Derailing for dummies

[pozorvlak]

[Everything herein will be extremely old hat to many regular readers, but it's new to me and so I thought I'd share. Consider this part of my ongoing project of self-education.]

Charlie Stross, in the comments to his most recent blog post, posted a link to the site Derailing for Dummies. The conceit is that it's a guide to arguing with members of marginalised groups for people who want to drive them to apoplexy and/or despair as quickly as possible - this allows the author to explain why such conversational gambits as "you're just being oversensitive" won't help your interlocutor's blood pressure.

As a "white, heterosexual, cisgendered, cissexual, upper-class male" (plus a bunch of other things besides - able-bodied, literate...) I've only had conversations about race, sexuality, etc, from the perspective of a member of the privileged¹ group [from which perspective the conversations often look like this :-( ]. So I found the site to be rather uncomfortable reading, but also very educational, and I'm glad the author chose to ignore their first two points (If You Won't Educate Me How Can I Learn? and If You Cared About These Matters You'd Be Willing To Educate Me). I've definitely used the lines

If You Won't Educate Me How Can I Learn
You're Just Oversensitive
You're Interrogating From The Wrong Perspective
Aren't You Treating Each Other Worse Anyway
Well I Know Another Person From Your Group Who Disagrees!
You Are Damaging Your Cause By Being Angry

from the page (in all innocence! And with the best of intentions!), and probably a bunch more. If I've said that to you, I'm sorry, and can only plead that I didn't know how upsetting it would be. Now I have some idea of how that feels to the other person, I'll try not to do it any more.

¹ "Privilege" in this context is a term of art that (AIUI) means something like this. Suppose group X is in some way marginalised. Then the world will be set up in such a way that non-X people benefit from their non-Xness in all sorts of ways, big and small, that the non-X people simply don't notice, because they've known them all their lives and think that that's just how the world works for everyone. This means that (a) they simply don't realise many of the ways in which life sucks for X people, unless they've made a positive effort to find out, (b) they are almost certainly unwittingly contributing to the further marginalisation of X people, because they don't understand the effects of their actions - as non-X people, they never experience said effects. Hence, if you haven't made an effort to educate yourself about the lives and difficulties experienced by X people, you're probably part of the problem.

This effect could, I suspect, be understood as an especially unfortunate interaction of various well-understood cognitive biases. To my utter lack of surprise, I am not the first person to think of this.

Non-X privilege also applies to people who are non-X but members of some other marginalised group Y: while the difficulties experienced by X and Y people will probably have some overlap, they won't be identical, and privilege applies to those experienced by X but not Y. The D4D author actually wrote the piece after observing exactly this: conversations in which X¬Y people used the same lines on Y people that ¬X people had previously used on them.

Comments

[necaris.livejournal.com]

That song is *brilliant*!

[elmyra.livejournal.com]

Hm. I knew some of these things. But this has given me food for thought. Thank you.

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

This is a subject that I have mixed feelings about, to say the least. I've been meaning to write a blog post about it myself, but my rough notes are sitting in the queue with 160 other topics, and I haven't updated them since June 2008, so I'll try a quick summary here.

I sympathise with people if they want to have an "advanced" discussion without getting sidetracked into basic principles, particularly if they've already argued about the basics several times before. I also remember Priest (comics writer) saying that when he goes to conventions people always ask him about race issues (the black perspective on topic X), whereas people ask Mark Waid about whether Superman or the Flash would win a race, and he (Priest) would prefer to get general superhero questions for a change.

On the other hand, I think that a lot of topics associated with Privilege (e.g. feminism) are poorly defined, and they include a lunatic fringe. The xkcd comic on YouTube is a good example, where there are complete idiots on both sides of the argument (pro/anti moon landings). Given that everyone has a finite amount of spare time, how much should I spend investigating any particular theory before I decide that it's rubbish? If I read a particular book on a topic, but disagree with it, can I treat it as representative of the topic as a whole, or should I keep reading more books until I find one that I agree with (which may never happen)? Surely it would be fairer for the people who advocate a particular theory to actually say what their views are?

An extreme example is the "Hollow Earth" theory. Raymond Chen has reported on a proposed (but repeatedly delayed) expedition to the North Pole to visit the hole: 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007. Personally, I don't believe that theory, but then again I'm not a geologist and I've never been to the North Pole. Is it fair for me to dismiss their arguments out of hand, or should I read their books, and join the expedition so that I can see for myself?

Taking a more useful example, here is a comment from a feminist blogger:
"It seems like the guys who almost agree with feminism are the hardest ones to reason with, because they think they're doing so well, taking that women's studies class, learning about these theories, engaging with the feminists about these issues, and even agreeing that women should be treated equally. Except the thing is, these guys are kind of just as dangerous as the outrightly hateful misogynists."
That implies that "You're either with us or you're against us" - no middle ground. In order to stop being the enemy, I need to agree with her 100%, but she won't tell me what her views are because it's not her job to spoonfeed me. That's the point where I just say "sod it", and decide that it's best just to follow my own conscience.

[shuripentu.livejournal.com]

My opinion probably isn't worth much, since I only tick about half the marginalised boxes (and it's not the half with the most points either) but I think there are conversations in which at least some of those lines would be perfectly reasonable. Of course, they're almost certainly a tiny fraction of the total conversations in which those lines are used, but they still exist.

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

I was going to post a fairly cynical commentary related to my opinion on 'privilege' on my own journal, but I've reconsidered in the light of going back and re-reading some of the D4D article.

The trouble is - in response to my personality I now have to ask the question 'What action can one take'? [And am I now putting my responsibility on you for educating me? Ha Ha - I have made you a member of the 'following this philosophy' minority, and I shall relentlessly use the abuses I have just learnt about!] I generally try to be fair and nice to people. As an unemployed person, I'm not really in a position of power so I can't really stop oppressing the minorities, because I don't really get a chance to oppress them, or do I and I just don't notice it?

[susannahf.livejournal.com]

Favourite other comment not to use (from personal experience, but I expect it gets used in a lot of situations):
"I don't want to sound/be cruel/rude/mean, but...."
Just saying that you don't want to be something doesn't make it so. And you're actually pointing out that you are being deliberately nasty, but want to be forgiven because you know you're doing it. The world doesn't work that way.