11 ms·

I think this is the problem that 'original sin' fixed. It seems that everyone believes they themselves are good. And thus, they know what's good. But, I doubt t

I think this is the problem that 'original sin' fixed. It seems that everyone believes they themselves are good. And thus, they know what's good. But, I doubt that any of us are good. And I don't think good objectively exists, in any case.

fortran77 6y ago
People don't realize that if you want to be the most inclusive, sometimes your focus needs to be brutally narrow. Stick to yarn and patterns and be scrupulous about telling political discussions to go elsewhere.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  This. Political activism is important. Stand up for what you believe in. But political activism does not mix with an inclusive, warm, welcoming hobby community. If you feel so strongly about your political beliefs that you can't let them rest even in your knitting club, then for the sake of the knitting club you're going to either have to turn it into a political knitting club or watch it fall apart. Maybe that's a sacrifice in pursuit of a greater cause.
  - wussboy 6y ago
    What’s frustrating as well is that if they would have stuck to knitting, they probably would have done more to advance their various moral causes than explicitly calling things out. The community of knitting builds trust and friendship which is much more effective at changing people’s minds than shouting at them.
  - nemo44x 6y ago
    It’s hard to do when a very vocal and intimidating group of activists insist everything is political. “Silence is violence”, after all. One of the commands the various Critical Therories have is to find ‘X’ in everything and expose it. Don’t ask if ‘X’ happened but rather find how ‘X’ happened. ‘X’ can mean racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, etc. And often these terms, like racism, have been redefined to mean something different than what most people think. So, you can’t just have a nice hobby community according to these therories. You absolutely must unmask the “problematics” in them or else you are perpetuating systemic racism or the patriarchy, or whatever. Any denial that ‘X’ was somehow present is further proof it did happen. Denial is further evidence of guilt. If you don’t join in on the pile-on then you will be cast out and accused of ‘X’ as well and at best have to find new friends and at worst having your livelihood destroyed. So there’s a lot of incentive to “do better”.
    - auntienomen 6y ago
      The problematics usually unmask themselves. Ravelry is, I think, struggling with the question of how to deal with their more irascible members.
    - nerdponx 6y ago
      You're being downvoted, but this is true. The disagreement is over whether it's a good thing (break a few eggs, make a better-society-overall omelette) or a bad thing (anyone can get canceled at any time, everyone divided).
  - baryphonic 6y ago
    > Political activism is important. Stand up for what you believe in. But political activism does not mix with an inclusive, warm, welcoming hobby community. If you feel so strongly about your political beliefs that you can't let them rest even in your knitting club, then for the sake of the knitting club you're going to either have to turn it into a political knitting club or watch it fall apart. I disagree. Just about anything else is more important and productive than political activism. Almost all political activism (in America at least) is either pointless group therapy (e.g. Women's March), astroturfing (e.g. the "election fortifiers") or actually destructive and thus evil (choose your own "mostly peaceful protestors"). Activists have a tendency to indulge a totalizing vision of their activism. Many of the most hard-core activists would see a request to tone down their activism as akin to being asked to remove their limbs. Activism has become the core identity of some of these people. And if activists' goals are actually achieved, activists usually have trouble letting go of their crusades, and so invent new ones or just become pure grifters. I can see no other explanation for why the most progressive institutions in America, universities for instance, are among those most frequently labeled as bigoted, racist, white supremacist or otherwise "problematic." Yes, highly contrarian take, but if we ended all political activism tomorrow, we'd be better off.
    - nerdponx 6y ago
      I share your cynicism about what political activism usually is, but I find it hard to share your conclusion that we'd be better of without it.
    - will4274 6y ago
      I can't say I agree fully with you, but there's definitely something about today's activists that seem odd. MLK protested in suits and ties to convince the american public blacks were respectable citizens who deserved equal protection under the law. When BLM rioted, activists went on TV to tell the lay public that "riots are the language of the unheard" and that white America basically deserved it. Whether that's true or not... It seems to me that the core aspect of political activism in a democracy is *convincing other people*. I see very little focus on this aspect and far more focus on accusing others of wrong think.
- flir 6y ago
  To avoid the subject is to, implicitly, side with the status quo. "Everything is political", even the choice to avoid politics.
  - gedy 6y ago
    Only in your belief system. Not mine and others.
    - nerdponx 6y ago
      Consider that this might be a privileged perspective. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to carry out their lives regardless of what happens in politics.
      - will4274 6y ago
        In my experience, the people saying "the ability to not pay attention to politics is privilege" are typically privileged rich white women, not oppressed minorities - those people don't like talking about politics in knitting club. Just a sample size of one.
        nerdponx 6y ago
        And in my experience, it's trans people, DACA recipients, people with dark skin, and people who identify as queer.
        will4274 6y ago
        Let's make my sample size 2, then. How privileged are you?
        nerdponx 6y ago
        Very. I can choose to ignore politics for the rest of my days and I probably won't notice any difference in my day-to-day life.
- KittenInABox 6y ago
  I very much agree with this in principle, but I think there are limits to it too. If a user who uses they/them joins your community and talks about yarn and patterns, referring to the user will always be political unless you ignore them or don't use pronouns around them, which is also political. And then whether or not the user is allowed to participate might be political- some users might be highly uncomfortable with a they/them pronoun user even participating and want a community "without those politics".
  - leoedin 6y ago
    Why does that user have to reveal any pronouns on the web? The default state of web based communication is ungendered. I have no idea what your pronouns are. If I was referring to you in a comment thread I would have to use "they/them" (or maybe "KittenInABox"). That's not a political stance, that's just English.
    - KittenInABox 6y ago
      If the policy then has to be that everyone has to be they/them or no one can have pronouns/correct anyone else about pronouns, then that itself is a political stance. Some things are just unavoidable.
      - luckylion 6y ago
        That feels like an artificial problem though. On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. It's relatively easy to pass as any gender, age, race or whatever you want to. Yes, it will be more difficult if you call your account Transwomxn or request that people use xe/xir to refer to you, but if you're SarahKnitting, everybody will just assume you're Sarah and into knitting and will use she. At that point, it might be the right call by the community to not accomodate those that want to focus their membership on their political identity so they can provide a friendly community about knitting for the SarahKnittings of the internet.
        KittenInABox 6y ago

fortran77 6y ago

People don't realize that if you want to be the most inclusive, sometimes your focus needs to be brutally narrow. Stick to yarn and patterns and be scrupulous about telling political discussions to go elsewhere.

nerdponx 6y ago
This. Political activism is important. Stand up for what you believe in. But political activism does not mix with an inclusive, warm, welcoming hobby community. If you feel so strongly about your political beliefs that you can't let them rest even in your knitting club, then for the sake of the knitting club you're going to either have to turn it into a political knitting club or watch it fall apart. Maybe that's a sacrifice in pursuit of a greater cause.
- wussboy 6y ago
  What’s frustrating as well is that if they would have stuck to knitting, they probably would have done more to advance their various moral causes than explicitly calling things out. The community of knitting builds trust and friendship which is much more effective at changing people’s minds than shouting at them.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  It’s hard to do when a very vocal and intimidating group of activists insist everything is political. “Silence is violence”, after all. One of the commands the various Critical Therories have is to find ‘X’ in everything and expose it. Don’t ask if ‘X’ happened but rather find how ‘X’ happened. ‘X’ can mean racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, etc. And often these terms, like racism, have been redefined to mean something different than what most people think. So, you can’t just have a nice hobby community according to these therories. You absolutely must unmask the “problematics” in them or else you are perpetuating systemic racism or the patriarchy, or whatever. Any denial that ‘X’ was somehow present is further proof it did happen. Denial is further evidence of guilt. If you don’t join in on the pile-on then you will be cast out and accused of ‘X’ as well and at best have to find new friends and at worst having your livelihood destroyed. So there’s a lot of incentive to “do better”.
  - auntienomen 6y ago
    The problematics usually unmask themselves. Ravelry is, I think, struggling with the question of how to deal with their more irascible members.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    You're being downvoted, but this is true. The disagreement is over whether it's a good thing (break a few eggs, make a better-society-overall omelette) or a bad thing (anyone can get canceled at any time, everyone divided).
- baryphonic 6y ago
  > Political activism is important. Stand up for what you believe in. But political activism does not mix with an inclusive, warm, welcoming hobby community. If you feel so strongly about your political beliefs that you can't let them rest even in your knitting club, then for the sake of the knitting club you're going to either have to turn it into a political knitting club or watch it fall apart. I disagree. Just about anything else is more important and productive than political activism. Almost all political activism (in America at least) is either pointless group therapy (e.g. Women's March), astroturfing (e.g. the "election fortifiers") or actually destructive and thus evil (choose your own "mostly peaceful protestors"). Activists have a tendency to indulge a totalizing vision of their activism. Many of the most hard-core activists would see a request to tone down their activism as akin to being asked to remove their limbs. Activism has become the core identity of some of these people. And if activists' goals are actually achieved, activists usually have trouble letting go of their crusades, and so invent new ones or just become pure grifters. I can see no other explanation for why the most progressive institutions in America, universities for instance, are among those most frequently labeled as bigoted, racist, white supremacist or otherwise "problematic." Yes, highly contrarian take, but if we ended all political activism tomorrow, we'd be better off.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    I share your cynicism about what political activism usually is, but I find it hard to share your conclusion that we'd be better of without it.
  - will4274 6y ago
    I can't say I agree fully with you, but there's definitely something about today's activists that seem odd. MLK protested in suits and ties to convince the american public blacks were respectable citizens who deserved equal protection under the law. When BLM rioted, activists went on TV to tell the lay public that "riots are the language of the unheard" and that white America basically deserved it. Whether that's true or not... It seems to me that the core aspect of political activism in a democracy is *convincing other people*. I see very little focus on this aspect and far more focus on accusing others of wrong think.
flir 6y ago
To avoid the subject is to, implicitly, side with the status quo. "Everything is political", even the choice to avoid politics.
- gedy 6y ago
  Only in your belief system. Not mine and others.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    Consider that this might be a privileged perspective. Not everyone has the luxury of being able to carry out their lives regardless of what happens in politics.
    - will4274 6y ago
      In my experience, the people saying "the ability to not pay attention to politics is privilege" are typically privileged rich white women, not oppressed minorities - those people don't like talking about politics in knitting club. Just a sample size of one.
      - nerdponx 6y ago
        And in my experience, it's trans people, DACA recipients, people with dark skin, and people who identify as queer.
        will4274 6y ago
        Let's make my sample size 2, then. How privileged are you?
        nerdponx 6y ago
        Very. I can choose to ignore politics for the rest of my days and I probably won't notice any difference in my day-to-day life.
KittenInABox 6y ago
I very much agree with this in principle, but I think there are limits to it too. If a user who uses they/them joins your community and talks about yarn and patterns, referring to the user will always be political unless you ignore them or don't use pronouns around them, which is also political. And then whether or not the user is allowed to participate might be political- some users might be highly uncomfortable with a they/them pronoun user even participating and want a community "without those politics".
- leoedin 6y ago
  Why does that user have to reveal any pronouns on the web? The default state of web based communication is ungendered. I have no idea what your pronouns are. If I was referring to you in a comment thread I would have to use "they/them" (or maybe "KittenInABox"). That's not a political stance, that's just English.
  - KittenInABox 6y ago
    If the policy then has to be that everyone has to be they/them or no one can have pronouns/correct anyone else about pronouns, then that itself is a political stance. Some things are just unavoidable.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      That feels like an artificial problem though. On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog. It's relatively easy to pass as any gender, age, race or whatever you want to. Yes, it will be more difficult if you call your account Transwomxn or request that people use xe/xir to refer to you, but if you're SarahKnitting, everybody will just assume you're Sarah and into knitting and will use she. At that point, it might be the right call by the community to not accomodate those that want to focus their membership on their political identity so they can provide a friendly community about knitting for the SarahKnittings of the internet.
      - KittenInABox 6y ago