that there happens to be a healthy dialectic nonetheless.

No. Sorry, alextii, but I have seen so many people from your side of the debate say things like that and it is just wishful thinking. There are large numbers of people who are too afraid to express their views in public. In the current state of fandom it is virtually impossible to express conservative views on race in public. I have tried and failed too many times to think it is possible any more. Every time I have tried to get into a discussion in public, even in the mildest terms, I have seen one or two people say they agree with me but are afraid to express their opinion in public, then the dogpilers descend and I have to give up again. That is not a healthy dialectic, it is one or two extremist views dominating the whole thing. Just as happened in your own journal a few weeks ago indeed - what started as a normal interesting and fruitful discussion got turned into something I had to abandon because I couldn't cope with the dogpile. There may well be interesting discussions going on within that particular radical subset, but for anyone with opinions outside the radical opinion there is nowhere to discuss race within fandom that I know of except in flocked posts. Look around and you will see people saying this and things like it time and time again.

It drives me mad. I want to discuss these things, I find them interesting and important and I want to understand why people believe the things they do believe, I want to learn more about how folk think it all works and hold up my own beliefs to a critical lens in the process, and fandom with its huge range of opinions and people from all over the world should be a perfect opportunity to do just that, but time and time again the radical dogpile comes charging in and discussion becomes impossible. I'm not a complete coward, I have a reasonable control on my emotions and can withstand a modicum of abuse and pressure, but like everyone I have my limits and the second a discussion stops being useful or enjoyable then these days I give up. If it means the dogpilers get the last word so be it, I'm not so proud that I care. But I do care that I can never discuss things on LJ, because I would love to.

[quillori.livejournal.com]

Has anyone suggested brainwashing is taking place? Or even that dissent is impossible? I thought the issue was merely whether dogpiling is a helpful and desirable way to police fannish standards or something that does more harm than good. I don't think any amount of dogpiling is likely to destroy fandom, or silence all debate or do anything exceptionally bad; I do think that, overall, we would be better off with fewer dogpiles and that some of the proffered defences of dogpiling are rather questionable. That fact that some people are put off posting, that some topics become lightening rods for wank, even when the poster is trying to discuss them seriously, that dogpiles can be indiscriminate and end up attacking people who in retrospect didn't deserve it, these are all examples of the darker side of pile-ups, and they are not mitigated by pointing out that other people are not put off posting or that there are plenty of people who have never been attacked.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Has anyone suggested brainwashing is taking place? Or even that dissent is impossible?

I feel like it, yes. This, admittedly, is one way that misunderstandings can occur when panfandom meta discussions take place--people end up judged by their allies' worst arguments. Still, I tend to think light is generated as well as heat.

[quillori.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a real risk, and once misunderstandings start, they general snowball. You respond quite reasonably to a stupid argument, I assume it's a response to a sensible argument and that you think attacking an overly dramatic straw man is a good debating tactic, and right there is the potential for a nasty fight when it's quite possible we are pretty much in agreement, or at any rate the area of disagreement is pretty small.