Here is a sad tale, among other things, about mod drama.
Almost a decade ago, in response to a demonstration covered in the news, someone wrote a post, and it was really easy to perceive all sorts of problems in it. In fact, it was really easy to describe the problems. For instance, describing Hispanics as an invading army.
But it was a moderator, so it's not the kind of thing we were handing out flags to each other for. However, in addition, it turns out it was a bad idea to explain the problem to him. The moderator deleted an opposing post, inventing a new rule never-again explicitly invoked, that it was unfair to accuse racism. They way it functioned was that he should be able to badmouth any ethnic group he wanted, but if anyone suggested that was somehow racist, they were attacking him personally without cause or evidence, and personal attacks without cause or evidence are prohibited. Though we never invoked the rule explicitly again, or wrote it into the actual rules, it is, in fact, still kind of in effect: We are supposed to go easy on certain prejudice.
Mod drama is mod drama, but here's the thing: Not long ago, we witnessed the President of the United States pushing the rhetoric about invading armies, and now it's turned up in the writings of the El Paso mass shooter.
The point isn't to blame one moderator at a backwater website for the result.
†
Once upon a time, this guy from another country tried to tell me something about what goes on in the U.S., and ordinarily that is what it is, but this part weirdly plays into it all.
There is a lot that goes into it, including whiffs of supremacism, but it happened that one day this guy from another country was mad at a someone else from another country, but here's a difference: That other had lived in the U.S.
It's important because in what the one held against the other, the other happened to be correct. But there was a whiff of prejudice involved, so when someone else complained the other was being anti-American, the one echoed the complaint. I told the one, as an American, that the other, who had lived here, was actually asking a question going on in the American discourse. As you might expect for the fact of the story even being told, that didn't really matter to the one, who proceeded to tell me what was up in these United States.
And it's funny, sure, but it has consequences. He treated that other like shit, and to this day seems to have no idea what he did wrong; taken at face value, serious questions arise.
Because it is true; I've known him a long time, and this turns out to be recurring behavior with identifiable themes.
The manner in which he whoopsies is laughable, but it's a bitter dose. The occasion I'm describing was a minor episode; I only remember it because it's associated with something else that happened not long after. Still, the complaint he was enforcing was an American partisan talking point.
And in a way, big deal, stuff happens, and all that. But it is recurring and thematic.
Like a couple months later, when the one went after the other again, one effect of his campaign was enforcing a partisan talking point. And let's be clear: We need to rewrite the rules of the English language, somehow, in order meet him on that one.
If it was just left to his opinion, that would be one thing, but how we see the world can affect other people and things.
Consider that approximately the time when a particular bigot is at a peak of infamy, drawing headlines for the damage he did to himself and others, my associate apparently knows the notorious celebrity better than the white supremacist and nationalist knows himself. And this guy was, as always, so blithely clueless about it. This guy from abroad who knows American society and Americans better than they know themselves, and, whoopsie, he just (
ahem!) accidentally tanked according to thematically consistent traditional partisan expectation. And, sure, by this point in my relationship with this one, it's not really surprising. But when he puts on his pretense of surprise and offense at the implications of his behavior, well, that's the thing; he still expects people to pretend otherwise. And he's hardly the only example in the world, but in those moments, vis à vis his pretense, the abiding question remains, "Could you please fail to behave as if you were?"
Because there was a time when his political pretense slipped, and when he finally broke habit and actually told me what was wrong, it was a blatantly partisan, potsherd screed that wasn't surprising for its orientation. Even still, he wants to be seen by others as something else.
Within that moment of dispute, he did it again, invoking a radio program, and the thing is that in its history, I couldn't find an episode precisely matching his description; to the other, it wasn't that tough, as the most recent consideration had all the basic elements of issue and setting and at least one of the players, but nothing else about what he seemed to be saying matched the rest of the story. This also isn't exactly unfamiliar°. Nonetheless, if this is the American radio program episode about this American iteration of an issue he referred to, then we might wonder what it is he thinks he knows about Americans.
And even now, as I puzzle over that bit, which was, of course, thematically consistent, it only gets worse, in away, because, oh, yeah, there's
that. Another occasion, before that, when his pretense slipped. And it's true, I've never really known what to say about the time he explicitly threw a trumpfan argument at me.
†
Okay, so, real quick: There is an argument we've all heard, both online and in living encounter, about everyone who disagrees with you. It's a catch-all desperate retort, like, "That's what you say to silence anyone who disagrees with you!" Did anyone catch the Senate Majority Leader dropping that one on the opposition a couple weeks ago?
†
I can think back to youth, and it's not so much that one or another teacher at a particular school ever actively promoted the stuff, but they would certainly sit by and let students propagate white supremacism. And notions of the Thought Police, which wasn't really about thought, but, rather, empowerment to act. And no matter how naked the supremacism, we weren't supposed to call it that. By the time we hear about fallacious projections of paternalism and condescension justifying why Trump was elected, it's just another name for the same rancid pabulum.
†
Now that we've seen this happen in diverse iterations, the connection between the rhetoric and the violence is this: While we were all supposed to go easy on them, somehow, whether at Sciforums or in daily life, because, you know, refusing to normalize racism and sexual harassment is apparently an important reason Trump was elected, because refusing to normalize bigotry only normalizes bigotry, or some such, it never was about the thought police, and it never really was about free speech. Society has still failed to accommodate them, to give them what they want in living practice.
And the whole time, there has been a persistent expectation that these attitudes were the one that needed special protection°°.
Don't call it racism. Don't call it supremacism. Don't call it misogyny. Don't call it bigotry. It might hurt their feelings.
Hey, the bigots they were shielding are shooting the place up, now.
It isn't the moderator who once upon a time made a stupid argument. It isn't this one guy I know who has collapsed into unbelievability; hell, I've seen enough of that, lately. Rather, it's the effect of it all, that we should have shown these supremacist, bigoted outlooks such courtesy over the years.
Did people think it was all talk? Who benefits from the equivocation that it's all just politics? It doesn't matter how much sensitivity we show the talk: They're killing people.
Now probably is not an appropriate time to ask the individuals I've recalled if they're happy, now, having gotten what they wanted, but the question looms over the American discourse, at least.
It's one thing to coddle inherent violence under a pretense of free speech, but we presently countenance a self-inflicted effect. This is what conservatives and traditionalists have been shielding and nurturing the whole time.
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Notes:
° It's hard to explain the occasion he missed the point of what I was telling him in order to give blithe, politically distinct praise to a controversial figure as if he was just discovering the fellow; the subsequent history of that infamous celebrity was devastatingly, even comedically, awful for the blithe praise and pretense of cluelessness. We should take the moment, though, to note, the infamous public figure is not American, but it's also true there are countries other than the United States affected by what I'm describing, and, yes, that celebrity's nation would be one of them. Additionally, when associated behavior rippled through Sciforums shortly after the notorious celeb got major news coverage, we were dealing with an ostensibly American iteration. The connection 'twixt these episodes is the pretense of ignorance and its thematic results. Here's a possibly obscure description: In my television market, we would describe my associate as a model Sinclair news viewer, but most Americans don't even think about their local markets that way. Similarly, as I told him on that occasion, the attitudes he showed when his pretense slipped would find sympathy in these United States, and again, even as a whoopsie, the political range he landed in was thematically consistent.
°° There are reasons the right wing has been so obsessed with "triggering" "snowflake" "SJWs".