Post
"different than California = east coast" is an assumption that *really* irritates me because it's just pure erasure of anyone you consider beneath your notice.
Again, is anyone actually *surprised* that many people in the middle of the country view the folks who forget they exist with suspicion? Is it shocking that this attitude breeds resentment & distrust when it sounds like you're saying that their existence is completely meaningless to you?
But I suppose it just means that if you live in "flyover country," don't expect anything from people who believe that they are from the only places that "matter".
We can build our own communities & our own movements. We don't need & shouldn't expect recognition from anyone in order to do our work & look after our people.
Those ignorant attitudes lead to the "I hate red states" thing where people just erase all the people in those regions striving to make a better future. A lot of people in "red states" are working so, so hard to help their neighbors & push back against tyranny & oppression, & it is so fucking *insulting* to tell those people they don't count. Only the bigots & the greedy assholes count. Not the people taking care of each other & demanding justice. Those people don't count for some reason.
If you hate "red states," then you hate a whole lot of poor & marginalized people.
Hating "red states" means hating disenfranchised people who are living under tyranny & abuse. It means hating the people in those places who try to do something about the abuse & try to help each other when they are suffering. It means hating people who stay because they want to make something better of their home & the people who stay because they don't have any options. It's cruelty disguised as concern.
"Oh, your state government is shit & only works to harm you & those you love? Fuck you."
@artemis There's a pattern I've noticed in which multiple different entities -- a geographical area, that area's government, and that area's people -- are all spoken of as if they were the same thing.
e.g. if your government is doing something, then you as an individual under that government are doing it and supporting it -- even if you firmly opposed and voted against the people now in power and making the decision to do that thing.
The whole "you are a red-stater" thing feels a lot like that.
(Of course, I have the perspective advantage of being from a very blue area of what has been a very red state -- so I know from experience that not everyone in an area agrees with what that area's apparent zeitgeist. ...and more recently I've come to understand how disinformation and gerrymandering result in political decisions which are not actually in accordance with what most people in an area actually want.)
I think you both are onto something very important. Making generalizations in general (no pun intended) is very useful to abstract complex reality so we can analyse, reason about, and discuss with others. But we should be aware of all the nuance we shifted to the side when doing so.
We crave overview, feeling to be in control.
This gets ever harder in rushed modern society where we are info bombarded. A society that's completely in flux, with a world order that existed since WWII crumbling down, and technology introductions that ain't progress anymore. It all adds to the cacophony.
I try to avoid talking in left vs. right, red vs. blue, as it is too easy, lazy even, throwing all nuance overboard in discussions. It feeds into one of the most vicious anti-patterns, the Purity spiral, where only the extremes on both ends benefit, and reason goes out the door.
If we want to live in harmonious peaceful society, we got to have to learn to deal with a spectrum of nuance.
I was just now thinking about another facet that relates to this, and musing about posting a #ThoughtProvoker toot or not. It is generally not safe on the fediverse to broach these subjects, as fedi can be an incredibly unnuanced space.
The subject of that toot would be about how liberally we slam the block or suspend button on someone we marginally disagree with, and how that actually - if you pause and think about it deeper - is often quite cruel and inhumane, medieval even. An ostracization where someone on the other end can never explain or redeem themself. There's no human effort or communication.
If you make an analogy of similar situation in an offline setting it becomes clear how utterly weird and cruel it is. We rarely ever treat people like that in day to day situations. Yet online, we use it as no-brainer.
I was wondering what kind of online culture we are creating this way if we only have such blunt anti-social tools. I don't think it is a healthy one.
@smallcircles @woozle
Is it a similar situation offline, though?
Offline, I don't give speeches laying out my perspectives & analysis of politics, mental health, & culture.
Online, I write whole threads on those topics & more or less host discussions in my replies. I block people when interactions with them cause distress to me or to other people or when they are derailing the conversation & trying to use my replies to promote beliefs & values that are antithetical to my own.
@smallcircles @woozle
Offline, we also don't just let everyone into all of our conversations either. If someone walks up to me on the street & tries to engage me in conversation, I may be skeptical of their intentions & what they may want from me.
I guess the key words in your post are "marginal disagreements." I don't recommend blocking people for simply disagreeing, but I do block pretty freely for behavior that I think has a negative impact on me or other folks.
@smallcircles @woozle
If I didn't block people for that, the mental load & emotional cost of interacting on Fedi would get so high that I could not possibly do what I do here. I would have to leave. I would be getting kicked out of the conversation.
Blocking someone is just saying "you're not someone I feel I need to interact with." It's not some ultimate judgment on their character or their value as a human being.
Yes, I'm very pro "block first, ask questions later" (to oversimplify a bit). There are malicious actors out there, and pretending otherwise just lets them take over. (See: the "Nazi bar problem".)
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