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It's a weird day
It's a weird day when multiple people take the time to thank me for being the voice of reason. You all who know me can stop laughing now. Any minute. I'll wait.
I've been posting a good deal in both![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sunspiral's LJ and shadesong's LJ. I'm glad to be able to have discussions with both of them. This is where I stand:
- Judah is a self-admitted abuser and has a restraining order against him for domestic violence and other related offenses. As such, I do not want him at my house and I am probably not comfortable going to other parties where he is welcome. That might change in the future; or, maybe not. I'm in new territory here and the Magic 8 Ball is cloudy.
- My comfort is about me and my loved ones. It's not a standard for other private individuals to follow. I am not the boss of you (unless you're one of my kids and they have some vehement objections to my Boss status anyway).
- When I go to a party I expect to follow the hosts' rules. When people come to my parties I'd like them to follow my rules, which are often summarized as "don't piss off the hosts." Part of why Judah is not welcome is because I'm so angry at what he did. I want him to be banned from other events where I might attend because I have my visceral, fist-clenching furious reaction to imagining someone doing to my loved ones what he did to Shira.
- I recognize that my response to the situation is seated in a position of vast privilege, including white, able, cis-male, wealth privilege. I also don't know what to do with that, except try to keep it in mind when I write or speak.
- There are people I like, love, and respect, on all sides of this debate. I am struggling to understand how these people I respect have reasoned to the positions they hold. I think we have now a large rift in the circle of people I like and if people do not understand each other there is no hope for dialog. Because this is all about me, I feel like I want to understand all the sides first.
- I am currently using the theoretical basis of framing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences) ) to think about this. I believe we have a framing problem, not a Rashomon problem. In Rashomon, every witness tells their own version of events, and no two of them agree on all the facts. In this situation I think pretty much everyone agrees on the facts, but is using different framings to interpret those facts.
- I have a long and friendly relationship with Scott & Rachel. I have a much shorter acquaintanceship with Shira and even less so with Adam but I'd like to think that Shira and I are at least on friendly terms.
- I am intensely sad that this situation has now become a conflict between these households when I think that conflict was entirely avoidable. I see people responding to perceived attacks on each of these people, being protective of the people they love. I understand that, deeply. I continue to believe that this level of self- and other-protectiveness is preventing many people from recognizing the framing differences.
- We accuse each other of lies, deceptions, exaggerations, denials, etc. But I think these things are all distractions from the core issues. I care about how you treat the people who commit these violent acts; how you treat the people who are the victims of these acts; how you treat the people who have to deal with the consequences of these acts; and how you treat the people who are trying to navigate these unknown and shark-infested waters. I reject any formulation that says, "It's simple, just XYZ." It's not simple.
- I would like to be able to focus on the problems that having Judah in the social circle brings and how we can deal with that. Unfortunately the grounds have shifted and people are choosing up sides in a wholly unnecessary war. Perhaps I'm falling into a geek fallacy, but I also see this as an important test case. If we cannot find a way to work with each other - despite our different frameworks - to deal with an abuser and social gatherings then we have a pretty deep problem.
I've been posting a good deal in both
sunspiral's LJ and shadesong's LJ. I'm glad to be able to have discussions with both of them. This is where I stand:- Judah is a self-admitted abuser and has a restraining order against him for domestic violence and other related offenses. As such, I do not want him at my house and I am probably not comfortable going to other parties where he is welcome. That might change in the future; or, maybe not. I'm in new territory here and the Magic 8 Ball is cloudy.
- My comfort is about me and my loved ones. It's not a standard for other private individuals to follow. I am not the boss of you (unless you're one of my kids and they have some vehement objections to my Boss status anyway).
- When I go to a party I expect to follow the hosts' rules. When people come to my parties I'd like them to follow my rules, which are often summarized as "don't piss off the hosts." Part of why Judah is not welcome is because I'm so angry at what he did. I want him to be banned from other events where I might attend because I have my visceral, fist-clenching furious reaction to imagining someone doing to my loved ones what he did to Shira.
- I recognize that my response to the situation is seated in a position of vast privilege, including white, able, cis-male, wealth privilege. I also don't know what to do with that, except try to keep it in mind when I write or speak.
- There are people I like, love, and respect, on all sides of this debate. I am struggling to understand how these people I respect have reasoned to the positions they hold. I think we have now a large rift in the circle of people I like and if people do not understand each other there is no hope for dialog. Because this is all about me, I feel like I want to understand all the sides first.
- I am currently using the theoretical basis of framing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences) ) to think about this. I believe we have a framing problem, not a Rashomon problem. In Rashomon, every witness tells their own version of events, and no two of them agree on all the facts. In this situation I think pretty much everyone agrees on the facts, but is using different framings to interpret those facts.
- I have a long and friendly relationship with Scott & Rachel. I have a much shorter acquaintanceship with Shira and even less so with Adam but I'd like to think that Shira and I are at least on friendly terms.
- I am intensely sad that this situation has now become a conflict between these households when I think that conflict was entirely avoidable. I see people responding to perceived attacks on each of these people, being protective of the people they love. I understand that, deeply. I continue to believe that this level of self- and other-protectiveness is preventing many people from recognizing the framing differences.
- We accuse each other of lies, deceptions, exaggerations, denials, etc. But I think these things are all distractions from the core issues. I care about how you treat the people who commit these violent acts; how you treat the people who are the victims of these acts; how you treat the people who have to deal with the consequences of these acts; and how you treat the people who are trying to navigate these unknown and shark-infested waters. I reject any formulation that says, "It's simple, just XYZ." It's not simple.
- I would like to be able to focus on the problems that having Judah in the social circle brings and how we can deal with that. Unfortunately the grounds have shifted and people are choosing up sides in a wholly unnecessary war. Perhaps I'm falling into a geek fallacy, but I also see this as an important test case. If we cannot find a way to work with each other - despite our different frameworks - to deal with an abuser and social gatherings then we have a pretty deep problem.
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we're not talking about future behavior
That's a problem for me. The events of the party are examples, but they are the past. We can't change what was said or done. What we can do is learn from them, and try to make wiser decisions about how to behave in the future. I agree that it's important for people - even people like yourself with whom I disagree - to articulate their views about the past actions, but not because we're in some kind of court of judgment. It's because this situation is going to happen again and we must deal with it better next time. It's also because Song, the Leftons, and Judah all remain members of the social circle. We each need to understand and shape our reactions because we will interact with them in the future.
There just is no excuse for all the push back against her and how she has handled this situation.
I understand that this is your view, but I don't think that being the victim of rape, assault, domestic abuse, and more crimes is a free pass. I warned Song two weeks ago that she was promoting a conflict and now we've seen it come to pass. Does that make it her fault? No. But it's something I and others take into consideration. Earlier in this round of discussion I pointed out to her that she could stipulate a point and thereby advance the discussion toward her goals. She chose not to, for what she sees as valid reasons. I understand her reasoning, and we agree to disagree.
(Writing this makes me want to respond to your earlier point. I'll circle back and do that separately.)
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And it's not just about Song. It is about every other subject of harassment feeling safe and cared for in your community who may not be as articulate as Song or have as clear cut a case because other women who have been creeped on by this same abuser have come forward and make this case pretty clear, that not banning him from parties is a mistake. And when we see her being treated this way, we know we haven't a chance, and will not set foot in such an unsafe place. It's really pretty clear cut here, and these situations often aren't so clear cut.
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(Anonymous) 2014-07-12 04:13 pm (UTC)(link)I'm not saying "I should have acted differently", but "I should acknowledge that the way I acted was painful for other people, and they're going to react to that pain in ways I can't control".
Whether my actions were justified, or whether I could have done (or should have been expected to do) any better are much, much thornier questions, and are really a question for the individual's conscience and self-knowledge. I don't live in Shira, or Scott, or Judah's brains, and I have no idea who could be expected to do better in this situation.
I suspect, though, that both Shira and Scott would be having a very different, much less hostile conversation if either one of them were able to acknowledge the other person's emotional reality right now.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2014-07-15 01:39 am (UTC)(link)This times a million.
I would even go further to say that *both* of them are being seriously triggered right now for different reasons, and neither of them is fully acknowledging this (if at all). I think this is happening with other people too.