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rikibethNote: this is all inspired by the Penny Arcade Dickwolves brouhaha, but is broader in application than that.
There are two words that get thrown around a lot in online discussion, when someone says something that's Not Okay, Dude.
The first one is triggered.
Now, this is a useful and valid word, and a strong one, referring to the involuntary, panicky reaction one gets when reminded involuntarily of trauma. (One may be triggered into rage as well as panic, just for the record. Or have rage arise from the panic. Classic fight-or-flight. Carrying on...) I've experienced this feeling myself, sitting in shul for a Friday night service, hearing prayers I hadn't heard since I was twelve, feeling an icy target spot develop between my shoulder blades, just WAITING for the wad of notebook paper or thrown pencil to hit, and unable to convince myself, no matter how many times I looked behind me, that one of Those Boys wasn't sitting in the back row, just waiting for the moment to attack. It was... pretty bad.
However, there are a couple of problems with this word. One is that people throw it around a lot, tending to dilute its impact. The other is that some people (usually assholes, but anyway) will take it as a sign of weakness, and mock people who admit to it, and generally discount the opinions and contributions of anybody who refers to it. Which, while it's clearly an asshole move, tends to make discussions go all pear-shaped, which is not useful.
The other one is offensive.
This is also a valid word. It's akin to "in poor taste," but stronger.
The trouble with this word is that many people associate the idea of a person who's "offended" as someone who's a prude, or a killjoy. Then they sprain their shoulders patting themselves on the back for being "edgy" and "shocking" and start accusing the offended person of being in favor of "censorship." It rarely crosses their mind that, you know, maybe they're just being jerks, without managing to say anything important or original thereby.
The phrase I favor is personally upsetting.
Most people, I like to think, were raised with a modicum of good manners and human decency. If you characterize something triggering and offensive as "personally upsetting," because of something that happened to you or a dear friend, you can often get a thoughtless or just-trying-to-be-shocking person to consider their words concretely, in terms of real things that happen to real people, instead of in the abstract. And "personally upsetting" doesn't have the flavor of jargon that "triggering" does. You don't have to be psychologically damaged (as the jerks would see it) to be upset. Anyone can be upset!
And then, when you've shamed the jerk into an apology for upsetting you, you can hit 'em with the statistics about how MANY people have been in circumstances like yours or your friend's, and why maybe their joke isn't such a great idea after all, if it depends on making light of so MANY people's experiences.
And, of course, if they don't respond to "personally upsetting" with an apology, you KNOW you're dealing with someone who has no manners or human decency, and you can safely conclude that further debate with them is about as useful as trying to teach a pig to sing.
For the record on the dickwolves thing: I think the original joke made something of a valid point, but the way in which they did it was in very poor taste, which is (as I understand it, I don't follow the comic) their usual style. I think the way they reacted to the criticism they received over it was deeply lacking in clue, and that the continuing mess has involved quite a few porcine squeals.
And I would like to see more people use language in a way that gets them results.
There are two words that get thrown around a lot in online discussion, when someone says something that's Not Okay, Dude.
The first one is triggered.
Now, this is a useful and valid word, and a strong one, referring to the involuntary, panicky reaction one gets when reminded involuntarily of trauma. (One may be triggered into rage as well as panic, just for the record. Or have rage arise from the panic. Classic fight-or-flight. Carrying on...) I've experienced this feeling myself, sitting in shul for a Friday night service, hearing prayers I hadn't heard since I was twelve, feeling an icy target spot develop between my shoulder blades, just WAITING for the wad of notebook paper or thrown pencil to hit, and unable to convince myself, no matter how many times I looked behind me, that one of Those Boys wasn't sitting in the back row, just waiting for the moment to attack. It was... pretty bad.
However, there are a couple of problems with this word. One is that people throw it around a lot, tending to dilute its impact. The other is that some people (usually assholes, but anyway) will take it as a sign of weakness, and mock people who admit to it, and generally discount the opinions and contributions of anybody who refers to it. Which, while it's clearly an asshole move, tends to make discussions go all pear-shaped, which is not useful.
The other one is offensive.
This is also a valid word. It's akin to "in poor taste," but stronger.
The trouble with this word is that many people associate the idea of a person who's "offended" as someone who's a prude, or a killjoy. Then they sprain their shoulders patting themselves on the back for being "edgy" and "shocking" and start accusing the offended person of being in favor of "censorship." It rarely crosses their mind that, you know, maybe they're just being jerks, without managing to say anything important or original thereby.
The phrase I favor is personally upsetting.
Most people, I like to think, were raised with a modicum of good manners and human decency. If you characterize something triggering and offensive as "personally upsetting," because of something that happened to you or a dear friend, you can often get a thoughtless or just-trying-to-be-shocking person to consider their words concretely, in terms of real things that happen to real people, instead of in the abstract. And "personally upsetting" doesn't have the flavor of jargon that "triggering" does. You don't have to be psychologically damaged (as the jerks would see it) to be upset. Anyone can be upset!
And then, when you've shamed the jerk into an apology for upsetting you, you can hit 'em with the statistics about how MANY people have been in circumstances like yours or your friend's, and why maybe their joke isn't such a great idea after all, if it depends on making light of so MANY people's experiences.
And, of course, if they don't respond to "personally upsetting" with an apology, you KNOW you're dealing with someone who has no manners or human decency, and you can safely conclude that further debate with them is about as useful as trying to teach a pig to sing.
For the record on the dickwolves thing: I think the original joke made something of a valid point, but the way in which they did it was in very poor taste, which is (as I understand it, I don't follow the comic) their usual style. I think the way they reacted to the criticism they received over it was deeply lacking in clue, and that the continuing mess has involved quite a few porcine squeals.
And I would like to see more people use language in a way that gets them results.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:09 pm (UTC)This is more meant to apply to cases of Someone Is Wrong On The Internet than close personal relationships. In close personal relationships, it's obviously important to let people know why you've gone silent or tearful or nonresponsive or rageful, and how not to provoke that again, once you're calm enough to explain it. "Triggered" is a fine word to use there. It should probably be reserved for that kind of thing.
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Date: 2011-02-04 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:10 pm (UTC)I sadly tend to be in the latter category. I am all about function but pay little attention to form, and form is very important for language. I find I often have trouble putting my ideas into the words that best explain my thinking (I mainly mean in social situations/opinions/sensitive matters/etc. With technical things/factual things/business communications, etc I am fine).
Compounding the issue is that english is a constantly evolving language; and what meanings some give to a word is different from what others give it, especially the more abstract ones.
I made an LJ post a while about about some random thoughts I had about 'triggers', pushing oneself, etc and I then realized I did a very poor job at translating my thoughts and feelings into words (after a few people took it in a way I didn't mean at all).
no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:14 pm (UTC)The use of "triggered" as a fandom jargon term and the (dare I say) privileging of the term in discourse about warnings and what can be posted/published freely have weighted it inside fandom in ways that it just doesn't carry outside fandom. "But it's TRIGGERING" is a big scary thing to say inside fandom. It's a giant bomb that silences people it's lobbed out. People outside fandom don't give a flying fuck about "OMG TRIGGERING" for all that they may be decent people who don't want to send folks into upset PTSD response. The fact that actual triggered responses generally don't go to the hide-under-the-bed level and yet the word "trigger" plays to the idea that triggered responses are that strong is part of the problem inside fandom, but also a translation difficulty. Non-fandom folks don't have the expectation that rape/abuse survivors are necessarily as common nor as likely to be severely harmed by a rape joke that fandom folks have.
Fandom here = lj media fandom, obviously.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:16 pm (UTC)But it's definitely something that's easy to get wrong, even when you're in the habit of thinking about it. Not something you should punish yourself for.
This is why I've been MAKING the posts about words!
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Date: 2011-02-04 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:29 pm (UTC)And the story with the hopeless poncy romantigoth Draco is one of my all-time favorites.
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Date: 2011-02-04 07:30 pm (UTC)and lol to the family thing. One of my brothers and I are kinda like that. We will have conversations and sometimes we will seem to get really heated about something we are talking about (some have thought we were about to start hitting each other..lol), and then we will just move onto the next topic.
Ok, hopefully this doesn't get misinterpreted :). This is my experience at times: I read things/go into a conv. on 'senitive' topic or 'disagreement' with the intention of stating my opinion/ideas, attempting to understand what the other person is saying and consider what they have to say. In this I have the assumption that people want to understand everyone's side as well as their side, and that they want to find a mutual understanding. In life I have found sometimes that others don't seem that interested in anything other than their own ideas on things, and they don't want to put much effort into understanding a different view. It seems to me that they tend to go under the assumption that people are out to insult them and try to look for something to get angry about.
I figure one reason for communication is mutual understanding and I am sad that often it doesn't happen that way.
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Date: 2011-02-04 07:33 pm (UTC)That's one of the reasons why I like hanging out at Making Light, where commenters are exhorted to read charitably and answer kindly. It's a good basis for nuanced discussion!
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Date: 2011-02-04 07:34 pm (UTC)On a different note. Are you going to Wicked?
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Date: 2011-02-04 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:44 pm (UTC)Sadly there are no advance notices for "shitty writer who fails to use contractions properly in dialogue" and "writer who has never seen a penis and testicles and has no idea how to write m/m sex without crushing said testicles", which are two recent peeves of mine that I wish I'd known about in advance.
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Date: 2011-02-04 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 08:02 pm (UTC)One dimension maps pretty closely to the classic "I-statements only!" advice: if I hear someone describing their own experience, I will tend to react less defensively than if I hear them attempting to classify my experience, so someone telling me that they were upset by my action tends to play better than someone telling me that my action was upsetting. Describing the action as "personally upsetting" is more like the former, in that it sounds more like a description of your experience.
The other dimension has to do with the difference between "upset" and "offended" and "triggered" (and "hurt" and "appalled" and "outraged" and "infuriated" and various other words). I am mostly a believer in using language precisely -- using "upset" when I'm upset and "offended" when I'm offended and so forth -- but I agree that sometimes a community develops such a distorted tradition around a word that it becomes nigh-impossible to use that word both clearly and precisely, and it's best to use a different word.
The problem, of course, is that people in the community come to change their understanding of what the word means, which makes communication across the community boundary more difficult. In that context, I was going to link to an old post of mine in which I talked about coming to understand for the first time (while dealing with my stroke and associated post-traumatic issues) what people actually meant by "triggered," having previously understood it to be a jargony form of "upset," and feeling rather chagrined by it... but I can't find it now.
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Date: 2011-02-04 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 08:45 pm (UTC)I have my own trigger issues, but most of them are not really an issue in written fiction. (Disgust, sure, EW-reaction, sure.) But watching an OCD friend go into a day of dealing with the mild psychosis of really and truly believing someone was stabbing needles through her arm all day (as PTSD is not the only anxiety disorder with serious trigger issues) . . .
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Date: 2011-02-04 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-04 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-05 12:15 am (UTC)In a way, this is like a lot of the current Republican issues. There aren't enough committed assholes to keep them afloat; they need the moderates, the people who are willing to overlook the assholism because they like what the assholes are selling. The best way to counter this is to encourage the moderates to decide that they can't support the assholism, no matter how much they like the product.
Side note: I'm unfamiliar with the term "dub-con". Extrapolation suggests "dubious consent"; am I right?
no subject
Date: 2011-02-05 12:18 am (UTC)Thanks for the article
Date: 2011-02-05 12:51 am (UTC)Hi Rikibeth,
Just want to say thank you for this article. I have been following all the articles about the controversy because I didn't really get what was wrong with the comic in the first place and I wanted to inform myself on the matter.
Your article was very interesting and refreshing after reading too much extremes from both sides of the debates and seeing more neutral parties marginalised for delivering a non-polarized opinion.
I think that your choice of words (personally upsetting) is very interesting because, like you said, it doesn't imply a radical approach to a specific issue but rather your own concerns over it.
I had a good laugh at the comic as I do out of most of PA comics. Obviously not everyone did and I am sure that if they had emailed Mike and Jerry to tell them they were personally upset by the nature of the comic they would have apologized.
Would that apology lead Mike and Jerry to remove the comic? Most probably not but it would have raised the awareness of the problem to those guys in a more constructive way that radical opposition and accusation of fostering rape culture would ever do.
Once again, thank you
JP
Re: Thanks for the article
Date: 2011-02-05 01:05 am (UTC)Also, I think you're missing that the controversy, at this point, has gone way beyond the original comic.
In an ideal world, Gabe & Tycho could have responded to the initial criticism by posting something that said, "Hey, we goofed. That punchline? Upset and offended a lot of people, and got in the way of the point we were trying to make with it. Sorry. We'll try for a better joke next time." They wouldn't even have had to take it down to make most people satisfied.
Instead? Well, you see what happened.
My contention is more that you can't explain the concept of "rape culture," and how it's possible to foster it even without being in favor of rape, while someone's on the defensive going "You have no sense of humor" and "you're just oversensitive" and "you're trying to censor me!" It's much easier to get a broad concept across when they already acknowledge that their joke may have unintentionally hurt people, and when they're feeling suitably regretful for that.
BTW, welcome, and do I know you from somewhere, JP?
Re: Thanks for the article
Date: 2011-02-05 01:47 am (UTC)Hi again,
I don't believe we know each other unless you live in Quebec then we might have bump at Laval's U a few years ago.
The debate as indeed grown into something way larger than the first comic. I think the underlying issue rest with the issue of the term rape culture. Mike and Jerry stance was overly defensive and eventually more than a bit on the jerk side.
I can relate to that, being one of those so-called Angry young white male than form a substantious part of the population where I come from. A lot of the white males from my generation (early 80s) feel disfranchised by a school system that favors more and more women learning behavior, positive discrimination from government jobs which turns out in the end to be discrimination against white males and feminism assault on some aspects of the traditional masculine values or behavior.
I obviously cannot speak for Mike and Jerry but I know that for a lot of people, myself included, this kind of situation resulted in a form of siege mentality where those white guys would react very defensively to any critic about the rightness of their values or behavior especially if those critics would be perceived has being from a more radicalized opposing party.
The whole argument that conspired to turn this debate into a veritable mess is the fact that (even before mocking it) Mike and Jerry didn't acknowledge the concept of rape culture as valid. I once was accused of propagating masculunism by a feminist colleague because I am a tall big 300 pound man with a booming voice and I would use that voice as a tool in group assemblies to help get my points passed. Apparently my old commandeering manners were seen as a tool of oppression even though I never yelled nor cut anyone mid speech. I simply laughed her off which brought me more troubles with the local feminist committee than I would have dared imagine.
Extremes are never well received but like you said people who aren't jerk will usually tend to lend a hear if you tell them you fell upset about something you just did/said. It's something responsible parents teach their children: crying won't get you that toy, behaving and asking nicely might.
It is all about language and proper communication as social groups. In this case I think it was a failure from both the first critics who involved a whole feminist agenda into it to Mike and Jerry failing to acknowledge the existence of an issue which prompted both sides supporters into an even worse spiral of anger and insults.
Which is why I liked your article very much. As you said it is only marginally linked to this debate because what you said applies to any kind of disagreements over the actions/words of another person. It is a way to establish a bridge for a better understanding of both parties points of view and try to avoid messy situations like this one.
Thanks,
JP
Re: Thanks for the article
Date: 2011-02-05 01:54 am (UTC)Re: Thanks for the article
Date: 2011-02-05 02:07 am (UTC)No problem,
I can agree to disagree. The world would be quite boring (at least in my eyes) if everybody agreed on everything. I thank you for taking the time to answer my comments and wish you a good weekend.
JP
Nowhere is safe, sadly.
Date: 2011-02-05 02:12 am (UTC)Since I'm forced to write "safety plans" as part of my job (and I don't believe that hitting your siblings deserves a "safety plan for fuck's sake), I generally put somewhere in there that we will be working to discover The Kid's triggers. Since, y'know, if you're trying to prevent bloodshed, removing the easily changable things-that-make-the-kid-want-to-scream is usually a Good Idea.
Anyway. My I-don't-have-an-AxisII-diagnosis--no-not-at-all then-supervisor thought that an appropriate comment to make to me was along the lines of "*sigh* You and your triggers. *shakes her head*"
Yeah. Me and my triggers. *grumble*
Re: Nowhere is safe, sadly.
Date: 2011-02-05 03:16 am (UTC)It's a way more appropriate word THERE than it is the way it sometimes gets tossed around in fandom, at least.
And, well, there's hitting your siblings and hitting your siblings. If it's the kind of ordinary use-your-words roughhousing that at worst leaves bruises once in a while, send everyone to their fuckin' rooms until I get some QUIET around here, amirite? OTOH, if "hitting" actually means "kid 1 has kid 2 pinned to the floor and is battering kid 2's head against a hard surface," that might call for a safety plan.
Re: Nowhere is safe, sadly.
Date: 2011-02-05 03:22 am (UTC)And sadly, it's usually the first type of hitting, combined with a distinct lack of supervision and a distinct smacking of "Oh no, it doesn't bother The Kid when his sister steals the toy he's playing with. He just likes to hit her."
Re: Nowhere is safe, sadly.
Date: 2011-02-05 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-06 10:35 pm (UTC)Great write-up. I'll be checking out some of your other posts now, and am also going to friend you. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-02-06 10:41 pm (UTC)I have a bunch of filters. Most of them are obsolete, but two that see use these days are Mental Health and TMI. Want on either of them?
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Date: 2011-02-06 11:11 pm (UTC)Yes, definitely. I'd be especially interested in reading your write-ups on mental health.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-10 05:20 pm (UTC)A lot of times, especially with regards to social equality issues, when someone with a form of privilege is coming into a space mostly inhabited by those lacking that privilege, the unprivileged folks are all too familiar with the other side and the opinions held by those on it, from the outright hostile opinions to the simply unaware of privilege opinions.
I find it very useful, when going into a space where I am privileged and the space is about those not sharing that privilege, to ask myself how likely it is that they have already heard my opinion as expressed by other mouths and understand it perfectly well and STILL hold the conflicting opinion. It often leads me to do a bit of quick research and see if my opinion is the subject of any 101 or "for dummies" posts. Then, if I still feel like stating my opinion would add value to the discussion, I can state it while showing awareness of the rehashed millions of times aspects, and not make people feel like I expect them to retread tired ground for my sake. Which is another good tactic for having productive conversations, making people feel like I put in some amount of time to understand their POV before I engaged them about it.