"Wokeist" - When people talk about progressivism without acquaintance

[Lexicus]

So your argument here is "some triggers are more difficult to avoid than others, so we shouldn't respect any of them"? I'm not misrepresenting you here, right?

I do think "we shouldn't respect any of them" is a misrepresentation but Hygro can correct me if I'm wrong

I don't think it's an unreasonable position to say that it is actually impossible to cover all triggers, and so a reasonable effort can be made to avoid only certain more common ones. And it is not reasonable to expect care to be taken to avoid any possible triggers at all times.

 

[Hygro]

So your argument here is "some triggers are more difficult to avoid than others, so we shouldn't respect any of them"? I'm not misrepresenting you here, right?

Do you understand my issue with the argument, in that case? "people are going to be hurt by things all the time" is not an argument for deliberately choosing the "more pain" path when interacting with others. Now, obviously, this is tied up with your personal history, and I appreciate you sharing it. But that's exactly the general point. Everyone can and will react to traumatic events differently. The way you decided to compartmentalise is no more "correct" than the way I've dealt with my own trauma. But by insisting we shouldn't respect the triggers of others, generally, you are taking your own personal acceptance of pain dealt (to and around you) and enforcing it on others. Or at least, dealing it out to others.

There's some irony to that.

What irony, that you've chosen pain when it's not needed?

Let's get to the bolded, I'm assuming you mean generally. There are absolutely better and worse ways people respond to trauma. And, if, for example your oppression is society's non accomdation of your disabilty and its' invisibleness helps propel that, and I tell you, you won't lose an inch but you will make better your relations accepting "you like fine" as a compliment and you say no, it must be an insult and a trauma, you're doing it worse. It's not equal because it's our own different lives. One way is prosocial without even surrendering anything. The other way is reactive, assumes enemies, and wastes energy fighting where there isn't a battlefield.

There are both healthier and less healthy responses to trauma, as well as whether or not a Thing even Does Trauma in the first place. We can't expect everyone to be so well adjusted, but to turn around and not give greater respect to better choices, perspectives, is to undermine what is actually good, and what can actually bring happiness and wellness to peoples lives.

 

[Hygro]

So your argument here is "some triggers are more difficult to avoid than others, so we shouldn't respect any of them"? I'm not misrepresenting you here, right?

Of course you are.

 

[Gorbles]

Of course you are.

It's not intentional, if that helps at all. I'm trying to understand where you're coming from.

What irony, that you've chosen pain when it's not needed?

We're discussing triggers. Triggers are associated with an involuntary response. To frame it as "choice" is being decidedly unfair to anyone who suffers from such.

Let's get to the bolded, I'm assuming you mean generally. There are absolutely better and worse ways people respond to trauma. And, if, for example your oppression is society's non accomdation of your disabilty and its' invisibleness helps propel that, and I tell you, you won't lose an inch but you will make better your relations accepting "you like fine" as a compliment and you say no, it must be an insult and a trauma, you're doing it worse. It's not equal because it's our own different lives. One way is prosocial without even surrendering anything. The other way is reactive, assumes enemies, and wastes energy fighting where there isn't a battlefield.

There are both healthier and less healthy responses to trauma, as well as whether or not a Thing even Does Trauma in the first place. We can't expect everyone to be so well adjusted, but to turn around and not give greater respect to better choices, perspectives, is to undermine what is actually good, and what can actually bring happiness and wellness to peoples lives.

I meant you and me, specifically. Your trauma has literally affected your views on the topic, as I fully expect it would. But the rub is - so has everyones' else. You can't generalise what works and doesn't work for people.

There are absolutely people who are needlessly combative and abusive of the "trigger" terminology in general, and all of that jazz. But these are individual people; you can't extrapolate that onto everyone who suffers from triggers. Onto everyone who gets combative for any reason. You have a theory that "one way is prosocial and doesn't surrender anything", and "the other is reactive and assume enemies", but you fail to recognise the correlation that trauma forces people into assuming enemies of strangers as a safety mechanic. Trauma can literally affect the brain and decisionmaking processes. It's not nice, and it doesn't necessarily result in the best, most optimal, rational choices, but the reason is the trauma. And that should be respected.

There are compliments I can accept from people that mean well, that can trigger something. That can cause me pain. You have no magical ability to make this go away nomatter how well I assume the intentions of others. All you have is your story. Your life. I think you really need to understand what works for you, doesn't necessarily work for others. It's compelling, I'll grant you that. You've separated trauma responses into a simple dichotomy, and it resolves any inherent contradictions you yourself have with the model (relating to trauma and how we process it). I used to think similarly.

I don't share much about my private life on purpose on the Internet, because it's not just my private life. It's my wife's life, and my childrens' lives. I share anecdotes about myself, and I realise this is unfair given how you've offered up yours. But that's the standard I live by. So I'm quite restricted in what I can actually talk about in terms of how I've learned about trauma, what I've suffered from, and so on. But I will tell you that I now suffer from symptoms of anxiety, and a part of that is from trying to shoulder the burden of accepting everyone means well, even when what they say hurts. I can't turn off a valve and make the pain magically stop, and I don't doubt peoples' intent. But there's a gap in the middle where harm is done anyway, and I've tried to put it . . . nowhere.

Everybody has different limits, everybody is wired slightly differently. I don't think your approach to the subject allows for that level of nuance.

I don't think it's an unreasonable position to say that it is actually impossible to cover all triggers, and so a reasonable effort can be made to avoid only certain more common ones. And it is not reasonable to expect care to be taken to avoid any possible triggers at all times.

That is of course, reasonable, but the original post that sparked this was "normal" vs. "abnormal" in the context of marginalised minorities. To claim we can't always avoid triggers is understandable (and this is part of what Hygro said at the time). To say it in that discussion, specifically, framing people taking issue with "normal" (and "not") as a "them" problem is what I have the problem with.

 

[sophie]

I do think "we shouldn't respect any of them" is a misrepresentation but Hygro can correct me if I'm wrong

I don't think it's an unreasonable position to say that it is actually impossible to cover all triggers, and so a reasonable effort can be made to avoid only certain more common ones. And it is not reasonable to expect care to be taken to avoid any possible triggers at all times.

There's a pretty wide gulf between pre-emptively avoiding any potential triggers that any person could conceivably have at all times and avoiding the use of particular triggers interpersonally when a person has explicitly told you the word or phrase triggers them and has given you an easy, straightforward, 1-to-1 replacement for the word that is triggering them.

 

[Lexicus]

There's a pretty wide gulf between pre-emptively avoiding any potential triggers that any person could conceivably have at all times and avoiding the use of particular triggers interpersonally when a person has explicitly told you the word or phrase triggers them and has given you an easy, straightforward, 1-to-1 replacement for the word that is triggering them.

I agree completely.

 

[Angst]

Personally I have certain real triggers that are very hard to avoid. If I were to choose, I would not condone removing them from public discourse. In person, when you know someone well, avoiding some of them is just politeness, while avoiding others is not something I expect anyone to do; the former is when they're possible, and the latter is when they're not.

There are other triggers that I am amiable to not use in public discourse. Some are common and easy to avoid through just some basic phrasing, and it's basic decency and basic health to avoid when prompted. I wanted to say that it's reasonable to look at these things case by case. In my situation, I would be unreasonable to demand my triggers removed. In many other people's situations, not triggering is basic public health. This is why trigger warnings exist; some people forget that triggers are a real psychological phenomenon and can be intensely damaging.

If I'm not clear, I'm basically with schlaufuchs (haven't followed the remainder of the discussion). Just wanted to share my own situation; I do have triggers, I do not expect people to work around them, and this does not mean triggers shouldn't be respected when brought up.

 

[Evie]

Amusingly, one of those panels I gave at the big Ottawa writer cons was, in fact, about triggers traumatic events, and the kind of long term impact on readers that might results.

And my central message from it remains: triggers are to mental health as allergies to physical health. A normally generally reasonable thing that sets off an uncontrolable and potentially dangerous response in some. There's thousands of different allergies and you can't keep track of all of them. And some people can't have the allergen at all and others can, in the right circumstances or with the right medication, cope with it. So rather than stop using the allergens altogether, we list the most common or relevant ones on the back of the box, and we trust people with rarer allergies - the ones that are on the long list of things you can't possibly know about - know what ingredients to look for and inquire.And if we realize one allergy was more widespread

So why can't triggers be treated the same?

 

[Hygro]

but you fail to recognise the correlation that trauma forces people into assuming enemies of strangers as a safety mechanic. Trauma can literally affect the brain and decisionmaking processes. It's not nice, and it doesn't necessarily result in the best, most optimal, rational choices, but the reason is the trauma. And that should be respected.

Yeah, so if possible, that's the thing to change. There's many ways, including a societal push towards treatment, to education in mindfulness, and whatever it takes, MDMA with therapists and/or renegade fellow weirdos. In @schlaufuchs 's wide gulf dichotomy, one of those wings is a tyranny. In regular contexts, the other wing shouldn't come up.

The reality is traumas, but also more. We know fireworks reminds some people of the war. They are way unhappier in that moment than most of us are happy. But the goal is to help them, not to end 4th of July.

 

[Angst]

EDIT: The post I responded to was deleted.

 

[Evie]

Therapy is huge. Therapy is absolutely the long-term goal.

But therapy, even were it available to all, can take time. A lot of time. For some, maybe more time than they have left on the planet. Until which time, the triggers and their potentially dangerous effects remain.

And in the SHORT term, being mindful of the most common triggers, advising others of potential risk, and, if someone brings up a particular trigger to us, accomodating them, remain part of the answer too.

Much as, if we had a medication that, over several months, could make someone lose an allergy, and the political will to give it for all - we'd still have to accomodate all the people with newly detected allergies, or the people still mid-treatment - which would involve allergen warnings still.

 

[Narz]

Amusingly, one of those panels I gave at the big Ottawa writer cons was, in fact, about triggers traumatic events, and the kind of long term impact on readers that might results.

And my central message from it remains: triggers are to mental health as allergies to physical health. A normally generally reasonable thing that sets off an uncontrolable and potentially dangerous response in some. There's thousands of different allergies and you can't keep track of all of them. And some people can't have the allergen at all and others can, in the right circumstances or with the right medication, cope with it. So rather than stop using the allergens altogether, we list the most common or relevant ones on the back of the box, and we trust people with rarer allergies - the ones that are on the long list of things you can't possibly know about - know what ingredients to look for and inquire.And if we realize one allergy was more widespread

So why can't triggers be treated the same?

A good analogy and like allergens a culture of trepadation and treating people as fragile will make both worse (allergies are much worse than before because kids are exposed to less variety of food)

Treating someone too delicately is a form of neglect.

But yeah warning labels are a good thing

 

[Evie]

Overprotectiveness definitely has its issues. But as is we tend to be overprotective of the least vulnerable and entirely unprotective of the most vulnerable, which, you know, there's probably a happy medium to be found somewhere.

 

[Synobun]

Let's have a look at the devastating consequences of being cancelled in today's liberal woke culture: https://twitter.com/DailyJulianne/status/1528144498496311298

I’ve been thinking a lot about MeToo and the men who had their lives “ruined” by assault or harassment allegations, so…I decided to do some googling into Where Are They Now

I always think of Chris Brown and what he did to Rihanna. I know she forgave him, but those pictures have always stuck with me.

He has since released 8 albums, a documentary, a clothing line, and a cereal. He’s gone on six tours and has a residency lined up in Vegas.

Tony Robbins is a self-help motivational speaker. He faced a number of accusations in 2019 after year long investigation.

He has 6 million followers on instagram, is a bestselling author, and is reported to be worth over $600 million as of fall 2021.

Neil deGrass Tyson faced several accusations late in 2018. The American Museum of Natural History announced in July 2019 that he could keep his job as director of the Hayden Planetarium. Cosmos: Possible Worlds, which he hosts, premiered in 2020, and he continues to host StarTalk

Brett Kavanaugh had accusations made in 2018. He’s a Supreme Court Justice

In 2017, Eliza Dushku went to producers about harassment from Michael Weatherly on the set of Bull. Days later, she was fired from the show. The information became public in 2018. Weatherly continued to star in Bull through this year, when the show comes to an end.


Sylvester Stallone has had several allegations, dating back to 1987. The first public allegations came in 2001. No charges have ever been pressed. Since 2001, he’s been cast in 30 movies and 2 documentaries, as well as writing, directing, and producing a number of them.


In 2017, a number of accusations of assault and harassment came against Al Franken. Franken resigned from the Senate. Since then, a number of senators have said they regret calling for resignation. In February 2022, Franken admitted he regretted resigning and may run again. Franken currently hosts a podcast that’s in its third season. He also started touring in 2019, paused for COVID, and began making appearances and touring again late in 2021.

Allegations of abuse against Junot Diaz began circulating widely in May 2018. MIT allowed him to keep teaching. The editors of Boston Review allowed him to star on their magazine.

In 2014, James Franco (then 35) admitted to messaging with a 17 year old girl and trying to meet her in a hotel room. Allegations of abuse from multiple sources came again in early 2018. He directed a film that released in 2019 and two more are in post production. Franco also starred in two movies that released in 2019 and has two other movies he starred in (including one he directed) in post-production.

In early 2018, Aziz Ansari was accused to pressuring a woman into having sex with him, even after asked to stop. He resumed touring by summer 2018. He was nominated for a Grammy in 2020. He’s released two more comedy specials on Netflix. He’s in the Bob’s Burgers movie. Also worth noting that Ansari did a few shows with Dave Chapelle. He was also set to make his directorial debut, but production was halted last month due to complaints of inappropriate behavior from one of the stars, Bill Murray.

Speaking of Bill Murray - while there are no true allegations, he sure has a History. He got in a fight with Chevy Chase in 1978, he tossed the producer of What About Bob? into a lake and also threatened to throw her across a parking lot. He threw an ash tray at Richard Dreyfuss.

Paul Haggis was accused of raping a publicist in January 2018. Then three others came forward. He’s been filing lawsuits to block testimony. He’s still a voting member of the Academy.

In December 2017, PBS suspended Tavis Smiley after learning about multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. He claimed the investigation was biased, then went on a speaking tour across the country to declare his innocence. In 2021, he bought a radio station and appears daily

Nick Carter has had several abuse allegations over the years, the most notable that he raped a singer in a girl band. In 2020, he was on The Masked Singer. He continues to perform with Backstreet Boys.

John Lasseter was well known for his conduct and announced a leave of absence in 2017 from Pixar. In 2019, after leaving Pixar, he was hired to head Skydance Animation.

In November 2017, five women accused Louis C.K. of sexual misconduct, though rumors began in 2015. In August 2018, he began his return to doing live comedy acts. He’s planned to tour, but COVID has paused it. He’s filmed two comedy specials and was a 2021 Grammy nominee.

Three women accused Ed Westwick of rape in 2017. In 2018, another woman said she was held hostage for two days and assaulted. He starred in Me You Madness, which released in 2021.

Brett Ratner was accused of assault, harassment, and rape by a number of people in 2017, including Olivia Munn. He also outed Elliot Page as gay when he was 18. He was a producer of Georgetown, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2019.

By the end of January 2018, eight women had reported assault or harassment by Jeremy Piven. He has since been involved in 7 films and has done at least one standup comedy show in San Francisco.

Seven women accused Dustin Hoffman of sexual misconduct in 2017. He also slapped Meryl Streep while filming in 1979. He has since been in three films and is attached to a fourth. He was set to return to Broadway in 2020.

Between 1991 and 2018, Steven Seagal was repeatedly accused of harassment and assault. He is also a Putin supporter and is a Russian special envoy to the US. He had a birthday party in Moscow in March 2022. Since the first allegations, he has been involved in over 50 films.

In February 2019, seven women accused Ryan Adams of offering to help with their careers, then harassing them or hindering their careers. One accuser was a minor. Another was his ex-wife, Mandy Moore, who also called him emotionally abusive. Since then, he’s released four albums

Over 15 people came forward accusing Kevin Spacey of sexual assault or harassment, some of them minors when Spacey approached them. He’s faced multiple lawsuits in the US and UK. He’s since starred in two movies currently in post-production.

 

[Hygro]

Aziz Ansari should be noted to have worked with Dave Chappelle. Truly, there is no justice.

 

[Narz]

Should someone not be able to work again after an accusation of misconduct?

 

[Gorbles]

Should someone not be able to work again after an accusation of misconduct?

This seems like a strawman.

 

[Ajidica]

In 2017, a number of accusations of assault and harassment came against Al Franken. Franken resigned from the Senate. Since then, a number of senators have said they regret calling for resignation. In February 2022, Franken admitted he regretted resigning and may run again. Franken currently hosts a podcast that’s in its third season. He also started touring in 2019, paused for COVID, and began making appearances and touring again late in 2021.

There is obviously a huge difference between being a popular and effective senator (winning re-election with a 11% lead) and hosting a podcast and some touring.
And to add, because people who were not in Minnesota in his 2008 election against Norm Coleman, it was ugly and brutal. The GOP was digging out audio recordings of writer room conversations from his time on Saturday Night Live to try and paint him as some sort of sex deviant. It was only after Franken was gaining newfound prominence after his very effective questioning of Jeff Sessions (I believe it was Franken's questions that forced Sessions to excuse himself from supervising the Mueller investigation) and Roger Stone admitted to looking for ways to smear Franken that Tweeden made a statement. Both Franken and Tweeden were active participants in a notoriously raunchy USO routine. (A routine were a few years earlier Tweeden was straddling and pretending to hump male comedians.) Subsequent investigations by the New Yorker and Politico make it clear that the allegations were pushed as a plot to smear Franken and Tweeden's statements on the matter show serious inconsistencies.
Other allegations against Franken - that he groped a woman while on stage at a grip-and-grimace, surrounded by people, cameras, and his wife - are ridiculous.

End result? Kirstin Gillibrand got to be tv-famous for a few minutes before fading into obscurity, and one of the best Democratic communicators got smeared and exiled.

Saying "Cancel culture isn't real because a former senator is now hosting a podcast" isn't the win you think it is.

 

[Narz]

This seems like a strawman.

It's a question actually.

 

[Sommerswerd]

It's a question actually.

I'd say the answer has to be no, people shouldn't be precluded from working after an accusation of misconduct. I think your question got called a strawman, because it doesn't appear that anyone suggested that they should be, particularly the post(s) you seemed to be responding to with that question. In other words, you appeared to be creating a fake, absurd, opposing argument that you could position yourself against, ostensibly as the voice of reason. Whether you were intentionally trying to do that or not, is a separate issue, but I can certainly see how it may have come off that way.

Should someone not be able to work again after an accusation of misconduct?

As I see it, the point of the article, was to highlight that the narrative that Me Too "destroys" everyone accused of Me Too related misconduct, is way overblown at best and more or less false at worst. So your question, assuming it was directed at the article's point, was based on an incorrect premise. Its not that people should be destroyed by Me Too... its that they aren't, and the claim that they are is a lie.

It doesn't matter how you define yourself. Others define you. Noone self-defines as a douche either. Must one be versed in the lore of douchery before one dubs another a douche?

That's one aspect of a point that I often raise about allegations of racism. Pretty much no one self-identifies as "a racist". Others define them that way, based on their statements, positions, ideologies, politics, actions, biases, etc., and its little defense for someone to claim that they do not consider themselves to be racist, to have conducted themselves in a racially discriminatory manner, or to be harboring racially prejudiced ideology or positions. That's for others to be the judge of, not them.