So Cruelly Unappreciated
The Guardian is attempting to convince readers that its columnists – those heroic truth-to-power-speakers – are, unlike writers for any other national paper, continually besieged by an ungrateful rabble, and that an alleged avalanche of sexist, racist readers’ comments proves how righteous and heroic said columnists are in their truth-to-power speaking. Amid this tale of adversity and woe, we find the following, by columnist Jessica Valenti:
Imagine going to work every day and walking through a gauntlet of 100 people saying “You’re stupid,” “You’re terrible,” “You suck,” “I can’t believe you get paid for this.” It’s a terrible way to go to work.
As many readers will know, Ms Valenti is famed for her ability to mouth mutually dissonant ideas on a regular basis, thus attracting the mockery that so offends her, and while construing double standards as the pinnacle of righteousness. As, for instance, when invading the privacy of a random male commuter on the Tube by snooping at the contents of his phone, apparently at length, and then condemning his “passive sexism.” Apparently Ms Valenti’s fellow passenger wasn’t reading enough tweets by women and was therefore to be denounced in the pages of a national newspaper. Ms Valenti went on to assert, via Twitter, that on the Tube women have “no expectation of privacy” because they’re seen as “public property.” Unlike male passengers who find themselves sitting next to a nosey Guardian columnist who’s desperate for something to bitch about in the name of feminism.
And this is the same Jessica Valenti who insists that feminists such as herself “absolutely, without a doubt, do not hate men,” before dismissing even the concept of misandry, which she frames in scare quotes, and adding, immediately, “but so what if we did?” And Ms Valenti says this while sharing photos of herself exulting in the sorrows of male readers, and while urging her fellow feminists to buy fashion items that depict men being stabbed for the sin of being romantic. And of course while complaining that some of her readers don’t find her sufficiently gifted and coherent as a cultural commentator.
insists that feminists such as herself “absolutely, without a doubt, do not hate men,”
Yeah, that never happens.
There is a general unwillingness amongst the professional bloviators that clog newspapers and comment sites to admit that any criticism is valid at all. “Never read the comments”, they smirk to one another on Twitter.
There’s a sort of pattern that often seems to emerge:
1 Columnist writes asinine bollocks about subject they don’t understand, for the ‘edification’ of people they don’t know.
2 Columnist is greeted by a mix of casual abuse, irritation and reasoned criticism by people who know what they’re talking about
3 Columnist repairs to Twitter, to agree with other columnists about how awful the common herd is.
4 Moderators delete the comments indiscriminately, happy that the advertising revenue is secured.
There’s a sort of pattern that often seems to emerge
Absolutely. The Guardian is of course famous for its moderators deleting perfectly civil comments that happen to disprove or throw into doubt the premise of an article. If you’ve ever watched them being purged in real time, as it happens, it’s quite extraordinary. Likewise, the construal of factual correction or mild mockery as “sexist abuse” and therefore warranting immediate deletion.
Ms Valenti has voiced her disdain for readers’ feedback on more than one occasion, as when claiming that, by giving people the ability to publicly reply to her pronouncements, “comments uphold power structures instead of subverting them.” And that therefore, “for writers, wading into comments doesn’t make a lot of sense.” Because if readers are continually having to correct you on points of fact and logic, or pointing out contradictions, or just voicing their bewilderment at what you’ve asserted, this tends to dent one’s ego and almost certainly constitutes misogyny.
“Imagine going to work every day and walking through a gauntlet”
Imagine there’s no Guardian
It’s easy if you try
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/23/kesha-benefit-claimant-women-burden-proving-rape
This was my favourite Graun comment piece recently. It’s oddly nice when the mask slips. You’ll notice that a lot of comments have been disappeared without proper explanation.
I think insults would have to be really quite serious to outweigh the nastiness of Pascoe’s worldview, personally. But that’s just me.
Raedwald has a helpful guide to Graun moderating policy.
That’s weird. The link appears to be dead, yet if you click on the masthead, the “guest post” is at the top of the page.
A bunch of daft bints spouting rubbish.
Link fixed.
Off topic but this Spiked Podcast about spaces and what can be done about them is quite good.
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/universities-should-be-dangerous-spaces/18234#.Vw4X4kd01iY
Raedwald has a helpful guide to Graun moderating policy.
It does rather capture the flavour of the place – and the fact that irate and crass comments tend to be aimed at articles by advocates of the most unhinged and obnoxious identity politics, and which are themselves quite vile and very often bigoted. As, for instance, when Aisha Mirza sneered at “white PPL” as some homogeneous and menacing racist mass and bemoaned the “psychic burden” of living among people whose skin is paler than hers, and which, she insists, is worse than being mugged.
In fact, Ms Mirza’s article was so obnoxious and factually inaccurate, even by Guardian standards, that it had to be quietly edited, retitled and in large part rewritten by the paper’s editors. None of which made Ms Mirza any more congenial. Instead, she tweeted her disdain for any readers who found her article wanting, especially those who dared to correct her on points of basic fact, and whom she dismissed en masse as ignorant and beneath contempt. While congratulating herself on not bothering to read any of the lengthier, more serious rebuttals, Ms Mirza tweeted, rather triumphantly, “The only praise or criticism that matters is that from fellow people of colour.”
And this kind of self-satisfied bigotry is pretty much a staple of the Guardian comment pages.
Wow David, your last couple of posts have upped the grump factor 🙂 Bad week?
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Daily Life section has become a feminist haven and now moving into queer territory too. Which would be fine if there was equal representation for cis white males. But that would be silly.
That said, it was quite entertaining to watch the moderators busily deleting dozens of comments that complained about Ms Mirza’s racial bigotry, and then deleting comments that complained about those comments being deleted.
Being a pious Guardianista is so much work.
Wow David, your last couple of posts have upped the grump factor 🙂 Bad week?
Grumpy? Lord, no. It’s actually been a good week so far.
This is me having fun.
@David Taylor
I always picture David writing with a cruel smile. And stroking a white cat.
Of course they don’t hate men. At least not some men:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2006/09/bill-clinton-lunching-with-bloggers.html
That’s Jessica in front of Bubba doing her best to make sure the former sex-predator-in-chief doesn’t miss her assets.
One of my Internet rules makes online life very simple and easy to understand.
I do not read any site that does not allow BTL comments. Period. No exceptions.
If your argument cannot stand the test of people – who may very well know more than you – it is automatically suspect, and not worth reading. Ignorance is a terrible thing. Those of us with enquiring minds are DELIGHTED to be corrected. It pains me to find out that I had the wrong facts, or misunderstood something. I’m thrilled to get the correct info.
For instance. My ‘Friends’ on Facebook are constantly posting bullshit urban myths. Each time I simply paste a link to Snopes that shows them to be false. I always check every ‘too good to be true’ post. It takes 30 seconds.
Most people are angry at me. Most passively. Some overtly. They are ANGRY to find out that something they believed to be true is false. But they’re angry at me – not at the person who shared it with them, or created the meme.
I’m done with people like that.
I do not read any site that does not allow BTL comments.
Someone recently said they found it charming that I interact with you lot, the heathen rabble. But it’s always struck me as an important part of blogging – it’s entertaining and quite often I learn something new. There’s also the fact that by interacting, debating, you get to bring your own thoughts into focus. Which is why the threads are often much more interesting than the posts, which I think of as starting points, not full stops.
I can’t believe this hasn’t surfaced in the English-speaking blog world:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/world/europe/jan-bohmermann-erdogan-neo-magazin-royale.html?smid=pl-share
The original, “milder” offensive video about Erdogan is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYfDSh09x9M
Erdogan wants Merkel to prosecute a German comedian for insulting him.
The video is in German though!
“Imagine going to work every day and walking through a gauntlet of 100 people saying ‘You’re stupid,’ ‘You’re terrible,’ ‘You suck,’…”
Wasn’t it Guardian writer Cory Doctorow who defended leftist protest tactics that included violence, harassment and intimidation of all those “bourgeois” people who are so unenlightened that they persist in going to work every day?
Imagine going to work every day and walking through a gauntlet of 100 people saying ‘You’re stupid,’ ‘You’re terrible,’ ‘You suck,’.
If it was me and it was happening every day -maybe I’m just insecure- but I would start wondering whether I should listen to them.
@Dan et al.
I was thinking the same thing. Name another occupation–other than Democrat Party Office Holder–where the consumers constantly tell you your product or service sucks, but you are nonetheless able to keep your job. What is it about a byline that makes someone’s opinions so much more noteworthy than anyone else’s?
I always picture David writing with a cruel smile. And stroking a white cat. . .
. . .while sitting on a throne of skulls.
Name another occupation–other than Democrat Party Office Holder–where the consumers constantly tell you your product or service sucks, but you are nonetheless able to keep your job.
Republican Party Office Holder, not to be confused with a genuine conservative office holder.
If it was me and it was happening every day -maybe I’m just insecure- but I would start wondering whether I should listen to them.
Well, when the readers’ feedback includes quite detailed rebuttals and corrections of basic fact, you’d think so. But airy dismissal of any dissent is another Guardian staple, especially when the subject involves the Holy Trinity of race, class and gender.
In 2007, the paper’s then-deputy comment editor Joseph Harker famously accused his own readers of being ignorant and racist because some of them dared to disagree with his assertion that “all white people are racist” and his belief that “as a black man… I cannot be racist.” Such was his indignation at not being deferred to unanimously, he wrote, rather tetchily: “If we want to have a sensible discussion about race, or racism… do we need to find a new corner of cyberspace, and boldly go where no stupid white man has gone before?”
And so Mr Harker’s solution to encountering unexpected disagreement was to yearn for a different venue and a more sympathetic audience, one ideally all brown, rather than attempting to present a more convincing argument.
Readers may also recall Mike Power, a Guardian contributor who rails heroically against the Great Barbecue Patriarchy and who finds men’s grill-side chat “oppressively penetrating.” When readers made fun of his implausible delicacy, his wild assertions and feeble grasp of history, Mr Power chose not to reply to any of the many rebuttals, even the very detailed and civil ones. Instead, he retreated to Twitter, where he announced, again triumphantly, “Anyone would think I touched a nerve.” And so, in his mind, the avalanche of correction was somehow a validation of his own daring and brilliance.
This is not an everyday level of vanity.
What Farnsworth said. While the bulk of this problem is on the left, there has always been an element of such on the right. From the patrician Such-Things-Are-Simply-Not-Done George Will to certain pockets in what is often pejoratively referred to as fly over country. I blame the cultural taboo that started in the late 60’s/early 70’s (US anyway) of never discussing politics or religion. Consequently when people did discuss such, they only did so in their own balkanized echo chambers. People simply don’t know how to handle differences of opinion without going full Godwin by the third volley. Jack Welch had a great article on LinkedIn about this:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/go-ahead-talk-politics-work-jack-welch
What amuses me most, as usual, are the pearl-clutching comments from many, mostly HR types. Such thoughts are simply not to be thought.
Damn, that’s stupid…meant to say “such thoughts are simply not to be spoken.” Broke something there between brain and keyboard.
Such thoughts are simply not to be thought.
These days, that is equally correct.
Damn, that’s stupid…meant to say “such thoughts are simply not to be spoken.”
Quite unnecessary self-flagellation.
@ Farnsworth & WTP
I stand humbly corrected, consent to and second the amendment.
“Imagine going to work every day and walking through a gauntlet of 100 people saying “You’re stupid,” “You’re terrible,” “You suck,” “I can’t believe you get paid for this.” It’s a terrible way to go to work.”
Okay. Let’s do that. If a plumber or an accountant has 100 people outside his place of work yelling criticism at him, he’s probably going to be out of work pretty sharpish. Because if you’ve got a hundred of your customers telling you your work is no good, there’s a pretty good chance that your work is no good.
But, as David says, if your business is thought and words, why not talk to them? It’s hard to escape the impression that Guardian writers are scared they might be persuaded to abandon their beliefs.
Mixing with the hoi-polloi, David? Tsk tsk.
“Out here on the perimeter there are no stars
Out here we is stoned, immaculate.”
It’s hard to escape the impression that Guardian writers are scared they might be persuaded to abandon their beliefs.
Which makes me wonder whether some of them actually believe their beliefs, as it were. I mean, does Mr Power really believe that the amiable chat of a summer barbecue is oppressively penetrating and that the sight of men gathered around a grill – cooking for friends and neighbours, people they care about – that this sight is “ugly” and “really drains the joy from the summer breeze”? Is that a real conviction, something a sane person might hold as self-evident, or is it just a bit of posturing to signal his leftist piety?
And if it’s all affectation, all this uptight disapproval, to signal his elevation above the likes of thee and me, then how sane is that?
More Graun, in which Paul Mason argues the case for recolonisation of British dependencies, and offers Florence under the Medicis as a prototype for a socially just society. He does, honest.
“makes me wonder whether some of them actually believe their beliefs”
“The followers of a mass movement see themselves on the march with drums beating and colors flying. They are participators in a soul-stirring drama played to a vast audience–generations gone and generations yet to come. They are made to feel they are not their real selves but actors playing a role, and they’re doing a “performance”, rather than as the real thing.”
The True Believer
Eric Hoffer
1951
This…
https://twitter.com/thirdwavefem/status/720208881599647744
Click through the screengrabs. 🙂
This…
Heh. Well, quite.
Ooh. Must dash. In-laws coming for dinner.
I do love it so when you pile on Valenti.
Imagine going to work every day and walking through a gauntlet of 100 people saying “You’re stupid,” “You’re terrible,” “You suck,”
Sounds awful. I wouldn’t like hearing such things either. Fortunately, since I’m a straight white classical liberal American man, as long as I avoid tv, most of the internet, universities, movies made within my parents’ lifetime, the occasional Social Justice Warrior tech talk, and conversations with the majority of my coworkers and a small but vocal contingent among my family and friends, I’m all set.
Amusing that one of the reasons given for deletion of comments is ad hominem attacks on the article authors. Yet this wretched ‘interview’ of Maajid Nawaz by former Comment is Free editor David Shariatmadari is still on the site:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/02/maajid-nawaz-how-a-former-islamist-became-david-camerons-anti-extremism-adviser
The more experienced staff at the Grauniad have pulled Shariatmadari up on it:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/09/anonymous-pejorative-quotes-should-be-used-only-in-exceptional-cases
But still no correction on the original article.
The vile Connie St. Louis piece demanding that people stop defending Tim Hunt is still live:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/23/stop-defending-tim-hunt-brian-cox-richard-dawkins
So much for a less abusive internet, the shitbags.
The Guardian is of course famous for its moderators deleting perfectly civil comments that happen to disprove or throw into doubt the premise of an article. If you’ve ever watched them being purged in real time, as it happens, it’s quite extraordinary
Alas I have watched CiF “moderation” as it happens. It was a puzzling and infuriating experience – & then you can read their glib, meaningless assurances when asked how they define “trolling”, “off-topic”, “derailing”, or “abuse” for the purposes of moderation.
I think it would be well worth people taking screenshots of their CiF comments – in context – especially if said comments happen to be mildly critical of feminists, or of the Guardian itself. If for/after screenshots of the deletions were published, people could decide for themselves whether the offending comments were truly hate-speech (whatever that means) or just robust criticism or justified mockery
Unrelated, but something I was wondering about this morning. Why do both terms ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ get used? Why is there not a single term, say ‘homosexual’ used for this? Why do female (or female… identifying, is that the right term?) homosexuals distinguish themselves from male/male identifying homosexuals. Or is this a patriarchial distinction? Perhaps it allows cis white males to avoid homosexual porn involving homosexual males more easily?
I don’t know if it is a patriarchal oppression, or a feminist freedom. Someone tell me!
Actually moderation at The Guardian is pretty good. It generally keeps things passably civil.
Except for articles on feminism. Then any comment, no matter how polite, restrained, and factual, is in danger of being moderated if it disagrees with the article. This is in direct contravention of their written policies.
Do they have special moderators for feminists articles? Is the author allowed to make moderation decisions? How does it work?
I notice that Jessica Valenti’s articles are now often hidden away on The Guardian. They are no longer front and centre on the Opinion page for days at a time. It’s as if she has been relegated.
“sexist, racist, sundry other SJW epithets reflexively hurled – the great excuse for personal and intellectual failure
Perhaps it allows cis white males to avoid homosexual porn involving homosexual males more easily?
Hey, it helps those on ‘both sides of the fence’ to get down to business more quickly. Quicker to type as well. I don’t see it as a problem.
it’s going to be sheer bliss for her if the sharia merchants get their way.
If a plumber or an accountant has 100 people outside his place of work yelling criticism at him, he’s probably going to be out of work pretty sharpish. Because if you’ve got a hundred of your customers telling you your work is no good, there’s a pretty good chance that your work is no good.
Being a better writer/thinker is hard. Being a ‘victim’ is easy.
They are participators in a soul-stirring drama played to a vast audience–generations gone and generations yet to come. They are made to feel they are not their real selves but actors playing a role, and they’re doing a “performance”, rather than as the real thing.
Which may explain this example of leftist theatre, which combines Maoist psychodrama with amateur dramatics. The chunky woman near the front is visibly acting, and not terribly well. Which makes me think the alleged political mission is largely an excuse for an urge to be obnoxious and exert power over others, which I’m sure is quite real.