[shut up & learn or learn to shut up]

[reenka]

Okay, I think the thing that actually bothers me about the latest 'omg, slash is OOC!!1 no artistic integrity, oh noes!' wank is basically some people's continuing inability to recognize this simple truth: not all opinions are created equal. There, I said it :P
    Consequently, saying 'I'm entitled to my opinion' and 'you're persecuting my freedom of speech, you OPPRESSORS!!1' may be true as far as that goes, but it's a fundamentally flawed argument, because basically being 'entitled' to a stupid & uninformed opinion doesn't mean anyone has to respect or accept it. I personally, in fact, hereby REFUSE to accept or respect uninformed opinions everywhere, given they involve claiming things in absolutes and generalizing & otherwise pretending authority they do not have. Though as I realized from my days of pre-HP-reading meta, people often don't understand when someone isn't pretending authority, but be that as it may ><;;;

Yep, the -thing- that makes an opinion less worthy than another on the same subject is how informed the person is about the subject of said opinion. In other words, if you're uninformed (perfectly within your rights if you're disinterested) and yet you feel the need to publically(!) (or even privately, it's annoying) make generalized absolute-sounding judgments-- that, my friends, is where it begins to sound like prejudice.

I think it's the mark of a minimally intelligent person that they realize when they're full of crap and/or talking out of their arse 'cause they don't really have a good understanding of their subject. If, in fact, I feel the person in question realizes this, I don't care -what- they say. A properly disclaimed opinion becomes just embarrassing (for them later) rather than, you know, offensive to people who know how wrong they are and may be painted with an unfair brush by said opinion.

This is sort of a blurry edge between true prejudice and a mere typical judgmental mentality (like, the way my mom isn't really 'homophobic' specifically so much as she doesn't have a clue-- but in some ways it's effectively the same, though the point is she told me she wouldn't say this in public & only confidentially to me 'cause she knows she's uninformed); however, I personally am usually offended by people who speak as if they know when really they don't (...meaning, yeah, I'm offended by most people at some point in time, so. :P ahahaha...ha).

And the question was raised in the comments to the original post whether it's the responsibility of the people who know to educate those that don't, rather it being the responsibility of those that don't to, you know, either get a clue or shut up if they have no clue & don't want one (or disclaim, disclaim, disclaim & explain how 'yes I know I'm out on a limb', etc).
    This actually sort of bothers me... the idea it's my (collective) fault people are stupid and/or don't bother to do their research. It's not my fault; I'd be happy to explain if they didn't come into it with blinders on and a desire to make pronouncements rather than, you know, LEARN. I'm not going to force people to learn, nor think it's my responsibility to let them know there's more -to- learn if they don't. 'Cause dude, any idiot knows there's always more to learn :P
    (Which is why my rants get repetitive-- ever notice how I only rant about things I know way too much about? I mean, can you imagine me ranting on and on about genfic?...Yeah.)

Comments

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

...I had this whole response typed up and then my computer crashed and I am like way too lazy to type it up again so IN A NUTSHELL:

1. I agree that there's a certain level of open-mindedness that's IDEALLY present, but I'm not convinced it's actually normal or common at all. This may be because I hate people, but I don't actually give them that much credit as a rule.

2. You totally just called Lara an irrational and insane person, LMAO! Seriously, she's WAY more canon-purist than I am, and WAY WAY WAY more "what the author says, goes," too. And honestly, I often think I give myself too much wiggle room.

3. That is one definition of prejudice, yes, but in the context of the homophobia discussion it wasn't really the relevant definition?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

1. Eh, you're probably right; I was thinking 'normal' but actually meant normally-intelligent-person-that-deserves-respect-for-their-opinions, though, uh, maybe that's not normal, per se. It's hard for me to have discourse with people who're closed-minded, so in the end I avoid them so much I sometimes forget they're nor weird freaks and are actually typical :> Anyway, people were trying to have some sort of 'civilized discourse' on the comments to that post, and how is that possible if you're closed-minded? Ah. But I often feel my ideas of 'civilized discourse' are somehow different from other people's ^^;;

2. Eek! ^^;; Um, yes, I knew that was me talking out of my arse, I admit it-- mostly 'cause I see myself as the standard and forget I'm actually just weird little me ^^;; Since you deviate a lot from me on the hardline side of things, I forgot to factor in just how much off to the other side I am ><; Not that I don't care about canon/author-intent, just that I don't have cut-and-dry definitions for most things (except when I do). It's all... in flux for me even though I have pillars of certainty, and maybe that's where we meet in the middle from opposite sides, 'cause you have all this certainty with small whirpools of flux :>

In other words, most people are more comfortable/closer to the straight-and-narrow side of things than I am. I think I mean I would have a hard time imagining anyone more hardline than you that I could still communicate with normally, but this is a reflection on -me- more than anything, I guess. In the end, I don't think, from what I've seen, I'd have problems communicating with Lara as long as I was careful not to go into Luna-speak/mumbo-jumbo (the way I am with my mom... well, she just tunes me out anyway). Ermm... TJs frighten/confuse/blow my mind, what can I say :)

3. See, yeah. I realized after Sister M said it that it was just that the post was written like a homophobic post (something in the argument style), just about slash & not homosexuality directly. It gave off that 'feel' without actually being like that 'cause of the type of reasoning involved ^^;

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

1. I think everyone's ideas of civilized discourse differ from everyone else's, and the only way to achieve harmony is to either avoid people whose ideas of such are radically different or accept the fact that sometimes people's ideas of such are radically different.

Sometimes I wonder if I actually have any opinions. /random.

2. That's actually a really good way to describe my approach. But the thing about me is that in a sense I'm certain about most things but in another sense I have no hard opinions at all because no matter how much I think something through and how attached to it I am or how sure if its correctness it is, I can let it go in a split second of the author says it's wrong.

What you said about not everyone being an English Major is very true, although it's less about what you actually major in than what mindset you have - I considered being an English Major, because I love writing and literature and discussion, but the entire "author's word doesn't matter" thing disturbed me so much that I wrote the idea off after two lit courses and went into social sciences instead.

And everything really is relative. I mean, I have a hard time communicating with people who aren't hardline, so. There's this whole 'driven by the enjoyable' thing that goes on in fandom that I have a very hard time connecting with.

3. I don't actually have any idea what "written like a homophobic post" means or what feel you're referring to, but uhh, that might be my own failing. Because my literal mind tends to interpret things very... literally and completely miss tones. I mean, that's good in some ways (because I really do think people tend to read tones into things based on their personal experiences, and I miss those by taking the words very straight-out) and bad in some ways (because I also think people tend to TALK between the lines and if they're doing that I will... totally miss that for the same reason).

I have no idea which was going on here, and I'm annoyed cause it's f-locked so I can't try to figure it out, now!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

1. I'm totally accepting & zen except when I'm annoyed, 'cause I can't be Ghandi all the time (...except Ghandi was an INFJ, but anyway). Even though I'm accepting, I'm still easily annoyed by people being stupid... I think it's an occupational hazard, kinda. People are stupid, I... sneeze.

2. Haha, there's a difference between being given to certainty & 'hard opinions', at least in Ts, I think-- er, people who're rationally inclined. I think it's that the TJs I know have a high threshold of the amount of evidence/proof needed, but it's part of the shtick to sometimes exchange one certainty for another, like replacing pairs of shoes. Now if you said you replaced certainty with uncertainty rather than another certainty a lot, then I' be surprised :>

And I think it's amusing that we communicate okay, it seems like (to me anyway). I wonder if I'm sekritly hardline. I probably am :> It's sort of like... the way you wonder if your opinions are all 'falsely real' and everything is really in flux or under the control of circumstance, I have the opposite situation where I suspect maybe I'm really 100% certain of everything and just forget what I know a lot of times :D In some ways, I'm a very hardline person, moreso than many people realize until they know me very well :))

Though the author-intent thing is interesting; like with the fic of mine I wrote a post about, how much does it matter how I intended it if she didn't get it? I wanted Pansy to be delusional, but if people think she's a strong kickass Slytherin role-model, what am I to say? People have such different reactions to what seem like simple cues to me; I'd be very careful about what precisely the author has authority to determine (outside the realm of pure response-- and where are the boundaries of fact vs fiction/response/emotion in fiction, y'know?) I mean, I'm definitely pretty certain the Pansy story is really The True Story the way it was intended/created, but if most people don't get that story without me having to explain it, what's the use, y'know? I didn't write an essay, I wrote a fic ^^;;;

3. Does Sister M's comment (http://lunacy.livejournal.com/322447.html?thread=4201103#t4201103) help? Things are just fuzzy sometimes. I wasn't seriously saying it -was- homophobic, really, at any point, so much as saying it 'smacks' or 'tastes' or reminds me of it-- meaning, that was heavily my personal response, which is why I locked it, y'know? Some of the phrases she used and the rationalizations for how sexuality works and how she views what's 'normal' or whatever-- it's like, there's something between the lines that makes me think she sort of 'aggressively uninformed', which is a precursor to homophobia, I guess? But that's such a big stigma, it's hard to talk about it in degrees, I guess.

[blacksatinrose.livejournal.com]

1. The funny thing is, the only thing that genuinely annoys me is people who are annoyed by differing opinions/mindsets. I have moments of "wtf, where is that person coming from?" but I don't CARE unless that person starts saying that everyone who thinks differently is badnaughtyevil.

There are only real exception to this is discriminatory views - homophobia, racism, sexism, etc. Those piss me off on their own. But as a result I take accusations of such VERY seriously and am extremely reluctant to read them into things.

2. It's true. I won't make up my mind until I have a great deal of evidence, and then my mind is MADE UP until there's evidence that gives me a new conclusion to come to. Then old conclusion is discarded without distress, because I have no emotional connection to a conclusion.

Though the author-intent thing is interesting; like with the fic of mine I wrote a post about, how much does it matter how I intended it if she didn't get it?

I would say that every reader is going to see different things regardless of how clear the author is, because people see everything through their personal lens and what they see often says more about them than it does about the story. For one thing, people are just more likely to remember/accept things that confirm their preconceptions and discard things that contradict them. For another, there's the fact that everyone has their own internal, unique to them, decoding system built on their own experiences.

So , about the author-intent thing. I am, as I've said before, driven by the need to uncover the Truth - the rock and not what people THINK of the rock. But that's incredibly difficult because I recognize that I, too, see everything through my own lens and have my own decoding system that is unique to me.

As such, the closest thing there is to a "truth" is what the author meant to say. Because they're biased too, yes, but the entire story is built on their biases, and so their decoder is the most reliable.

Note that I say "closest thing" and "most reliable" because I do recognize that perspectives shift over time, and they don't always remember what they were thinking or their opinions may change later or whatever, but I daresay that what I have to say about a fic I wrote 10 years ago is probably still closer to what I was going for at the time than what a random stranger who doesn't know me would assume I was going for.

3. The thing is, it's not that I don't think the same kinds of things would be said if you were arguing against homosexuality so much as that I think the tone is circumstantial and independent of subject matter. Specifically, I think it comes from feeling like you have this opinion and your community would be pissed at you or reject you if you admitted to having that opinion. If you feel that way long enough, there's a good chance that when you finally DO say it, you do so already expecting to be rejected and as a result come off defensively from the start. The response tone comes, IMO, from people who feel similarly experiencing a release from having someone give voice to opinions they share in which they feel are infrequently aired.

Which is not, btw, me blaming people who like slash. I think that kind of self-silencing is really something a person needs to own up to and take the blame for themselves, because you get out of fandom what you put into it. But the irony is that the less someone WANTS wank, the more likely this is to happen because the people who don't want to argue are the ones who stay silent until they can't take it anymore, resulting in some kind of semi-aggressive over-the-top justification of their perspective which, of course, elicits exactly the response they were trying to avoid. Which leads to them freaking out and f-locking it in an attempt to make it stop.

I also keep thinking that this is a person who was posting for her 50-person flist, and if someone took some of the shit I say on my personal journal and linked it to 2,000 or whatever metafandom watchers, yeah I'd look like a lunatic too because it's totally out of the context of whatever I was responding to.