Limits of expression in Epiphanies
Barnabas62 has suggested this discussion should take here rather than as a side discussion in the Men's Reproductive Responsibilities thread in Epiphanies.
Astor has suggested that my posting in this thread were angry and I suggested that the use of the f word by Soror Magna in one of the posts was gratuitous. I do not think in either situation the posters were requesting hostly intervention.
That said what are the limits of expression in Epiphanies? Given the nature of the topics in Epiphanies, I thought it was meant to be a more gentle version of Purgatory.
Astor has suggested that my posting in this thread were angry and I suggested that the use of the f word by Soror Magna in one of the posts was gratuitous. I do not think in either situation the posters were requesting hostly intervention.
That said what are the limits of expression in Epiphanies? Given the nature of the topics in Epiphanies, I thought it was meant to be a more gentle version of Purgatory.

Comments
To be clear, I am not suggesting swearing at other people, but forcefully phrasing one's POV is part of making the point. What is discussed in Epiphanies is not merely academic to everyone involved.
"Gentle" can mean a lot of different things. Epiphanies is meant to corral the topics that are going to be intensely personal for some people, to remind shipmates that this isn't an abstract intellectual discussion, but one that touches the very core of some of our shipmates. So "gentle" in the sense of having care for our shipmates who are actual people, and not just abstract concepts, sure. "Gentle" in the sense of everything is flowers and sunshine, not so much.
And anger also serves to shut down rational discussion. If you and I agree that a particular behaviour is harmful, you being angry about it at me doesn't further the discussion. If we don't agree - it depends what you're trying to communicate - do you want people to know that some topic matters to you, or do you want them to know why it matters?
Anger certainly communicates that you care about something, but doesn't explain why, and it makes it harder to explain why you think a particular behaviour is harmful. Nobody reasons well whilst yelling at people, and very few people are receptive to being yelled at. A short snap of anger can sometimes be helpful to a discussion, if it makes people stop and pay attention - that there's actually something important here - and sometimes people need to shout and yell and release some emotional pressure before they're capable of having a rational discussion.
Even as an intensifier (eg. 'that's fucking fantastic!') it's not necessarily angry, but in that particular post it was used very literally to mean to have sex. That doesn't tend to indicate anger in my experience - it's very different from telling someone to fuck off. It's a smoother, easier term, just one verb, than the awkward, rather passive, 'have sex', and it indicates choice and agency. It was the best word for what needed to be said, in my opinion.
Unfortunately sex is a concept people are so awkward about that the vast majority of terms for it are euphemisms, or the awkward, clinical 'have sex.' It was a dilemma DH Lawrence had too, and why he chose to use the term 'fuck.'
For clarity, I have used the word 'fuck' in this post, and I am not angry. I am also posting here as a shipmate, not in my host role.
In a slightly different context, we've all agreed on how "I didn't intend to be racist / offensive" doesn't mean that offense wasn't taken, and that people who are unknowingly racist should, once informed, change their behaviour.
I don't think we can judge anger based merely on what the writer intended.
Here is Soror Magna's post which caused some reaction about suitability for the discussion in Epiphanies
And here is my Host post.
It's a decent test case. On reflection, what do you see as objectionable in Soror Magna's post within Epiphanies? And what is anything do you find to disagree with in my Host post?
Interpretation can't be divorced from questions of power, habit, prejudices and historic privilege.
It can also be a matter of culture and temperament- shaping whether we read something as angry or not, especially when we don't have the audible cues. It can be tricky to judge.
Speaking only for myself, I for one don't regard 'fucking' as slang for sex as foul language. I know the word very well when used as a verbal intensifier designed to convey threat and being well 'hard' (sit on any pre-lockdown Scottish bus and you'd hear that use...) and certainly wasn't getting that vibe here. Nor did I read it as attacking any other poster. If anything, the generalising in that post that Asher rightly picked up on was more problematic and that has been addressed now.
I'm much more worried about swingeing attacks on entire groups (the personal issue overlap) than I am about whether anyone has said 'fuck'.
The limits of anger or language is a rules matter so the Styx is the proper forum for discussing that. That's our process here. We take out of discussion threads any matter relating to the rules which has been the subject of a Host post. Whether that Host post prohibits or (as in this case) permits.
That's SoF 101. So I do not see your problem with my two subsequent posts. Just normal traffic direction.
Anyway, it's a side issue. If you don't have a problem with Soror Magna's post or my ruling that it was permissible why should you be bothered about my traffic direction to other posters who clearly did have a problem with the post and my ruling? You and I seem to be in agreement.
I think that for me, Soror Magna’s sweary post on the thread represented a significant dislocation of tone.
Like when you’re in a bar having a drink and a chat, maybe about politics, maybe disagreeing in a respectful way….and then the pissed bloke comes along and has offers a sweary speech full of loaded language.
It kills the conversation dead.
Notably, Soror Magna’s opening to the post in question indicated they were posting for their ‘entertainment’.
I asked Barnabas 62 to take a look, as I thought that this tonal dislocation might come under the description of hosting more closely. I did not indicate to Barnabas what I thought was wrong, or what they should do as I do not think that is a shipmates role.
I would value being clear on whether close hosting includes shaping tone.
More significantly, I’ve been thinking, and talking at home, about how use the use of outliers informs more central discussion.
In Caissa’s opening post, they suggested that the behaviour and outcomes of a serially abusive shit-stain might be the best yardstick for the discussion. I wrestled with this, but my wife insisted that this was OK, as outliers help us find the limits of our discussions – I’ve taken this on board.
Later, Soror Magna mocked my characterization of how a more ‘central’ model might work.
The great thing about outliers is that they are easy, clear and black and white. But they don’t represent the largest portion of human experience, and so have little to say to many.
Respectfully
Asher
Racism is something external, not always intended, and can be defined by the words spoken.
Anger is emotion, internal to the other person. It's completely different. You can't assume what another person is feeling, especially online when you have no context of voice tone, facial expression. You can only talk about the words they used. You can talk about the fact they are insulting you, for instance. You can ask if they are angry with you. But to tell another person what their internal emotions are is a huge assumption, and inappropriate.
And yes, as previously mentioned, women (or people perceived to be women) are told they're angry online a lot more than men are, despite men often using more strong/assertive/aggressive language. Men are less likely to be aware of this, because they are not the ones experiencing being told they're angry.
I get told I'm angry online for using direct, to the point language. I notice it especially when I'm too tired to make the effort to soften my language - because, as a woman, I have been advised in general to soften my language, and people respond better when I do. I am not angry - I am expressing myself and my views clearly and directly. I observe it's far less common for men to soften their language, and they generally don't get told they're angry.
But back to the case in question, if Soror Magna had called you a fucking idiot, you might observe you'd been insulted and ask if she was angry with you - though blokes on this site call people fucking idiots quite a bit, and all sorts of other insults, and generally don't get asked about their internal state of anger. Normally the point they've made is addressed instead.
But she didn't. She used the word fuck to mean to have sex, in a conversation about sex and it's consequences. And it would be more respectful to address the actual point she has made, because actually, even if she was angry, so what? As humans we all experience the gamut of emotions. Some gentle sounding posts might be written in anger. If the words have offended you, that's what needs to be addressed - not the internal state of the person writing them.
No it doesn't. Tone only becomes an issue if it transgresses the other behavioural boundaries, such as personal insult or troll-like provocation. The real Hosting challenge in Epiphanies is the close boundary between issues and personal identity or personal investment.
Hosts may attempt some constructive refocussing of a discussion by posting as Shipmates. Sometimes this actually works.
Ok. Thanks.
I am sorry if that is what he thought my intent was in that post. Rather my intent was that the SCC ruling was a legal factor affecting the discussion.
As I have said in the thread in question, I was not seeking hostly intervention. I felt the post in question used the f word gratuitously and repetitively in a thread that had essentially run its course( no posts on the topic for 6 days). The preface re. "Ok, so for my own enjoyment, here's my take"did not indicate an intention to seriously enter into discussion on the topic.
BTW, threads in Epiphanies, like Dead Horses before it, are likely to have larger gaps in posting than in Purgatory.
IMO 6 days, even in Purg, is hardly indicative of a dead topic.
So I was in the wrong for doing continuing, but did not intentionally violate your ruling.
It has to depend on context. If a young black man greets his young black friend in the street by saying "hey, nigga!", he's not being racist. If a middle-aged white man says the same words to the same young black man, he's being racist. The difference isn't in the words, or even in the intent - it's in the perception of the young black man who is being spoken to.
I don't think this definition is sufficient. Suppose, for example, that you start shouting and snarling at me in person. I'm going to respond to your tone. I'm going to experience a jolt of adrenaline, and all the physiological effects that come along with it. I'm going to feel that you're angry with me, and respond accordingly. Your internal emotional state (which we agree is something I can't know) is basically irrelevant.
*As a human, not as a host. As I host I would expect X to follow the rules of the forum like everyone else.
That's a fair comment. Nevertheless, it remains true that shouty angry people don't communicate content effectively. Shouting provokes physiological responses that are inimical to rational discussion. So it depends on what you want to do.
I may as well nail my own colours to the mast - my interest is in peaceful academic discussion, and I don't believe there are topics that aren't suited to an academic approach. I tend not to participate in "rant" threads, because they don't in general really interest me. This isn't at all to say that I think that all discussions should be dispassionate and academic - just that those are the ones that I'd like to have. This includes those matters in which I have significant personal investment.
I don't know if there's a good way to corral dispassionate academic-type discussions away from shouty emoting, so that the different discussions can proceed in parallel. I suspect that there isn't.
I stand by my claim that anger inhibits rational discussion. If the angry person isn't wanting to have a rational discussion on the topic, then that's OK. If, however, the angry person wants to engage in rational discussion, then expressing significant amounts of that anger is counterproductive.
Yes, of course it's about context too. It's about the history of the word 'nigger' and the fact that it is seen as inappropriate and offensive for a white person to say it to a black person. Which are external things.
Also, I understand from black people I've talked to that there are situations where a white person is accepted into a group of black people and seen as one of them, and says it too, that they all address each other this way, and this is accepted. There are of course individual situations where people know each other, and their relationship plays a part. And similarly a close relationship, someone who knows someone well might say 'You're angry,' within the context of the relationship, knowing the person well.
Yes. I was talking mainly about online interaction. See, I said 'where you have no context of voice tone, facial expression.' In a real situation, you can often sense anger from a person's physiological reaction. But yes, equally you can misinterpret too, in an in-person situation, and get your hackles up. So in that case you would have misinterpreted, and you'd have got upset over something not intended. So the solution is not to tell the person they are angry - that is pointless and counter-productive - and wrong. You would tell them they were shouting in a forceful way, and that it upset yoy.
You seem, as I've noticed you do sometimes, to be missing the point of what I'm saying, and arguing pedantic points, simply because I didn't specify them explicitly, when they in fact have no relation to what I am saying. I at no point claimed to be giving a comprehensive definition of anger. I could write pages about it if I did, but I was focusing on the aspect of anger being discussed - the fact that it can't be assumed in a ruling, because it is internal.
The fact that you might get a surge of adrenaline if I say 'fuck' is not relevant to this point. You might get a surge of fear when you see a black person, seeing them as angry because you associate black people with aggression. The the fact that the black person didn't intend it may not be relevant to you, but it is relevant if you are then going to insist they were angry and request a ruling that people can't be angry. You need to look at the what is causing this reaction in yourself (the word fuck in the first example, and the person's skin colour in the second reaction) and whether this is something that is your personal problem that you need to deal with, or something that is inherently wrong and needs to be changed.
I've caught myself doing it, and it's when I'm angry at someone and want to attack them - then angry cliches like 'People loudly shouting about X' run in my head. So I've tried to purge it from my posting and use it as a 'tell' that I'm feeling angry and self-righteous. Your mileage may vary.
Nor did I see anyone 'ranting' -another loaded term implying raised voices and expressing strong emotions of aggressiveness.
I'm not impressed with these accusations or the claims of only wanting 'academic' debate that go with them. They sound to me like discomfort with other posters disagreeing in insufficiently meek terms- and when such accusations are aimed by men at women one starts to wonder if they're gendered.
Yes. "Insufficiently meek terms" is a worry for me too. The thought experiment is this. Suppose Soror Magna's post had been written by a man? In this day and age, it could have been. Maybe a pretty enlightened man, not afraid to be critical of traditional male ducking of responsibility. But that's not out of the question.
I say this because I just judged the post by our guidelines, which are gender-neutral. So it didn't bother me that Soror Magna is female. If the post came from a man it would have got the same ruling.
So the question for others is simple. Was your reaction coloured by the fact that Soror Magna (translation "Big Sister") is female?
People can, and in Epiphanies types threads often do, say the nastiest things in a perfectly polite and academic tone.
Agreed. These things are subconscious, not a deliberate attempt to put down women. It's a behaviour you can observe. Like 'mansplaining' - I frequently observe men explaining something to me that I have not in any way indicated that I don't know, and in fact often know more about than they do. I observe them doing the same with other women. But these same men, when talking to men, will talk in a more equal way, assuming the other man knows what they do. It's not conscious on their part, and when I've commented on it (such as in a Facebook group I'm in where it happens quite a bit), I've had women agreeing with me, that they too have experienced this, and I've had a lot of men aggressively telling me I'm wrong and stupid. Or explaining in a very patronising way, as if I were oblivious to this fact, that sometimes women do this, and sometimes men do it to other men - as if this somehow cancels out my observation. These things can be tricky, possibly because ego is involved.
You also have to see the other answer. That an honest person can say, truthfully, "I'm not genderising. If it had been said by a man I would have found it equally damaging to the conversation."
Suspicions about the motives of others, based on prior experience, are not a conclusive test.
And:
Of course bias is normal. But assuming a specific bias in any specific individual and assuming also that they will self justify on the basis of that bias is no way to conduct serious, respectful, discussion. It's just a form of jumping to a conclusion on the basis of insufficient evidence. None of us has such accurate bias radar about ourselves or others to justify such assumptions in any specific case.
One of the challenges of Hosting is simply to judge what is written on its merits. We have to discipline ourselves to leave aside any natural tendency to read between the lines. Because that is exactly the point where our own biases may creep in.
And what makes that more difficult is that posting patterns build up impressions in our minds of the person behind the words. "Well, they would mean that, wouldn't they."
I can't speak for other Hosts but I try very hard to put such impressions aside when judging words on their merits. I'm sure I fall down on that sometimes. But I think every Shipmate is entitled to that consideration.
Yeah, likewise I didn't assume/realise SM was female until they identified as such in their second post. IIRC I have always used gender neutral pronouns wrt them.
You will have noted upthread that I likened SM's post to behaviour that might be seen as stereotypically male.
But what was obvious to me was clearly not obvious to everyone. You learn something new every day.
Heh! Everyday is a school day.
In a discussion forum, giving a level of benefit of the doubt is conducive to furthering discourse. But not a complete benefit of doubt.
The American comedian Patton Oswalt has a bit in which he tell of his toddler daughter calling a black man a monkey.* He tells the story from the POV of a mortified father and that is where he pulls the humour. Nothing in his story reflects how the black man might have felt. Nothing I currently know about Oswalt leads me to believe he is racist. So I give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he isn't. But his telling the joke shows, to me, that he lacks the understanding of the black man's POV. Telling this joke negates the experience black people go through.
*The man was bald, with a long, white beard A favourite film of hers is the Lion King, which features a monkey who is bald, with a long white "beard"
If a comment is literally neutral, one should not assume the worst interpretation without other context. But tip outside of that very far and we continue the inequity.
I am not saying jump down people's throats for the slightest perceived infraction, but letting things slide because they might not be intentional is part of the reason we are not as far along as we could be.
And in the above paragraph 'you' and 'your' may apply to any of us.
You may of course disagree but only if you are absolutely sure you are both free from bias and convinced of the truth of your own beliefs.
Which is contradicted by a belief that bias is normal.
We all have bias and we should try to be aware of our bias in evaluating others. It is not a perfect thing, we will get it wrong.
Again, the problem is that pretending all issues are egalitarian in nature magnifies the disadvantage some groups start with.
To be equally specific about inequity. Just as the Hosting guidelines are gender-neutral, they are also poverty/wealth neutral.
So by its very nature, Hosting here neither presumes or makes allowances for social status. We don't know and Shipmates are not obliged to reveal that I formation. So unbiased Hosting here is simply about applying the same guidelines to all.
Might that make insufficient allowance for social inequity and its impact on how Shipmates understand what is fair and just? Very probably. It's one of the inescapable limitations of this discussion website.