Tervacious

Leigh: What about the doctrine of “live and let live” and civil liberties issues?

Audre: I don’t see that as the point. I’m not questioning anyone’s right to live. I’m saying we must observe the courses and implications of our lives. If we are talking about feminism then the personal is political and we can subject everything in our lives to scrutiny. We have been nurtured in a sick, abnormal society, and we should be in the process of reclaiming ourselves, not the terms of that society. This is complex. I speak not about condemnation but about recognizing what is happening and questioning what it means. I’m not willing to regiment anyone’s life. If we are to scrutinize our human relationships, we must be willing to scrutinize all aspects of those relationships. The subject of revolution is ourselves, is our lives.

Sadomasochism is an institutionalized celebration of dominant/subordinate relationships. And, it prepares us either to accept subordination or to enforce dominance. Even in play, to affirm that the exertion of power over powerlessness is erotic, is empowering, is to set the emotional and social stage for the continuation of that relationship, politically, socially and economically.

This is a brilliant analysis of something I’ve been watching for only a few months.

I don’t personally understand the fear so many people have of free speech.  I don’t get it when women and girls cower in the face of mean words online, for example, I mean we’re the superior sex when it comes to using our words, yet I’m constantly reading often grown-ass women crying and running away from online forums because... I don’t know.  I can’t figure it out.  I’m not talking about people who choose to limit or not participate in toxic hatefests, I’m talking about people who claim victimhood and abuse and want things or other people shut down because they’re scared to assert themselves.  I’m not a fan of Kiwi Farms, but I’m a grownup who can fucking handle herself, I’m not sure why this degree of fear is such a thing.

So this article articulates the way those fears are manipulated by assholes who actually don’t have those fears because they have de facto power granted to them by those who absolutely want to control and censor speech and, most importantly, thought.  The idea this is all disconnected is naive.  It’s all one thing, with different groups of people attempting to leverage whatever for what they want, and if what YOU want is freedom from fear, honey, oh honey, there’s no such thing, and there’s no freedom to be found there.

I’m pretty much a free speech absolutist.  I guess the limit is shit like crimes being openly discussed so others will join in?  Plotting violence and ginning up violence?  Maybe that’s my limit.  But generally free speech and expression is DIRECTLY TIED TO FREE THOUGHT.  An excerpt:

As the major discussion forums make it impossible to discuss certain sacred cows (transgender ideology, virus vaccination, and other politicized topics), people have flocked to less moderated spaces where group think more easily sets in, growing insular communities untempered by the need to justify beliefs or opinions to interested onlookers. As Kaitlyn Tiffany noted in The Atlantic, those ejected from mainstream forums carry resentment about their treatment on more open platforms. Persecuting people by banning their speech is a potent recipe for distilling anger at the outside world.

and

Let’s look at the belligerents and put things in context. There is Kiwi Farms, a forum which publishes personal contact information and enables harassment, but which also collects and analyzes information ignored by the entirety of the media. There is Clara Sorrenti and friends, online drama personalities who are monetizing attention. There is Taylor Lorenz, Ben Collins, and the other representatives of the mainstream media who have repeatedly signaled the desire to control the dissemination of information online. Finally, there is Cloudflare, a critical provider of internet services. At a high level, this is a spat between an internet gossip group, an irresponsible journalist nursing a grudge, and an internet clown. At the ground level, this is potentially the end of open expression on the internet. If providers of backbone services can be moved away from neutrality once, they will be moved again. This will become a recurring tactic to drive unpopular speech off the internet.

 And an FYI, somehow this essay gets better from there.

Anyway, I know Cohn’s article isn’t directly about individual fears and interacting online, but I feel as if it strongly connects to a concern I have about, sorry not sorry, modern female cowardice.  I get not wanting to be abused, obviously, or being called names, or having threats levelled at you, but take precautions and take over spaces again.  The way girls have been harassed and bullied out of parks and playgrounds so they’re all herded obediently into organized spaces, not organized by themselves, where they’re again bullied into including boys in every aspect of their lives?  That’s a building block of cowardice, and tolerating it has bred fear of spaces THAT DO NOT FACTUALLY EXIST.  An internet forum is not a place.  So I don’t know, have a read.