Posts you had second thought about and decided not to post - put them here

I think that kind of contradiction (in various forms) is inherent to liberalism and part of why it feels some combination of ineffectual and complicit in the face of right wing terror, the history of liberals tolerating/advocating awful illiberal ideas and policies is pretty much the history of liberalism

a lot of the liberals i know, they don't want to be on my side, they want to be on _everyone's_ side

truth bomb

so much of liberalism is about mitigating guilt ime. protecting white goodness/innocence essentially. i think that impulse explains a lot of the helicopter / protective parenting too. there isn't a principled thesis or viewpoint on anything behind it & no honest "chips in the game" so to speak. that, in some ways, is more dangerous than people who have a clear identity or vision they stand for, even if it's of the fascist variety.

The problem with liberalism is its identification with pluralism: liberals want Every Voice Heard, in part because they can pat their own backs and because increased newspaper/mag subscriptions = pluralism.

If you don't recognize when ideas and beliefs are antithetical to your own, then the chances are good that you have no ideas or beliefs, just a bunch of random noise instead.

thinking about it my issues with liberalism run deeper than concern over having to justify my existence to my rich liberal relatives. i honestly believe that the single biggest obstacle to my transition was my internalized liberalism. it wasn't until my liberal beliefs had been shattered that i was able to justify my existence to _myself_.

i think map's description of how liberalism worked for me is essentially accurate. it kept me in a state of "white innocence", which is to say ignorance. for me, the events of 2016 shattered that belief system. i had a hard fucking time dealing with it. part of this artificial state of innocence was the belief that donald trump absolutely was not going to be the next president. i was invested enough in this idea that in the event he won, i planned to kill myself. my internalized liberalism actually ran that deep, that i was willing to go full fucking nero decree over it.

anyway, i didn't, but the experience shocked me into needing to confront, for the first time, the question of who i was and who i wanted to be. if we were all basically the same deep down, all basically wanted the same stuff, than i didn't have to actually consider my own beliefs and desires. i could let other people do that for me, and as long as i was a cishet white man, that was going to work out just fine for me.

in other words, the liberal beliefs i was taught coerced me into performing my own self-erasure. i'm not really a fan of that, personally. i don't feel like those values are basically good values.

I suspect the endlessly contentious and apocalyptic US Politics threads have led a cadre of ilxors to remove I Love Everything from their Site New Answers, so they may never see this poll.

i remember when she was in a mediocre indie band that i had to show enthusiasm about ...

just wondering how some people have the mental fortitude to pick fights with people over basically nothing on a daily basis. what do they get out of it? is it fun? I couldn't live my life like that.

otm

I give in upon occasion but daily basis would wreck me.

Last two things I’ve “picked fights about” on ilx:

- unperson crowing about what a great feminist he was after using the term young pussy and telling me I just didn’t get why that was non offensive on a thread where the topic had moved to older men targeting much younger women
- someone trotting out that great old chestnut about a woman who was a prude being a secret slut, cos it’s not like that is an extremely questionable line of thought that’s played out badly before or anything

Every time I do this it takes time from the stuff I come on ilx to do, reading and responding to posts. How much would I like to spend my days on my baseball thread blogging about Barry Zito and never once feeling uneasy about stuff I’ve seen on here? Very much, my non-friend!

I don’t actually come here to start fights over basically nothing (cool that these things are nothing to you, whereas I have to make the choice “Is it worth saying something?” knowing that the person on the receiving end is most likely going to be a prick about it and that really it doesn’t bother most ilxors whether female ilxors are disturbed or annoyed at having to see this shit unchallenged in a shared space. I know this because so often I am the first person saying something, but it would be good to know that it’s my mental fortitude that’s the problem and not, for example, how comfortable I feel reading this stuff on a place that has been my internet home for over a decade. And believe me when I say that I am not just speaking for myself on this.

Sounds so reasonable - but you also posted:

Fully aware that you meant this in a cunty way, but fuck, so much of this site is utterly dead and boring. People leaning into their stale shticks and bumping threads nearly as old as I am to make fart jokes, fuck off. Maybe people should make better fucking posts or threads so there’d be more interesting activity on here and then you wouldn’t get tons of bored aggro people showing up to shit on this subject they clearly have zero interest in because it was made by a person they don’t like! Seriously, I manage to stay out of 99% threads that don’t interest me because I hope the threads will die, so why can’t the rest of you? That’s a serious question. This thread is not great but it’s really not that offensive either. Will always default to “put up or shut up” personally!
― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Tuesday, January 31, 2023 9:03 AM (eight minutes ago)

Which is pretty much the equivalent of 'You're all idiots - I'll take you all on"

or, in visual form:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzBqc91C-Ig

Are you still mad because you made that stupid joke in my thread and I told you so? Lmao.

By the way, the post you copied was from when a load of people were trolling Left’s thread with some not very veiled homophobia and I was angry that this was the thing they decide to get active on, so yeah. Again, context matters.

https://www.pluggedin.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/the-grudge-1024x660.jpg

storing up (decontextualized) old grievances is a very weird look Luna S

Change your tune Luna. Enough already.

Just for people who don’t know/care, this relates to my boundaries thread, which is a thread I made about a topic that is important to me. There were several stupid posts where people started posting trollish things, I was irritated by this, LS posted this:


I find 'boundaries' a very amorphous concept. It feels useful, but I'm not sure the meaning stays the same across different contexts (personal, work, family, online/social media) where the sense of 'self' can differ.

For boundaries to work, you have to enforce them...

Many relationships seem to have more complicated arrangements than the Northern Ireland protocol, and with a greater variety of 'no hard border' and 'backstop' solutions, and protracted negotiations and threats to trigger unilateral dissolution.

― Luna Schlosser, Thursday, 6 January 2022 14:02 (one year ago) link

Congratulations, that’s the stupidest post yet itt

― mardheamac (gyac), Thursday, 6 January 2022 14:06 (one year ago) link

Thanks - I take my plaudits where I can find them!

― Luna Schlosser, Thursday, 6 January 2022 14:10 (one year ago) link

I guess you’d have to.

― mardheamac (gyac), Thursday, 6 January 2022 14:12 (one year ago) link

So yeah, not exactly the nicest I’ve ever been on ilx. Then this:

Oh - this was the thread where my "stupidest post yet itt" unsurprisingly went straight over gyac's head.

― Luna Schlosser, Wednesday, 21 December 2022 12:14 (one month ago) link

So yeah. If LS and others have such a problem with such really banal pushback to the point of bringing it up almost a year later and repeatedly across other threads, I’m questioning whether I’m the one with the problem. Because it’s not the first time I’ve had someone hyperfocus on me after some mild pushback and I’m frankly pretty sick of it. That’s even taking out the context that being female online is so full of this shit routinely! Frankly could do without it! Killfile exists!

I don't have any personal grievance with gyac - to be clear.

I do notice that gyac is a particularly combative poster - and i'm pointing it out.

Over stuff you think is trivial and unimportant, yes. Killfile me. I don’t like you or your grudge.

A combative poster on ilx? Really?!

Have to say it absolutely kills me reading male posters pointing out how bad sexism is and how they’re such good guys for noticing, but pointing out sexist comments on here and the absurd trolling towards one of ilx’s few female posters just isn’t a thing. And of course I’m combative for not just ignoring it.

Seriously, I manage to stay out of 99% threads that don’t interest me because I hope the threads will die, so why can’t the rest of you? That’s a serious question.

Because of the agreement on unfettered access - no new checks on posts crossing thread borders.

― Luna Schlosser, Tuesday, 31 January 2023 23:18 (two weeks ago) link

No personal grievance though. I didn’t laugh at this man’s joke over a year ago.

I think I was the model of politeness on that boundaries thread btw and elsewhere . A polite poster on ilx ? Really!

I mean if you are pointing out combativeness in a poster on the internet you are pointing out nothing.

What is your actual issue?

gyac - as you keep mentioning this alleged grievance on a variety of threads - i have responded to you on the original thread.

You know when I said to killfile me? That. I don’t care that you don’t like me - and that you seem to think it’s fine that you’re repeatedly insisting that I’m in fact too stupid to grasp your initial point - but I care that you’re making that fact my problem. Leave me the fuck alone.

Why would I want to keep a thread about an important topic to me from veering off into trolling? It is a mystery.jpg. Let alone the fact that I had to stop posting in that thread.

Congratulations, that’s the stupidest post yet itt

― mardheamac (gyac), Thursday, 6 January 2022 14:06 (one year ago)

some people might not read this as "banal pushback" and genuinely feel hurt about being on the receiving end of a comment like that?

otoh, gyac is regularly making comments like that and your "stupidest" post is only one of a mind numbing quantity of stupid posts made by many other ilxors that she has pointed out in the past year or so. ... like one fart joke among hundreds of fart jokes, so the healthiest approach imo would be to just not rehash this over a year later? As opposed to piping up a whole year after the fact saying the equivalent of "what was wrong with my fart joke?"

idk maybe my perception is based on being one of ilx's few female posters ...

you can also do the classic ilx move and start a poll of posts that gyac called stupid, including your post, and gain reassurance through group approval ...

Oh cool, I’m so glad this is continuing.

Just so we’re clear, though, I don’t feel bad about calling a post stupid if the thread it was in had good discussion and also the NI comparison is unbelievably crass and tone deaf bearing in mind how poisonous the discourse is in the UK about it. LS reads the UK politics thread so I assume he knows I am Irish as I mention it in the context of xenophobia towards Irish people specifically in relation to the protocol and post Brexit issues. So actually, no, make a comment like that and stupid is very very very mild criticism.

But sure, I’m the problem and not the fact that I frequently comment on bigoted posts people make. Those are fine.

, I don’t feel bad about calling a post stupid if the thread it was in had good discussion and also the NI comparison is unbelievably crass and tone deaf bearing in mind how poisonous the discourse is in the UK about it. LS reads the UK politics thread so I assume he knows I am Irish

I didn't point this out in my comment because I didn't feel like it was worth stating something that should have been obvious to LS when they made that initial post ... I have made crass and tone deaf posts in my 14 year ilx history, and I am embarrassed by them, and I definitely have no desire to bring any of them back up. I would like to think that I either apologized for them or sat with the discomfort, and then tried to do better in the future.

I respectfully decline to engage on this.

going back to a classic mod response when DJP was a mod ... "this is a good one to let go"

We could definitely make a poll of gyac posts that dudes weirdly fixate over and keep bringing up months later but I’m waiting for there to be a few more, I can only think of 3 canonical examples

i was merely thinking that you could ilx search "stupidest post" and then poll those options, and maybe steer the poll away from posts that gyac called "stupidest" and include other ilxors' judgments of posts as "stupidest" so that the poll isn't just about one ilxor ... though really the idea of the poll in the first place was a joke.

In any case, much as I love having another nice struggle session I’m still waiting for an explanation about how my commenting on the atmosphere that produces posts like that unperson one, or whatever, is worse than having to read that shit on here as though it’s acceptable. Like I would estimate the majority of posts I’m combative on are about stuff that matters to me, so I’m kind of confused* why that’s so upsetting. What should I do instead? I’m all ears.

*i am not remotely confused, this is sarcasm.

where was that unperson post? what thread?

duh ... i know how to search, sorry for asking you

In my mind that thread is the male equivalent of the "no boys" thread ... like it's men talking about what masculinity means to them ... I stay in my lane and don't go there.

Not saying that you shouldn't go there, gyac, just ... explaining why I didn't note that post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTRBUnjAgq8

abesimpsonrevolvingdoor.gif

it’s weird i thought the show was always middlebrow pop consumer sci fi bs, but i guess even it’s wack charms are now gone

Too bad his parents didn’t consider it for 52 years after

In any case, much as I love having another nice struggle session I’m still waiting for an explanation about how my commenting on the atmosphere that produces posts like that unperson one, or whatever, is worse than having to read that shit on here as though it’s acceptable. Like I would estimate the majority of posts I’m combative on are about stuff that matters to me, so I’m kind of confused* why that’s so upsetting. What should I do instead? I’m all ears.

*i am not remotely confused, this is sarcasm.

― here you go, muttonchops Yaz (gyac), Sunday, February 19, 2023 5:26 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I didn't participate in the conversation, but since you're asking and I actually thought about those posts after reading them, I'd say it's the chain you construct from general atmosphere in the UK/world to you being upset to assuming an individual poster is [sexist] to the lashing condescending tone of "you do realize you just did abc". It did seem like stopping a conversation by making the worst assumptions possible about someone or misunderstanding them on purpose, on a forum that is generally educated and sensitive and civil, and I wondered why you'd choose to do that and wonder why you seem to have gained something here by forcing an apology ? It's not like unperson is going around all day being unthoughtful and tactless, and I thought his post was clear.

So basically it must be possible to separate things better