Thoughts on triggers and warnings

[sqbr]

Recently in fandom there's been a big argument about warnings on posts. The best summary, imo, is Warnings Wank In Bandom on Unfunny Business, but if you haven't encountered the idea of people being triggered by descriptions of sexual assault I recommend Triggers and Trauma and Sexual Assault, Triggering, and Warnings: An Essay(Warning: Very explicit discussion of sexual assault and the nature, anatomy, cause & effect of triggers. Is itself triggery.).

This post is a collection of thoughts on the issue, not all restricted to fanfic.

I don't have any triggers myself. There are topics which tend to upset me, and certain kinds of fiction which make me feel bad, but that's not the same thing. What I do have is friends with triggers. I've read enough descriptions of what a trigger is like to NOT want to do that to anyone (especially not anyone I care about), and I've been very politely informed that I've inadvertently caused one enough (ie at least once) to be VERY careful, though still not always careful enough.

And for me this has nothing to do with "community norms". For example, I put this under a cut, not out of peer pressure, not because I thought anyone would yell at me, but because I didn't want to cause my friends or anyone else extra pain. (I didn't add "Warning: About triggers, may cause triggers" because I can't see that being helpful. I'm open to correction on this though) You can never totally avoid hurting some people sometimes, but we can all do our best and try and learn from our mistakes.

People talk about how movies and tv etc don't have warnings but, well..why shouldn't they? Maybe the fact they don't is a sign of the way that mainstream media is less responsive to the feelings of it's viewers than fanfic fandom. EDIT: Sorry, I expressed that badly. I agree that there are lots of things that act like warnings (reviews and trailers etc). But even if there wasn't that wouldn't necessarily make it ok for us not to warn anyway: "as good as mainstream culture" is a pretty crappy standard to hold yourself to when it comes to stuff like accessibility.

Also I've seen a few people imply that it's appropriative to talk about this in terms of privilege etc but I really don't think it is. As a disabled person, I see this as an accessibility problem, and people being privileged prats about it are being ableist(*). Not all the people it affects are actually disabled, but afaict(**) the relationship between triggering and related psychological problems like PTSD and suicidal depression etc is similar to the relationship between "having problems with stairs" and related physical problems like quadriplegia: on the whole the more hurdles and prejudice that person faces in everyday life the worse they will be affected by the accessibility problem, so contributing to that problem unnecessarily or refusing to acknowledge it is thoughtless and ableist.

I have seen some people saying "This is EXACTLY like racism/RaceFail" etc which is appropriative imo. There are some striking similarities in the way people defend their privilege, but some pretty important differences too. I guess the problem is that fandom doesn't have the language to deal with disability as it's own separate thing (Yet. I say optimistically. Though I imagine the only way we'll get there is via DisabilityFail :/)

I think the thing that annoys me the most from (EDIT: some of) the less Totally Failtastic commenters is that sometimes they make reasonable points but it's clear that even if they're willing to warn sometimes they still see the feelings of people who get triggered as important but secondary to their own convenience, and will for example make no particular effort to denounce the extreme anti-warning people while simultaneously complaining about being lumped in with them. EDIT: Not everyone who has criticisms of some of the ways warnings are currently implemented is doing this, and some of those criticisms are imo valid.

So I won't stand for that here: If you don't want people to assume that you're a prat who doesn't care about the feelings of people with triggers, make it clear that you do (and not by concern trolling).

EDIT: Reading some more I think that while I haven't seen anyone being pro-warnings with the same intense nastiness as some of the anti-warnings people, there is still some unfortunate over-generalising and not-listening. Right. More, on warnings. is the best post I've seen on this so far, though I think a small minority of people ARE being malicious. Also an important point I've seen made is that painting anyone who's not 100% unambiguously pro warnings as "anti survivors of sexual assault" is unfair to survivors who are NOT triggered and/or use BDSM etc as a way of working through their issues etc.

(*)Of course other disabled people (especially those with a more relevant disability) are welcome to disagree.
(**)And I don't know a lot about these sorts of psychological issues, so my apologies if I'm spouting crap. Also I realise a lot of people use "psychological problems" as code for "reasons I can dismiss you as irrational and inhuman" but that is the opposite of my intention. AND that I still don't have a major grip on what does and does not count as a disability (and I both wouldn't want to apply the term to someone who doesn't identify as disabled and wouldn't want to tell a disabled person that they "don't count")

Comments

[sami]

There's an excellent explanation of the basic psychology here, in Adjacent Posts On My Reading Page News.

Also, it's worth noting that mainstream TV/film have *ratings* that are reasonably meaningful; I can make pretty safe calls on that, as a rule. (With the exception of the time I got triggered unexpectedly watching The Dark Knight, because it turns out car crashes could, then, trigger me somewhat. But that's a very different thing, and I've since had treatment for my accident-related PTSD.)

[sqbr]

*nods* I'd heard the "trailers act like warnings" thing and can see how that would work, I just didn't include it very well in my post :) *edits*

That's a very good post, thanks. *edits again to add*

Look at you, making me edit my post! What about my Artistic Integrity?! :)

[velithya]

YOUR ARTISTIC INTEGRITY IS A TWILIGHT VAMPIRE?!

[sqbr]

YES

[velithya]

YOUR ARTISTIC INTEGRITY HAS THE SKIN OF A KILLER

[tree]

what i've seen of people bringing up racefail has been related to "didn't we just learn how not to treat people in these ways" and "gee, a couple of those people who were so vocal about racefail are SO NOT getting it now and are, in fact, employing many of the same tactics they have fought so hard against."

"People talk about how movies and tv etc don't have warnings but, well..why shouldn't they? Maybe the fact they don't is a sign of the way that mainstream media is less responsive to the feelings of it's viewers than fanfic fandom."

i have to disagree with that, and i've seen others do so elsewhere. films and tv have trailers, they have ratings and, at least here in australia, the ratings have reasons; they have genres and reviews. books also have genres, as well as blurbs and reviews. i suspect it would take effort to not be at least superficially aware of the basic content of most commercial releases.

fan creations are another matter as their dissemination is predicated entirely upon the goodwill of the creator. a summary may or may not exist and may or may not actually tell you anything about the fic's contents. an NC-17/mature rating may refer to explicit consensual sex or rape or violence or any number of permutations.

and that's just one of the reasons why the cries of 'free speech' and 'artistic integrity' are so ridiculous. it's okay if you (general) have to disclose because it's the law; but if a bunch of people are asking you to do it because your content might hurt them, that's totally impinging upon your rights. i fail to understand this logic.

[sqbr]

Most of the RaceFail references I've seen have been as you describe, and none of them were too bad, but here and there it felt like it was skirting a bit close to actually equating the two imbroglios rather than pointing out that they're very similar. I don't think it's a huge deal, but felt it was worth noting.

i have to disagree with that

We don't disagree so much as I expressed myself badly! I think it's important to note that there's ratings etc for most commercial fiction which act a lot like warnings (and I've edited my post to reflect that) but it's also important not to act like it's ok for us to do (or not do) something just because mainstream media does anyway. Basically: I think the "But books don't have warnings!" argument is irrelevant as well as incorrect :)

I did actually see someone complaining about the existence of genres and rating etc in mainstream fiction as being part of the same Poison To Artistic Expression as fanfic warnings, and perilously close to censorship. Though I'll admit, I may have missed the subtleties of their argument since didn't get very far into their post before back buttoning >:/

Also, totally off topic: are you the same tree as on JournalFen?

[tree]

aha! i see that sami already made that point for me.

i'm not! and i cannot express how odd it was to see me commenting when it wasn't, y'know, me. scary alternate universe type thing! i am tree here and on lj and at the archive and in OTW. i have been tree for so long that i think of myself as tree much more than i think of myself as realname. and now there is this other tree. i do not even know how to cope.

(apologies for making this entire comment about my angst!)

[sqbr]

There is afaict only one other sqbr in the world, a scandinavian scientific researcher with a name like Britt Sørensen.

But, as I discovered recently reading this latest round of meta and thinking "Wait, did I post on this already?", someone has taken advantage of my "Use any of the non-personalised icons with credit" policy with this icon. And now that someone's done it I find it actually does bother me :( *goes to edit policy* *ponders asking her if she'd be ok with me making her a slightly differently coloured version*

[aris_tgd]

Basically: I think the "But books don't have warnings!" argument is irrelevant as well as incorrect :)

I don't know, though. People have brought up Goodkind, and also Let The Right One In, which I just finished reading. I can't speak for the former, but if I'd just read the cover blurbs and the summary as provided to me in the bookstore when I purchased the latter object, I would think, "Hey, neat vampire book!" and not "OMG MOLESTATION," which is ACTUALLY IN THE BOOK and not "warned for" anywhere in the promo material.

In order to find out more information about these things, you have to go to other sources--like reviews, like book rating communities, like your friends ("hey, you've seen this movie, would I like it?" "well, it's kinda pedophiletastic." "oh, not my speed then.") Which is... just what the no-ratings people are suggesting can be employed if you are unsure about a particular fic which has no warnings on it.

Now, I'm of the opinion that there should be a way to warn for things that aren't necessarily going to show up in the summary, right there on the content. And this is made infinitely easier by us being on the internet and able to use hyperlinks and formatting. But I don't think the argument is "Books don't have warnings, so fic should never have warnings!" I think the argument is, "Books don't have warnings, and we have several ways of dealing with that. If a fic doesn't have warnings, perhaps there are some things we could do to deal with that, as well, which will help protect your health while we attempt to convince the entire internet that triggers are a real concern?"

I think also the argument "I prefer to read fic without warnings, so I would like there to be a way for me to customize my fic-reading experiences" is NOT "and do so at the expense of yours". I think there is too much of a lean on the "personal journal is personal" assumption--which doesn't clock out unless you are locking all your content, in which case go nuts--and I think it's wrong to have a no-warnings policy that you do not make explicit, ESPECIALLY if you have potentially triggering material in your fics.

... basically, I think the current system is broken, but I think that there are ways to fix the system which will needlessly make people unhappy. Which yeah, is better than hurting people, but there have got to be ways to address the real concerns that the no-warnings-for-me-thanks folks are bringing up while clearing away the bullshit concerns. "It's too haaaaaaaaard" is not a real argument, but "I don't want to give the impression that I warn for something that I don't, and accidentally hurt someone who clicks on my 'no warnings' story and finds animal harm" I think IS. I think there are ways of dealing with that, but "Oh just warn for the common triggers" is not the only thing that needs to happen for a solution.

[sqbr]

I guess overall what it boils down to for me is: people who get triggered are the only ones who can judge how triggers work and what is or is not a practical strategy for them to use to avoid triggers. Since a lot of them are also writers of stuff which triggers other people they can also judge what is practical for writers to do. So if they say warnings is the best solution for fanfic and that while it seems like mainstream media doesn't have warnings in effect it does(*), then even though I don't totally see how that works I have to take it as read.

Which isn't to say the warnings system couldn't use fixing/support from other measures. And there are people discussing this in a thoughtful "But what do people with triggers think?" sort of way, and they are not the ones I'm complaining about. *rereads paragraph* Yeah, I didn't make that clear: I think some critical-of-warnings-as-currently-implemented people are ok. I just get annoyed at those whose basic point is sound but who express themselves in really privileged hurtful ways. *edits*

To be honest I don't have any strong opinions on the nitty gritty of how warnings should be dealt with since I don't have triggers, don't write anything that needs warnings, and tend to avoid those stories where possible but am not Totally Messed Up if I read one.

(*)The fact it doesn't always work is I suppose equivalent to the fact that fanfic warnings don't always work either.

[aris_tgd]

I'm just annoyed at the moment about people on both sides of the issue mocking the arguments of the other side--I'm angry about people dismissing survivors' views and pain, of course, but I'm also annoyed that people are assuming things about the other side of the argument, since I think that's not productive. I do think that people on that side of the argument have been showing their privilege around, though, and that's not cool.

Part of this is that I have a really clear idea of what my own position on the matter is, and what I mean when I say "If you read a story that has no warnings and is not in a space that requires warnings, like a personal journal, and you have no idea what the author feels about warnings, you are indeed taking a risk." That's really meant to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. And there is a lot of fandom that requires warnings and I think this discussion has brought up why warnings are important and has educated more people about warning--me included. I just don't see how "It is ENTIRELY THEIR FAULT for not putting a warning on a story" is helpful when the reader did, in fact, read the story when it didn't have full header information on it. I don't ever want to discount the pain of finding something you thought was safe was in fact not, on top of actual triggering, but I would like to focus on concrete things that we as fandom and we as individual fans can do to stop people from getting hurt, instead of pretending that there is actually a fandomwide consensus on ANYTHING, including warnings, and calling out people who do not conform to this imaginary consensus.

There just is no fandomwide consensus, and I don't think the people who pointed this out as a possible tool to help people who have been triggered stop being triggered deserve some of the stuff that has been heaped on them. (Though I think there has been some victim-blaming going on in some of the comments, and some shaming, which is wrong.) Argh. I'm mad that this whole thing has gotten focused on people being awful to each other instead of on helping people.

Waugh. I'm going to go back to hiding out here in the real world.

[sqbr]

I do agree there's been too much overgeneralising. I think the people who are totally against warnings are being ableist and in some cases quite aggressively nasty, and unfortunately they started the fight off on a bad foot and keep popping up to keep the pro warnings people on the defensive.

After writing this post I've been thinking and reading some more and I am a bit concerned about how simplistically the argument is being portrayed, which glosses over the not-ableist misgivings some people have with the warnings system. Looking at metafandom there does also seem to be some more nuanced discussion going though.

mass media warnings

[aquaeri]

I agree mass media sort of has warnings, and fanfic can and probably should do better. My personal problem is with visual media (movies, TV shows) that regard sex as "worse" than violence and the level of rating tends to be mostly about the violence level. Whereas no-one wants to make stuff with perfectly harmless, part-of-the-plot sex because that would require a high rating, so they might as well stick lots of violence and swearing in as well. (I'm Scandinavian, and we tend to have rather the opposite attitude - is the behaviour shown criminal or not?)

So I don't just want ratings, but ratings attached to categories - this movie has R-level violence, while this movie has R-rated sex, but the violence is PG (which is an incredibly rare movie in English).

And I do think this ties into patriarchy etc - what the "mainstream" thinks is acceptable at different ratings levels seems to be more a mainstream male point of view than a female one. And certainly a heterosexual one, and white as far as I can tell.

And then, if I'm dreaming, I wouldn't mind warnings/ratings to do with racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, etc. So I could decide if I had the stomach for those things ahead of time.

Re: mass media warnings

[sqbr]

Agreed to all this, plus I'd like "warnings/ratings to do with racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, etc" for fanfic too :/

Re: mass media warnings

[aquaeri]

Oh absolutely! (I should get some kind of "and a pony too" icons)

By the way, the text box I'm typing in is partly hidden underneath your right-hand-side "Links" and "most popular tags" boxes. I haven't noticed this on anyone else's DW layout.

Re: mass media warnings

[sqbr]

Huuuuh. That's odd. Do you have a big/small resolution or something? I did mess with the css a bit. Does it interfere with functionality too much?

DW formatting

[aquaeri]

I don't know what I'm doing differently here. It's definitely to do with screen size. If I maximise my browser window, the right boxes move right out of the way. (I've just got so much junk on my desktop I don't always want to do that).

Anyway, as I change the width of the browser window, the text on the left re-wraps narrower, but the content of "reply" box stays a fixed size. It might not be you, it might be some limitation of how the reply box is implemented, and fixed right hand side info.

If you really wanted to get fancy, you could perhaps get the decorative blue side strips to narrow more rapidly as the browser window narrows.

Re: DW formatting

[sqbr]

Wait I see what you mean now! Yeah that happens to me too I'd just never really noticed.

Unfortunately I made this style while I had a paid account so am very cautious about changing it. But I'll put "carefully poking at the settings" on my to-do list.

[ex_peasant441]

You seem to be saying that we have a moral imperative to support people with triggers and that anything other than actively saying we support them is wrong.

The problem with that is it closes the debate down in the same way that the racism debate has been closed down. It puts people on the anti-warnings side under huge social pressure and hence makes it very difficult for them to say anything calmly at all. Now that is an excellent way to 'win' an argument if all you want to do is impose your own standard as the socially imposed norm, but it is not the way to win an argument in real terms. Imposing a social etiquette is not the same as getting people to actually welcome a stance that they disagree with, it is simply slapping a plaster over a still festering wound - and sooner or later the puss will build back up and leak out. We see this happen time and time again with racism on LJ - the FOC and their allies have indeed gained control of the discussion, very successfully so, but since there are huge swathes of fandom who have not been convinced by their actual arguments, things fester under the surface, it's just very very difficult to talk about them.

I actually find what is happening with the warnings debate quite heartening. It did indeed start out with similarities to the race debates - with an emotional appeal, provoking very emotional responses and rapidly degenerating into some quite appalling name calling and bad behaviour from both sides. But then something rather unusual seems to have happened. The initial posters seem to have got emotionally exhausted quite quickly, and withdrawn from the discussion, but new posters have stepped up and are engaging in what is actually a very civilised and non-emotional debate. And the result is I am actually really learning things about why the anti-warners hold the opinions that they do. I won't say that I have been swayed to their side yet, but I certainly have a much better understanding of their opinion and am less likely to just dismiss it out of hand.

However, I do feel strongly that one of the reasons why this dispassionate debate has become possible is precisely because people on the pro-warnings side are not all claiming it as a moral imperative to agree with them. When I made my own post I very carefully worded it not as 'this is what I think you ought to do' but as 'this is what I do - take it or leave it' because I felt the former was a way to close the debate down while the latter was a way to leave it as a discussion, a topic for consideration rather than something to feel worried about.

Not that my post actually garnered many comments, but I can see evidence in other people's oblique mentions that they read it and have digested its intent, and it certainly didn't attract wank which was my main fear when I posted.

I'm not saying that one should never come out and say that one supports a disadvantaged set of people, but sometimes it is better left unsaid.

[sqbr]

HMMM. So..I disagree with almost everything you've said for a range of different reasons. Here's an attempt at covering all the different bits.

You seem to be saying that we have a moral imperative to support people with triggers

Depends what you mean by support, this may be covered in my next post on the topic.

anything other than actively saying we support them is wrong

Well, silence on the issue is fine. But if you come into an emotionally charged polarised conversation like this where a bunch of really nasty stuff has been said by people who superficially agree with you, I think it's important to make it clear that you don't support their position if you don't want to people to think you do. Note: After writing this post I decided that enough (less but still unacceptably) bad stuff had been said by people who superficially agreed with me that I needed to make my own more nuanced position clear too, hence my second post.

I think this does the opposite of closing down the debate. I'm not saying certain POVs shouldn't be shared(*), I'm saying they should be expressed carefully to avoid being misinterpreted or inadvertently hurtful.

Are you saying people whose feelings have been hurt by racism/triggers etc shouldn't express that hurt, because it will make the people who are perceived as having hurt them defensive? Because if so that's an absurd double standard. Why then shouldn't it be the people who are hurt by the accusations of being hurtful(**) who keep their emotions in check? Because in both RaceFail and this discussion it was them who got really angry and abusive and defensive in large numbers first, and continued to be the source of the worst nastiness throughout.

I'm going to have to leave the costs and benefits of social expectation bit for now because it's too complicated. But while I agree that an overly rigid social code is harmful (and the pro-warnings stance has tended that way in some cases) I don't agree with your overall analysis.

And I'm not comfortable with your comparison to RaceFail: being anti-warning is not the same as being racist.

(*)Well, I am, but only the ones that are 100% totally without merit, which most aren't.
(**)Which is not the main motivation behind a lot of the not-totally-pro-warnings people, but it seems to be for some of them.

[ex_peasant441]

But if you come into an emotionally charged polarised conversation like this where a bunch of really nasty stuff has been said by people who superficially agree with you, I think it's important to make it clear that you don't support their position if you don't want to people to think you do.

I think I'd rather just try to make my own points and hope its own tone will speak for itself. But maybe you are right and this is something I have been doing wrong - maybe that is why I so often get an extremely hostile reaction and people assuming I am saying things that I am not. Hmm, needs pondering.

Are you saying people whose feelings have been hurt by racism/triggers etc shouldn't express that hurt

No, absolutely not. I think people who are hurt by anything should be entitled to express that hurt in whatever way they see fit and that it can serve a useful and vital service to their 'cause' when they do so. Not least because none of us would even know about these social justice matters unless they happened to affect us directly without the hurt expressing their hurt.

However, I am also saying that anyone who wishes to encourage discussion of an issue, as opposed to just trying to get their own way (although encouraging discussion can be a vital first step to ultimately getting your way, so the two aren't mutually exclusive) will be best served by avoiding anything that closes down the debate. In most cases this includes avoiding an emotional tone. So since the people who have been hurt and the people most trying to encourage discussion are frequently the same people, they are going to have to make an individual decision each time they engage about what they most wish to achieve that time round. This sucks but I reckon it's an unavoidable fact of life. I don't see it as a case of one side or the other having to be less emotional, because really there are never only two sides in these matters. It is a case of each individual taking a personal decision about what they can best do to help achieve whatever they personally wish to achieve.

I'll respond to the comparison to racefail thing in a separate comment.

[sqbr]

Oh, I didn't mean YOU "you", I meant general "you". Though I don't know, it may apply to YOU you too, I know that being really careful about how I could be interpreted seems to have cut down the amount of time people spend pissed off at me.

I ...really am not convinced that an "emotional tone" is the problem here. I think emotive arguments have been misused, but there's a big difference between "Action X hurts my feelings like so, and in my opinion the best way to avoid X is to take action Y" and "If you don't take action Y then you obviously WANT to hurt my/their feelings". And a lot of the people saying the second sort of statement are not, afaict, all that emotionally hurt to begin with.

[ex_peasant441]

I guess I may have a stronger dislike of emotional tones than many people. I equate emotion with being out of control and therefore illogical and bad argument and I find it almost impossible to treat anyone with respect if they are being emotional - my instant reaction is to try to diffuse the situation with humour or try to calm them down some other way. Which come to think of it they probably interpret as belittling or silencing. I don't know how common that reaction would be - it would certainly be pretty standard amongst my class of English people, but I am well aware I am in a minority in fandom.

But in undoubtedly wider terms, I think that a lot of the problem boils down to the large sections of fandom who react very badly to being told what to do. So anything that even smacks of 'do X or you are a bad person' or 'do X or we will attack you for doing it' gets an immediate response of 'f--- off, I'm going to go do X'. And yes, it is a noticeable trend that it is the so called allies who most often use the strongest blackmail. I'm not quite sure why that is, but it is a huge shame because the allies are often in the strongest position to persuade non-allies to agree to the desired action voluntarily.

Speaking of which, I realised something the other day. I've often seen it said that a POC will make some point about racism and be ignored, but then when a white person says exactly the same thing other whites will immediately agree. I've never actually seen it myself, but I did wonder why that might be the case. (I'm assuming here that we both agree most white people don't harbour some obscure prejudice that makes them believe all POC are stupid or liars.) Then it occurred to me that if I think in terms of my 'being asked to pay a price' metaphor, it makes perfect sense. The POC can only talk about requesting the price be paid for them, but in most instances only a white ally can say with any authority 'I have willingly paid this price and find it a perfectly acceptable one to pay'. That then is why their voice has so much more value and authority for other white people. What do you think?

[sqbr]

Which come to think of it they probably interpret as belittling or silencing

Yes, I think they would.

we both agree most white people don't harbour some obscure prejudice that makes them believe all POC are stupid or liars

Actually, no, I think we do have that prejudice, or something like it, but mostly subconsciously. I'm pretty sure that studies have shown that identical opinions are taken less seriously if they appear to be from POC/women etc (see these links). I know trans people have reported dramatic changes in the way their opinions are accepted. And this is regardless of whether or not we're talking about race/gender etc.

I mean I think the effect you're talking about happens too. But I definitely don't think that's all there is to it.

[ex_peasant441]

Actually, no, I think we do have that prejudice, or something like it, but mostly subconsciously. I'm pretty sure that studies have shown that identical opinions are taken less seriously if they appear to be from POC/women etc (see these links). I know trans people have reported dramatic changes in the way their opinions are accepted. And this is regardless of whether or not we're talking about race/gender etc.

I'm not doubting the phenomenon, just the mechanism. I always hate the notion of subconscious beliefs that we don't even know we have and yet somehow come through and infect our behaviour. Freud and all that stuff about doing things because your mother once wiped your bum with her left hand just makes no sense to me. If I believe something, I reckon that I know I believe it. And I reckon other people would know their own beliefs as well and it would get talked about. Besides, if we did have some big subconscious belief that all POC/women were liars/unreliable, how is it being transmitted if it is subconscious? I have the social skills of a slug, half the time I can't pick up cultural traits that are fully acknowledged, talked about and directly taught, so the chances of me developing ones that other people are only transmitting subconsciously strikes me as slim.

So I reckon we have tribalism - which is pretty atavistic hence it being hard to stamp out. But in situations when the signals for tribalism are muted, such as the internet because you can't see people and you can't hear them, then I reckon the starting place to look for why the message isn't getting across has to be internal in the message itself. That would also help explain why POC sometimes complain about not being heard even in situations where the person ignoring them didn't even realise they were POC. In real life face to face contact tribalism is probably the bigger factor, on the net it could well take second place. And the great advantage of looking at the message not the beliefs of the recipient, is that it is something under the control of the person doing the talking - so a positive way in to make changes. I can't change someone else's subconscious beliefs about me, but I can modulate the message I use to talk to them, and that gives me hope.

Make sense?

[sqbr]

Sorry I took so long to reply, I was trying to formulate a deep response but I don't have one.

So: Your POV makes sense, but I disagree with it.

And that's really all I can think of to say! (Since I think my opinion is fairly clear from previous comments)

[ex_peasant441]

Yep, looks as if we've whittled this one down to one of the fundamental belief differences, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. :)

[sqbr]

*nods*

[ex_peasant441]

And I'm not comfortable with your comparison to RaceFail: being anti-warning is not the same as being racist.

No, not exactly the same, but the similarities are striking and I think instructive.

In both cases:

• A set of disadvantaged people (D) are being hurt by the actions of others
• A set of writers (W) are being asked to adjust their behaviour to prevent this hurt
• A set of bystanders (B) without a direct stake in either direction are also pitching in with their opinions
• A set of avoiders (A) are trying to stay out of the whole business

In each case, set W have to weigh up numerous factors before deciding to do whatever it is that D is requesting. These include (but are not limited to):

• deciding whether they believe the Ds have a genuine grievance
• deciding whether they wish to try to help
• deciding whether there is actually a valid solution on offer
• deciding whether they will themselves suffer inconvenience or difficulty in complying
• deciding whether they will themselves suffer inconvenience or difficulty in not complying

And in both cases each individual W will be further influenced in the choices they make by similar factors:

• their pre-existing prejudices about the Ds
• the tone the Ds are using
• how their personality responds to that type of tone
• what their friend, enemies and general community are doing
• what their own moral/logical background instructs them to do

And meanwhile the Ds and their allied Bs are experiencing some or all of the following:

• trying to use moral and social pressure/blackmail to influence the outcome
• having to cope with their own emotional reaction to a subject that affects them strongly
• worrying about the social pressures the wank is causing amongst their own friends and fandom
• dealing with answering a lot of questions about some very personal matters
• etc.

Really the only difference is in exactly who is affected, how they are affected and hence exactly what measures they want the writers to take.

[sqbr]

I think what you've described (A single central argument which neatly divides with most of D on one side) is halfway between the two dynamics. Also in both arguments there's writers on both "sides" and lots of in-between or tangential positions people took rather than dividing neatly.

The warnings debate is, at heart, about the question "Should everyone use warnings?", and then, if so, what does that mean eg what its the consequence of not using them, who counts as "everyone", what counts as a warning, etc. Now it has become clear that NOT using warnings has implications with regard to people with triggers, so some people have framed the question as "Should everyone make an effort to help people avoid triggers?". But as time goes on it's clear that using warnings and respecting the needs of people with triggers, while related, are not identical goals, and in some cases are contradictory.

Meanwhile RaceFail had no central question or argument. People just started talking about race and racism on a particular topic, and then started arguing, and that started more arguments, and then people got inspired by those arguments to take a stand against broader issues relating to race or attack those they felt had behaved badly, and it exploded from there. I mean questions about writing The Other were central to the initial dispute, and came up repeatedly, but many of the arguments weren't about that at all eg afaict most POC agreed with Elizabeth Bear's stated opinions on writing The Other, it was everything else she said and did that upset them.

Hmm. I'm not 100% happy with this reply, it really hasn't captured everything I want to get across, but I think it's going to have to do.

[ex_peasant441]

afaict most POC agreed with Elizabeth Bear's stated opinions on writing The Other

That just leaves me gobsmacked. And illustrates why racefail was an utter fail because I had no idea that any POC or allies agreed with Elizabeth Bear's ideas about writing The Other. The main impression I had got was that they disagreed vehemently with both her theory and how she put it in practice in her own writing.

OK, still blinking in shock, but I'll try to answer your other points.

I thoroughly agree that the sets D and W overlap and aren't neat distinctive groupings. When I was planning that comment I fully meant to stress that point but then it obviously got forgotten when I actually wrote. (Coding lists takes far too much concentration - sometimes I hate writing accessible comments.)

The warnings debate is certainly simpler and smaller, but I still reckon we can draw informative parallels and learn from the comparison. Although if Racefail wasn't actually about what I thought it was about then maybe the parallels are less useful.

My unreliable perspective

[sqbr]

I might have overstated (for a start, I came into the discussion a bit late). But afaict while some people feel EBears fiction is racist, it's not considered super-amazingly racist just somewhat problematic, and her first non-fiction post about writing the Other was very well received by pretty much everyone. The initial problem was that her writing, while not super-racist, is still apparently more racist than you'd expect for someone being so smug about how to write in a not-racist way. And the REAL problem was how she reacted, not even to the criticism itself, but to other people's reaction to the criticism (and then how she reacted to people's reactions to that, etc). It descended into a cycle of people over-reacting to criticism involving race, and then other people criticising that over-reaction, and people over-reacting to that criticism, etc. So the central issue becomes "People over-react to criticisms involving race". And by it's very nature, such a complaint is going to descend into a nasty cycle, although on the plus side it continually provides it's own proof.

This is quite different to MammothFail, where for a long time Patricia C Wrede wasn't involved in the discussion at all and people really were just criticising her book and the ideas behind it (although other people's reactions to that criticism fueled it's own RaceFail-esque dynamic at the same time)