First: it is absolutely intolerable that you get pressured to disclose
being a survivor because of what you write. I know you know I know that
but...just saying it anyway. I've had less extreme experiences along those
lines and it was indescribably awful.
You make a very good point about it mattering who exactly is getting
criticised, and how. Which is something antis actively erase, even though
paying attention to social power is the basic point any social justice
analysis has to start from or it's automatically useless. I am going to
think about it then edit my post, because it doesn't go without saying.
The way good arguments get coopted to justify harassment etc makes it so
hard to have a productive conversation. And unfortunately it goes both
ways. Look at the coopting of "cancel culture" by white male celebrities,
which of course then gets used as an excuse by antis to say anyone
criticising it is the equivalent of a whiny white male celebrity etc. Did
you know "politically correct" originally gained popularity as a way for
feminists etc to gently poke fun at themselves for being too rigid? And
look at the way nazis grabbed onto the idea of free speech, to the extent
that people now view the very phrase "free speech" as a right-wing
dog-whistle. How do we have a productive discussion of free speech in that
context? :(
I don't have much personal interaction with antis so it's less immediately
fraught for me, but I totally get why you'd have an intense negative
reaction to any arguments which superficially resemble theirs.
My immediate emotional reactions are a bit different, from years of being
made to feel like a bad person for mentioning that I thought Stargate was
maybe a bit racist etc, and I do worry fandom could swing back to that.
Especially since I've seen older anti-antis who very explicitly think
fandom's approach back then was 100% ok. Though in more recent years I've
also been made to feel bad for defending the existence of ~problematic
subjects in porn, and I do also have the worry we'll swing further into
anti-ness than we have already. I worry in two directions /o\
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First: it is absolutely intolerable that you get pressured to disclose being a survivor because of what you write. I know you know I know that but...just saying it anyway. I've had less extreme experiences along those lines and it was indescribably awful.
You make a very good point about it mattering who exactly is getting criticised, and how. Which is something antis actively erase, even though paying attention to social power is the basic point any social justice analysis has to start from or it's automatically useless. I am going to think about it then edit my post, because it doesn't go without saying.
The way good arguments get coopted to justify harassment etc makes it so hard to have a productive conversation. And unfortunately it goes both ways. Look at the coopting of "cancel culture" by white male celebrities, which of course then gets used as an excuse by antis to say anyone criticising it is the equivalent of a whiny white male celebrity etc. Did you know "politically correct" originally gained popularity as a way for feminists etc to gently poke fun at themselves for being too rigid? And look at the way nazis grabbed onto the idea of free speech, to the extent that people now view the very phrase "free speech" as a right-wing dog-whistle. How do we have a productive discussion of free speech in that context? :(
I don't have much personal interaction with antis so it's less immediately fraught for me, but I totally get why you'd have an intense negative reaction to any arguments which superficially resemble theirs.
My immediate emotional reactions are a bit different, from years of being made to feel like a bad person for mentioning that I thought Stargate was maybe a bit racist etc, and I do worry fandom could swing back to that. Especially since I've seen older anti-antis who very explicitly think fandom's approach back then was 100% ok. Though in more recent years I've also been made to feel bad for defending the existence of ~problematic subjects in porn, and I do also have the worry we'll swing further into anti-ness than we have already. I worry in two directions /o\