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If you want to see the mentioned knitter's one-year-old blog post about her excitement at visiting India, including her apology, it is here: https://fringeasso

If you want to see the mentioned knitter's one-year-old blog post about her excitement at visiting India, including her apology, it is here: https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/07/2019-my-year-of-color/#comment-87070 https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/07/2019-my-year-of-col... This will be fascinating for future internet archaeologists.

mumblemumble 7y ago
To aid in navigation, the criticism starts with this comment:https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/07/2019-my-year-of-color/#comment-86974 https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/07/2019-my-year-of-col...
- prawn 7y ago
  She had no need to apologise as she did. I was absolutely baffled reading her post trying to work out how someone might take offence. That first critical comment goes against what I like about HN's rules - the idea of arguing in good faith. Don't look for a way to be offended, but give someone benefit of the doubt. She was excited about being brave to visit somewhere away from home - first with Paris (where she felt some advantage in knowing the language) and then with India (where English will get you by in most places anyway). Bringing in Mars to talk colonialism was just next level.
  - retsibsi 7y ago
    And then the delightful followup: > Instead of asking your Indian friends to perform more emotional labor for you and assuage your white women’s tears, maybe do some reflection on how your equation of India with an alien world reinforces an “other” mindset that is at the core of imperialism and colonialism. Aside from being mean and insane, this sort of thing is an absolute gift to the political right, including its extreme elements. There are people who don't know many 'liberals' or leftists IRL, whose perception of the whole left half of the political spectrum can be significantly shaped by a few links to idiocy like this. And there are people who have had bad experiences at the hands of bullies using 'progressivism' as a cloak for cruelty and status games and intellectual laziness, whose suspicions this will only serve to confirm. To anyone in those categories: please believe that 'the left' is not all like that, and although this bullshit is more common than it should be (and far more widely tolerated), it is still a fringe thing. And think about how your beliefs and your 'side' would appear to someone focusing on its worst or dumbest elements.
    - prawn 7y ago
      That was the icing on the cake. I went off to google "emotional labour" and still not sure I understand the point. Might be way off track, but I think of some of this type of response or outrage-on-behalf-of-others as a form of busywork. If you are somewhat housed and somewhat fed, your basic needs are met, do you look for drama or a fight to win?
      - coagmano 7y ago
        "emotional labour" is absolutely a real thing, but that isn't it. Emotional labour normally means stuff like remembering family birthdays, planning gifts, organising visits to friends and family, planning social events, etc. Things that take work that involves thinking about the emotional states and responses of participants involved
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - michaelt 7y ago
        OK, so the thing to know about "emotional labour" is it's used in at least two ways (that sorta overlap). Definition 1: Most jobs sometimes require you to demonstrate a certain set of emotions, and if you're feeling differently at the time to succeed you'll have to change gears pronto or be really good at faking sincerity. Some jobs require a lot of this - so much it's the most difficult part of the job. For example, if you work for a call centre and have to convince people not to cancel their cable service, the company will probably want you to be upbeat and friendly every time you answer a call, while many callers will be frustrated and mad at your employer, and keen to share those feelings with you. Obviously, every job has a certain element of this - but for some jobs it's a big, difficult part of the job. Definition 2: The same, but including non-employment activities and reducing the big-and-difficult-part requirement. For example, I don't much enjoy talking on the telephone, so if I've got to phone several plumbers to get a quote for some work, overcoming that dislike is emotional labour under the second definition.
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
  - zweep 7y ago
    She absolutely had the need to apologize, she was facing forces much more powerful than her who could destroy her livelihood. Don’t fault the peasant for kneeling before the King.
    - henrikschroder 7y ago
      What the article talks about is that as the purity spiral tightens, the number of outcasts grow, and can actually re-form the community, while those on the inside consume each other in increased frenzy. The spiral will always find new victims, go to new heights, so it might be better to refuse to kneel, weather the frenzy, your 15 minutes of fame, and then move on once it passes. Maybe. I don't know, it would be fascinating to know what the best way to defeat this phenomenon is.
      - prawn 7y ago
        In her case, maybe ignore the comments that were critical in that way? Don't give them oxygen/validation personally. Alternatively, I tend to play a straight bat (this might be an Australian/English saying) in response to something like this and with minimal text - less you say, less there is to attack in response. If you indulge them too much, it only encourages more.
        henrikschroder 7y ago
        Right. As the article states, in-groups always attack apostates the hardest. There's a funny related phenomenon where people who try their best at being vegan get attacked for not being "vegan enough", instead of applauded for at least trying. Because it works. People who want to join the in-group are vulnerable to its criticism, but people who don't want to join don't give a shit in the first place. So when the woman in the article responded to the attack, the attackers smelled blood, and piled on, and increased their attacks. prompting her to defend herself even more, thereby giving even more material for the attackers. So it seems you have to defuse it before that point in time. Easy for me to say, really hard to recognize in the moment. Because that's the annoying paradox. If you get attacked, and you start thinking that you maybe were wrong, that you maybe wrote something bad, that you maybe hurt someone else, having those thoughts, those doubts, show that you didn't intend to. Yet the very proof of you not having ill intent, simply invites more attacks.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    I think it's a mistake to judge intra-community fights based on sample sizes of a single discussion. Much like domestic arguments, the surface disagreement is often not what the fight is really about, and it's not easy to understand it without knowing the context, how long the forum participants have known each other, how disagreements have played out before and so on. There are a lot of unwritten rules and informal relationships in any forum with a persistent membership, and in my experience it takes months, sometimes years of observation to be able to read them accurately.
    - prawn 7y ago
      Sure, but do you think the criticisms she received for her blog were reasonable? They were hardly based on a charitable reading IMO.
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        I don't know, because I have no context to judge it by. Things like that don't take over a community unless there's some sort of history between the forum participants.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    If one lived their entire life in Kentucky and has rarely traveled far from home, India absolutely is "culturally alien" to them. Saying you're excited to step outside your comfort zone and go somewhere you don't fully understand the culture is not offensive.
foobarian 7y ago
I must be out of touch or too old or both, but what compels these individuals to fall in line? Why can't they tell their critics to buzz off? Some possibilities I can imagine: - The identities are real, so there is danger of external real-life impact (harassment of friends/family, job loss, etc) - Craving for approval - might get ostracized by the community - Internal impact - might e.g. lose business from the community if it's some kind of store
- prawn 7y ago
  There's risk in becoming embroiled in controversy; less risk in placating it. If you wrote something you felt was empowering and some people reacted negatively, you might feel that there is a lot more that you don't understand and that pushing blindly on could be risky.
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  Pretty much. An accusation of being -ist can get you fired IRL. Even if you're completely in the right, a big enough mob will convince your boss you're 'toxic' and they'll let you go.
- zweep 7y ago
  These high profile knitting bloggers make their money from their knitting blog. My wife for example follows them on Instagram and buys their products. Being “cancelled” is like being fired from a job for them.
khazhoux 7y ago
Sadly, I just learned a new term: "emotional labor." The original author wrote "I have had responses from several Indian friends and readers today who had nothing but positive and encouraging responses. I’ll have to see if anything I said offended them." And the ultra-triggered guy who kicked off the criticism wrote back "Instead of asking your Indian friends to perform more emotional labor for you and assuage your white women’s tears, maybe do some reflection..." I guess we should all reconsider sharing cultural experiences and questions with each other. Too much "emotional labor."
- ElderKorihor 7y ago
  > Sadly, I just learned a new term: "emotional labor." It's also an (increasingly common) misuse of the term as originally coined. Originally it referred to things like cashiers needing to remain calm and cheery even in the face of unreasonable and hostile customers. The claim is that this kind of labor goes beyond the job description and should therefore be compensated.
rootusrootus 7y ago
I find the whole idea that it matters if people are offended to be pretty infuriating. Not it does not. Intent matters. Whether one of an infinite number of readers was offended is irrelevant. There will always be at least one.
- retsibsi 7y ago
  I think it depends what you mean by 'offended'. If people are just annoyed or outraged, yeah, no problem if you want to ignore that. But if my words are really hurting people, of course that matters to me. It doesn't guarantee that I shouldn't have said them, but it would be pretty callous just to dismiss it as irrelevant.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    > But if my words are really hurting people Sticks and stones will hurt my bones, and all that.
    - retsibsi 7y ago
      Yeah, it's a saying, but unfortunately it's nonsense. Non-physical bullying can drive people to suicide, or traumatise them for life. And insensitive discussion of painful topics can dredge up old trauma, etc. You're free not to care about all of that, but pretending it doesn't exist is just wrong.
      - rootusrootus 7y ago
        Bullying falls under intent, so that isn't really on point. Who defines what insensitive means in a public forum? As a willing participant in the discussion, the onus is on you to opt out if the discussion makes you uncomfortable. Nobody is targeting you. If the world has to censor all public discussion that may be painful or dredge up old trauma for some random person, then it is going to get extremely quiet.
        7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
xmonkee 7y ago
> Multiple times you compare the idea of going to India to the idea of going to another planet – how do you think a person from India would feel to hear that? As a person from India I feel literally nothing. Yeah this lady is over-exoticising India but that's between her and her eventual disappointment. But she's not wrong that India is VERY different and it's not wrong to compare it to going to another planet. Exaggeration is at the heart of excited metaphors. Fuck these people getting offended on my behalf.

mumblemumble 7y ago

To aid in navigation, the criticism starts with this comment:https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/07/2019-my-year-of-color/#comment-86974 https://fringeassociation.com/2019/01/07/2019-my-year-of-col...

prawn 7y ago
She had no need to apologise as she did. I was absolutely baffled reading her post trying to work out how someone might take offence. That first critical comment goes against what I like about HN's rules - the idea of arguing in good faith. Don't look for a way to be offended, but give someone benefit of the doubt. She was excited about being brave to visit somewhere away from home - first with Paris (where she felt some advantage in knowing the language) and then with India (where English will get you by in most places anyway). Bringing in Mars to talk colonialism was just next level.
- retsibsi 7y ago
  And then the delightful followup: > Instead of asking your Indian friends to perform more emotional labor for you and assuage your white women’s tears, maybe do some reflection on how your equation of India with an alien world reinforces an “other” mindset that is at the core of imperialism and colonialism. Aside from being mean and insane, this sort of thing is an absolute gift to the political right, including its extreme elements. There are people who don't know many 'liberals' or leftists IRL, whose perception of the whole left half of the political spectrum can be significantly shaped by a few links to idiocy like this. And there are people who have had bad experiences at the hands of bullies using 'progressivism' as a cloak for cruelty and status games and intellectual laziness, whose suspicions this will only serve to confirm. To anyone in those categories: please believe that 'the left' is not all like that, and although this bullshit is more common than it should be (and far more widely tolerated), it is still a fringe thing. And think about how your beliefs and your 'side' would appear to someone focusing on its worst or dumbest elements.
  - prawn 7y ago
    That was the icing on the cake. I went off to google "emotional labour" and still not sure I understand the point. Might be way off track, but I think of some of this type of response or outrage-on-behalf-of-others as a form of busywork. If you are somewhat housed and somewhat fed, your basic needs are met, do you look for drama or a fight to win?
    - coagmano 7y ago
      "emotional labour" is absolutely a real thing, but that isn't it. Emotional labour normally means stuff like remembering family birthdays, planning gifts, organising visits to friends and family, planning social events, etc. Things that take work that involves thinking about the emotional states and responses of participants involved
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - michaelt 7y ago
      OK, so the thing to know about "emotional labour" is it's used in at least two ways (that sorta overlap). Definition 1: Most jobs sometimes require you to demonstrate a certain set of emotions, and if you're feeling differently at the time to succeed you'll have to change gears pronto or be really good at faking sincerity. Some jobs require a lot of this - so much it's the most difficult part of the job. For example, if you work for a call centre and have to convince people not to cancel their cable service, the company will probably want you to be upbeat and friendly every time you answer a call, while many callers will be frustrated and mad at your employer, and keen to share those feelings with you. Obviously, every job has a certain element of this - but for some jobs it's a big, difficult part of the job. Definition 2: The same, but including non-employment activities and reducing the big-and-difficult-part requirement. For example, I don't much enjoy talking on the telephone, so if I've got to phone several plumbers to get a quote for some work, overcoming that dislike is emotional labour under the second definition.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
- zweep 7y ago
  She absolutely had the need to apologize, she was facing forces much more powerful than her who could destroy her livelihood. Don’t fault the peasant for kneeling before the King.
  - henrikschroder 7y ago
    What the article talks about is that as the purity spiral tightens, the number of outcasts grow, and can actually re-form the community, while those on the inside consume each other in increased frenzy. The spiral will always find new victims, go to new heights, so it might be better to refuse to kneel, weather the frenzy, your 15 minutes of fame, and then move on once it passes. Maybe. I don't know, it would be fascinating to know what the best way to defeat this phenomenon is.
    - prawn 7y ago
      In her case, maybe ignore the comments that were critical in that way? Don't give them oxygen/validation personally. Alternatively, I tend to play a straight bat (this might be an Australian/English saying) in response to something like this and with minimal text - less you say, less there is to attack in response. If you indulge them too much, it only encourages more.
      - henrikschroder 7y ago
        Right. As the article states, in-groups always attack apostates the hardest. There's a funny related phenomenon where people who try their best at being vegan get attacked for not being "vegan enough", instead of applauded for at least trying. Because it works. People who want to join the in-group are vulnerable to its criticism, but people who don't want to join don't give a shit in the first place. So when the woman in the article responded to the attack, the attackers smelled blood, and piled on, and increased their attacks. prompting her to defend herself even more, thereby giving even more material for the attackers. So it seems you have to defuse it before that point in time. Easy for me to say, really hard to recognize in the moment. Because that's the annoying paradox. If you get attacked, and you start thinking that you maybe were wrong, that you maybe wrote something bad, that you maybe hurt someone else, having those thoughts, those doubts, show that you didn't intend to. Yet the very proof of you not having ill intent, simply invites more attacks.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  I think it's a mistake to judge intra-community fights based on sample sizes of a single discussion. Much like domestic arguments, the surface disagreement is often not what the fight is really about, and it's not easy to understand it without knowing the context, how long the forum participants have known each other, how disagreements have played out before and so on. There are a lot of unwritten rules and informal relationships in any forum with a persistent membership, and in my experience it takes months, sometimes years of observation to be able to read them accurately.
  - prawn 7y ago
    Sure, but do you think the criticisms she received for her blog were reasonable? They were hardly based on a charitable reading IMO.
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      I don't know, because I have no context to judge it by. Things like that don't take over a community unless there's some sort of history between the forum participants.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  If one lived their entire life in Kentucky and has rarely traveled far from home, India absolutely is "culturally alien" to them. Saying you're excited to step outside your comfort zone and go somewhere you don't fully understand the culture is not offensive.

foobarian 7y ago

I must be out of touch or too old or both, but what compels these individuals to fall in line? Why can't they tell their critics to buzz off? Some possibilities I can imagine: - The identities are real, so there is danger of external real-life impact (harassment of friends/family, job loss, etc) - Craving for approval - might get ostracized by the community - Internal impact - might e.g. lose business from the community if it's some kind of store

prawn 7y ago
There's risk in becoming embroiled in controversy; less risk in placating it. If you wrote something you felt was empowering and some people reacted negatively, you might feel that there is a lot more that you don't understand and that pushing blindly on could be risky.
Mikeb85 7y ago
Pretty much. An accusation of being -ist can get you fired IRL. Even if you're completely in the right, a big enough mob will convince your boss you're 'toxic' and they'll let you go.
zweep 7y ago
These high profile knitting bloggers make their money from their knitting blog. My wife for example follows them on Instagram and buys their products. Being “cancelled” is like being fired from a job for them.

khazhoux 7y ago

Sadly, I just learned a new term: "emotional labor." The original author wrote "I have had responses from several Indian friends and readers today who had nothing but positive and encouraging responses. I’ll have to see if anything I said offended them." And the ultra-triggered guy who kicked off the criticism wrote back "Instead of asking your Indian friends to perform more emotional labor for you and assuage your white women’s tears, maybe do some reflection..." I guess we should all reconsider sharing cultural experiences and questions with each other. Too much "emotional labor."

ElderKorihor 7y ago
> Sadly, I just learned a new term: "emotional labor." It's also an (increasingly common) misuse of the term as originally coined. Originally it referred to things like cashiers needing to remain calm and cheery even in the face of unreasonable and hostile customers. The claim is that this kind of labor goes beyond the job description and should therefore be compensated.

rootusrootus 7y ago

I find the whole idea that it matters if people are offended to be pretty infuriating. Not it does not. Intent matters. Whether one of an infinite number of readers was offended is irrelevant. There will always be at least one.

retsibsi 7y ago
I think it depends what you mean by 'offended'. If people are just annoyed or outraged, yeah, no problem if you want to ignore that. But if my words are really hurting people, of course that matters to me. It doesn't guarantee that I shouldn't have said them, but it would be pretty callous just to dismiss it as irrelevant.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > But if my words are really hurting people Sticks and stones will hurt my bones, and all that.
  - retsibsi 7y ago
    Yeah, it's a saying, but unfortunately it's nonsense. Non-physical bullying can drive people to suicide, or traumatise them for life. And insensitive discussion of painful topics can dredge up old trauma, etc. You're free not to care about all of that, but pretending it doesn't exist is just wrong.
    - rootusrootus 7y ago
      Bullying falls under intent, so that isn't really on point. Who defines what insensitive means in a public forum? As a willing participant in the discussion, the onus is on you to opt out if the discussion makes you uncomfortable. Nobody is targeting you. If the world has to censor all public discussion that may be painful or dredge up old trauma for some random person, then it is going to get extremely quiet.
      - 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

xmonkee 7y ago

> Multiple times you compare the idea of going to India to the idea of going to another planet – how do you think a person from India would feel to hear that? As a person from India I feel literally nothing. Yeah this lady is over-exoticising India but that's between her and her eventual disappointment. But she's not wrong that India is VERY different and it's not wrong to compare it to going to another planet. Exaggeration is at the heart of excited metaphors. Fuck these people getting offended on my behalf.