On the Conflation of Offence

 I'm sure I must have spoken about this before, but here I am, noting it down for official record (when I die, I’m going to insist they read the entirety of this blog aloud at my funeral service).

Recent events regarding transphobic comments, and the defence thereof (the details of which I won't cover as they have been detailed and analysed far more proficiently than I could have*) have resulted in the increasingly common arguments about 'offence'. Typically some factions, the Mail Online included, will tumble between either claiming gross offence themselves or whining about precious little flowers that cry offence at anything, entirely depending on their predefined axioms. This speaks to the heart of the problems with offence in and of itself.

To me, the word 'offence' has lost all useable meaning in this context. It has expanded to encompass everything from the fan-waving delicacy of a 19th century duchess to the furious outrage of a mob bearing fire and pitchforks. Whenever anyone reacts badly to any publication, they are reported as being 'offended', which means..., what exactly? That they didn't like the article? That they disagree with it? That they consider it to be fundamentally wrong to an absolute measure?

I have said fairly often that I don't think anyone has the right not to be offended, and I stick by that. This is part of the essence of free speech and the spirit of public debate, but doesn’t necessarily mean that the people causing offence aren’t being dicks. Some people are offended by the defence of gay marriage and, well, that's tough. Other people are offended by the casual use of the word 'tranny' but, again, it's not the offence that's important.

What we need to understand is the harm and consequence of the countered article. When Julie Burchill, through the Observer, chose to write a ridiculous article riddled with ignorant slurs against the trans community, it wasn't the offence that was important. Granted, upsetting people isn't a nice thing to do, but that's a consequence of speaking openly in a world where people don't agree. What was important about Burchill's article was that it reinforced the consistent dehumanisation of trans people, reducing them to their sexual organs and dismissing their identities and ability to be strong social activists. This societal view of the trans community results in actual harm to the people within it. When real, living people are viewed as either sub-human or less worthy than those crowding around the middle of the bell curve; they are far more prone to open mockery, humiliation and violence.

But  we're not just talking about trans issues, here. Anytime someone writes an inflammatory article or makes a ridiculous public statement that results in people becoming 'up in arms' in response, it is important to ask why. Offence isn't a reason, it's an emotional response. If you call me evil, I'll be offended by that. If you publically call homosexual people evil then they too will be offended, but you may also be damaging the entire homosexual community in measurable ways, be it in the manifestation of bullying, prejudice or delaying equality of marriage.

On the other hand, if a bishop (or whoever) said he found equal marriage offensive to his religion, you could say, 'OK, you are offended, but will allowing homosexual folk to marry bring about genuine harm to Christians/heterosexuals/marriage/society?' As far as my understanding goes, the answer to this is no.

So structuring these arguments around offence is pointless and really only serves to present these conflicts as nothing more than a soap opera. Show me the tangible measurable effects and why they are important.

A Little on Tone Policing.

Tone policing is the term used for when an argument is rebutted by attacking its delivery style instead of its content. "Calm down, dear" is a form of tone policing. The reason that tone policing itself is so consistently flagged and criticised is because it is often used to derail an argument away from the points being made and towards the (technically irrelevant) tone of the critic. It's a frustrating tactic and often a cowardly method used by people who are happy to stoke the fire with pointed opinions but who cannot handle the inevitable flames. Most of the time tone policing is just a bad defence and, to the initiated, draws a spotlight of weakness upon those who use it.

Having said all that, tone is not always an entirely irrelevant part of an argument and whipping out the "tone police" objection at the first sniff of a tone-based argument may sometimes be hasty. When making or observing an argument, you need to consider what the objectives of the argument are and the environment of the argument.

(By the way, I'm using 'argument' in it broadest sense, be it a fierce disagreement or a more friendly debate or discussion.)

The environment of the argument is often where the fuzzy edges of the internet (where most arguing appears to take place these days) can make things confusing. In the real world (or the wonderful term 'meatspace'. I love how we've started to describe the real world with secondary terminology, like 'snail mail'), it's much easier to pitch your tone accordingly. If you're sitting across a table from someone to whom you strongly object it is unlikely you would put yourself with in inches of their face and start screaming at them. At least, I hope you wouldn't - this is pretty abusive behaviour. You are far more likely to scream and shout if you're arguing passionately to an audience, raising a rabble or leading a march. It's not uncommon for things to get enflamed even in a one-on-one debate, because you are performing for an audience and not scaring the shit out of just one person.

This is where consideration of the objectives come in: what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to change the mind of the one person to whom you disagree, or do you just want them to know how angry you are? Are you trying to convince an audience (be it a readership or physical spectatorship)? As sound and valid as your argument may be, it is naive to think you can be as effective in all situations with the same tone. It just isn't the case. While it is perfectly valid to shoot down tone policing from an opponent who wants to derail your argument, I don't believe it is as valid to shoot down an ally who wishes to strengthen the effectiveness of your argument.

I think we're too quick to do that.

This thought vomit sprang out from a discussion about Caitlin Moran over twitter. In Moran's case, she has shown that she is unresponsive to any form of criticism, aggressive or measured. In this case, what do you do? I think we have to accept she's not going to listen to those who think her dangerously narrow form of feminist philosophy is all kinds of wrong, so there are two contructive things we can do. The first is to deconstruct her bullshit for everyone else who may have read her work, or heard of it. This will expand the knowledge and understanding of your common audience and hopefully prevent or innoculate people from her bad rhetoric. The second is to let her know you disagree with her, and why (even if she'll ignore you). This will remind her that she keeps saying disagreeable things which may (optimistically) make her think a little harder in future. Firing abuse at her is not particularly useful or productive and does little more than ease the burning anger a little. There's being aggressive, and there's being a dick.

The Stupid Spat that Won't Die

This whole "people vs Skepchick and Freethought Blogs" thing is probably the stupidest, most childish, frustrating thing I've seen since following scepticism. Really.

As far as I can tell, the FtB / Skepchick folk have argued for harassment policies at all conventions in order to allow attendees to feel safe and to have a clear code of acceptable behaviour for the benefit of all. The opposing side seem to think that this pisses all over everyone's fun and that FtB etc are equivalent to nazis for continuing to argue for it.

I mean, honestly.

Here is an apt analogy: someone mentions that some conferences are held in buildings with inadequate fire exits or poorly sign-posted emergency exits and that this can be dangerous in the event of a fire. So a campaign begins to make sure all conferences are held in buildings with decent emergency exits and that the emergency procedures are explained to everyone at the start of the con.
People complain that this is an outrageous narky thing to do.

In reality, the organisers are just bringing the conference up to the minimum expected standard.

Having a harassment policy is expected. When you host a large, diverse crowd, you need to make it comfortable for everyone. Even sex parties have harassment and behaviour policies. And they have a great time, kissing and fucking to their hearts content.

What is so difficult about all this? I really don't understand.

What We Can Learn from the Feminism/Skepticism Debacle

Oh boy, oh boy. I'm not sure I've ever wanted to beat my head against my desk as much as I have in the utter shambles that is the 'debate' in the skeptical circles over women's right to feel safe. It all kind of took off (as far as I could see) with Rebecca Watson's elevator report and has re-exploded after Jen McCreight said a few words that led to people asking for better harassment policies at conferences. Now, I don't have much to say in the actual 'debate', though for the benefit of doubt, I believe: everyone should feel safe at conferences, that reported threats and harassment should be taken seriously, that the safety of attendees is far more important than the promotion of the events and that marginalised groups should be paid attention to. (And check your privilege!) So I'm generally in agreement with Watson, Zvan, Benson et al, and in disagreement with Groethe, Thunderf00t, Blackford etc.

No, what I want to talk about is what we can learn from the back-and-forths that have been going on regarding the issues brought up by the skeptical folk. Let's not make any bones about this: it's been a mess.

I think the first thing to take from this is the failure for people to check their privilege. I've said this many times and I'll say it again here: understanding the concept of 'privilege' has completely changed my approach to life, for the better. It's an important part of skepticism, too, as it's essentially an observer bias. We've each developed our own understanding of how the world operates based on our experiences and privileges and it's hard to shift that understanding to someone who has a different experience of life. As I said in my last post - we just don't notice a lot of things if they don't apply to us. I've never felt particularly unsafe in bars, on the street at night or at conferences. But that doesn't mean that other people feel the same. So, when Ophelia Benson - a woman who no doubts gets her share of aggressive misogynistic hate mail - gets an email that essentially boils down to, "watch your back", I'm not surprised that she plays it safe and takes it as a threat. Sure, from the point of view of someone who feels safe and comfortable, who never receives worrying violent messages, it might read as "No, really, watch your back - I'm really worried about you." But they don't have the same experiences as Benson, so maybe they should just shut up and listen to why she acted as she did.

Which brings me to my second point: shut up and listen. Everyone's so eager to shoot their mouth off about everything - even if it's things they know very little about. I was recently massively disappointed by Thunderf00t. His YouTube videos on evolution and creationism are very, very good. Sure, he's a bit arrogant, but he knows what he's talking about, so he's earned the right to speak confidently and with a bit of swagger. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to know very much about harassment against women and the movement to improve things, but he still carries he arrogant swagger into the argument. What he should have done is be quiet and listen to what women have to say about the matter, because these are the people who have to deal with this shit all the time.

It's a strange phenomenon that any kind of sociological issue is viewed as a free-for-all for anyone to air their opinion, even if they have very little knowledge or experience of the subject matter. I'm trained in maths and physics so I can have a decent discussion about physics in the news or whatever, but I don't go wading into Jen McCreight's evolutionary biology posts and start giving her my opinion on genomics, because I haven't got a clue what I'm talking about. Instead, I read with interest (and a little confusion) and feel happy that I've learned something. Similarly, when Stephanie Zvan gives the low-down on what it's like to be a woman at conferences and what's needed to keep things safe and happy, I read what she has to say instead of blabbering all over her blog. Similarly - I just don't know what it's like to be a woman all day, every day. So I have to learn.

This is basic skepticism. Understand the limits of your knowledge and do your research if you want to form a solid opinion. Listen to those in the know. Be aware of your biases. Be aware of the Argument from Authority fallacy. Just cause a big shot like Russell Blackford has something to say, it doesn't mean he's right. The surprising wrongness of Groethe, Thunderf00t, Blackford and Dawkins should hammer the Argument from Authority into your head: Do not just absorb high-standing people's word as gospel. They can be wrong. None of these people are experts in feminism and harassment. Be skeptical and check other sources of information.

Just because people are part of the skeptical, critical thinking community - it doesn't mean they will always be thinking critically and skeptically. This includes me and you. Check yourself. If you find you've got a very strong opinion about something, be sure you've got a good reason to be so sure.

We need to be better than this.

The Power of the Rant

I recently had to consider the nature of the rant. I'd linked to a particularly sharp-toothed attack on the  politically and socially ultra-conservative part of America, framed in a 'North vs South' rhetorical narrative. I was called out for promoting the type of language and rhetoric that leads to denigration of people from the southern states as a whole. While that is a good point, and one I hadn't considered at the time (and I definitely am against attacks on (e.g.)  all Muslims for the position of Muslim extremists), I actually want to focus on the idea of the 'rant' itself as a device.

I actually really like rants. Not to write, or speak - I certainly don't have the raw emotional potency for that - but I really enjoy reading or hearing a wonderfully worded rant. For me, part of it is therapeutic. I'm not one to vent my emotions much, so having someone do it for me really can work a treat.

For a rant to work, it has to be eloquent. A page and a half of "Fffffuuuucccck off and die" won't do it for me, though I know some people enjoy that raw bitterness. Not me: that's not a true rant; that's profanity (which can be fine). I need rants to have a structure, a purpose, a reason, some character and to be convincing. I want to know why you're so angry and I want to be convinced or I'll just call you a raving pisspot, or something. I'm not good with insults.

Goodness gracious, I haven't even defined a rant yet. I assumed you'd all know what I meant, but for the purposes of this blabber: a rant is an argumentative essay, using the rhetoric of anger and/or insult to characterise its prose and make its points. Its tone and hostility may vary, but the idea is the same. It's offensive, in the sense that it's an attacking piece of debate, as opposed to a calm and balanced analysis.

I tend to prefer writing in that balanced, analytical style. I normally have a point to make and a side to take, certainly, but I'm not one to go all out on the offensive. But a rant is a massively powerful tool. For one, they are more interesting to the observer. Someone completely losing their rag over something is very entertaining and often hilarious, even if the subject matter is very serious: and this is, of course, the point. You want to suck people in; you want to persuade people to see your way of thinking by demonstrating the sheer emotional impact this issue has had on you. If something has caused the author to blow their top, then surely it's an issue worthy of your investigation, right?

The Daily Mail knows the power of the rant all too well. Its entire arsenal of columnists are essentially all rant artists, to varying degrees. The Mail (and most other papers, to be fair) use this technique for three main reasons: 1) it makes for an entertaining reading, so people will keep buying the paper; 2) it bolsters the opinions of its audience so it can keep covering topics like, say, immigration, because it's already formed an army of anti-immigrationists; 3) flame-baiting. Flame-baiting is the art of ranting to such a degree that you start sucking in your opposition, who can't help but flock to rubber-neck at the utter car crash of bile and spittle that has ranted across their website. The anti-tabloid folk have cottoned on to this and invented istyosty.com - a proxy server one can use to avoid reading tabloid rants directly and contributing to their hits.

So aware are the Mail aware of the power of a rant, that they recently moved to bully Kevin Arscott into removing a post he made against its editor, Paul Dacre. Mr Ascott, of Angry Mob (which is a lot less angry than the name suggests) was so incensed by the paper's behaviour that he wrote a long (and fairly out of character) rant about how Paul Dacre must die and how we would queue for miles to use his grave as a loo, to put it lightly. The Mail threatened his web hosts and now the article doesn't exist (but you can probably find it. The internet doesn't forget).

With the power of the rant, of course, comes a great responsibility (has a comic book ever again said anything so profound?). The melody of an offensive argument carries like the tune of the pied piper, with followers dancing to the oomph of the emotion, too caught up to stop and ask questions or check for evidence. The wave of support for classic ranters like Melanie Phillips, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, - people who are clearly so far removed from reality that you wonder how they get dressed in the morning - shows how a rant just isn't enough. It's a weapon. Like a gun: when used correctly, anyone can make headway, cause damage and lead armies with it. In a sense, it is neither good not bad outside of any context. But it is dangerous.

That's why I'd say, for goodness sake, if you're going to have a bloody good rant as part of your argument you'd better make sure that you've backed up that rant with facts and evidence. You'd better be sure that you know what you're talking about because you are wielding a powerful and persuasive weapon. And on top of that: be aware of your audience. Websites like Annotated Rant, have excellent, well-cited arguments in a terrifically bitter and furious style. But, my god, they tend to cast their net wide. With Fuck the South, they make very good points about the political problems in the American south, but unless you're aware that they are using the term 'South' as a metaphor, it can cause a lot of problems. You probably wouldn't get rants titled "Fuck Muslims", for example, because you wouldn't want to accidentally incite hatred towards all Muslims from people who don't pick up on your subtlety.

In conclusion: I love to read rants, I think they are a valuable and powerful tool, but when used carelessly they can be dangerous, so take care if you fancy having a public rant.

The word rant has lost all meaning, by the way.

PS: If you want to watch some world-class ranting, search for Matt Dillahunty on youtube. He is monumental at off-the-cuff, brilliantly reasoned takedowns.

Why I Can Stand Jeremy Clarkson

I like Jeremy Clarkson. Sort of.

It's a tricky thing to justify, as he's part of the right-wing hysterical journalists and media types that will bark up any tree that looks remotely like it might be pulped to produce the Guardian. Much like the likes of Littlejohn, Platell, Phillips, Fawkes et al, Clarkson enjoys smugly vomiting out whatever reactionary opinion his pancreas squeezes into his brain. Like the others, he has his pet peeves that he barks on about in an endless cycles (in particular, he hates traffic safety devices and climate change prevention) without ever reviewing evidence contrary to his own immalleable opinion.

But, gosh, I just can't despise him in the way I do the others. I think part of it is that I enjoy Top Gear and don't want to spend the entire time scowling and swearing at "Jezza" the whole hour long. Whenever Clarkson says something stupid or sexist, yes, my wife and I look at each other and shake our heads in disapproval. We're not ignorant of his dickheadedness, not by a long shot. The way he treated Olympic Champion, Amy Williams, was detestable (frankly, she should have slapped him).

But... when mouthing off, I really don't think he takes himself seriously. He operates under the character of 'Jeremy Clarkson, moron' in the same way that Warren Mitchell worked the avatar of 'Alf Garnett, furious bigot'. Whether he uses the character as a comforting shield from which to assert his own opinions, or whether the character's opinions are entirely artificial and used for flamebait - I don't know. Either way, his potency as a force for hypnotising his audience are greatly reduced, compared to someone who takes themselves very seriously, like Bill O'Reilly, who still has a massive following despite twice saying no one knows how the sun goes up and down every day. Clarkson is a clown. He knows he's a clown and he plays up to it. Hopefully the rest of his audience know he's a clown, too.

He delivers his hyperbole with a cheekiness and a swagger deliberately engineered to make his audience chuckle and facepalm and to manufacture a faux-argument between the co-hosts who often call him a 'completely idiot' and a mindless petrol-head. His co-hosts on Top Gear operate similarly, behind the character of grinning-hyperactive-teenager and comely-Warburton-eating-uncle, neither of which you'd trust to even recommend a car to you.

And Clarkson isn't always wrong: he's a big advocate of science and engineering, for example. He once punched Piers Morgan. He's not all bad. Yes, he suffers from the syndrome that a lot of columnist have which I have called I'm-not-an-expert-but-I've-been-spouting-my-opinion-for-so-long-I-must-be-right Syndrome. The name needs work, I'll admit.

A simple Google search for "Jeremy Clarkson column" leads you quickly to this column, which begins:

Call me a spoilsport but I’m glad my dad wasn’t a lesbian

When it comes to sweeping generalisations, I am the daddy. All Germans have no sense of humour, all instruction manuals are pointless, all cruise ships are ghastly, every single American is fat, all golfers are boring and all Peugeots are driven by people you wouldn’t have round for dinner

.

I really don't think he expects anyone to take him seriously. At least I hope he doesn't.

Oh god, what if he does?