Okay, so. The problem with Tumblr is that even though it’s a great place to talk about social justice concepts it isn’t a great place to mobilize or organize political change. That means that social justice on here mostly ends up being performative rather than active.
Unfortunately the easiest way to perform your ideological purity within an online community is to point the finger at those who are less pure (see: callout posts, blacklists, smackdowns, receipt pulling, reductive black-and-white mantras/statements, ‘10 Reasons Why So-and-So Isn’t a Real Feminist’, and so on). I see this happening more and more and it makes me really uncomfortable because a) it discourages necessary discussion and learning within social movements by framing all differences/disagreements as moral battles where one person is right and the other person is terrible and b) it reduces social justice to a passive, self-congratulatory performance of personal identity rather than an active, organized pursuit of political change.
Look: Tumblr is many great things, but it is not a safe space. The safe space (a concept originating in the women’s liberation movement) is designed to allow members of a community to speak freely and compare personal experiences with the assurance of respect and the intention of expanding ideas while also finding common ground. Tumblr doesn’t work that way. It’s a vast online forum where likes, reblogs, and followers determine whether or not a particular voice is heard, and it’s just too fast, too big, too diverse, and too anonymous to assume good-will and common interest from all participants. Therefore, many people’s chief priority becomes loudly proving their loyalty to a particular group, as group members who say the wrong thing risk being cast out, blacklisted, harassed, and even threatened.
The result is that Tumblr communities become more polarized, beliefs become more entrenched, thought-terminating cliches abound, common interests are overlooked, and participants are hesitant to ask questions or do anything that might open them to criticism or condemnation (which naturally includes most meaningful political action).
And the problem with this Revenge of the Sith post-9/11 ‘you’re either with us 100% or you’re the enemy’ attitude (where we refuse to work with or even listen to people whose beliefs differ from ours in any way) isn’t just that it’s a little cultish and scary, it’s that it’s totally unsustainable in politics. It’s worth remembering that constantly culling a movement to get rid of less-than-perfect members doesn’t just make the movement purer and purer, it makes it smaller and weaker.
This is a good post I don’t wholly agree with (which given the post…shouldn’t actually be an issue for people who do agree with it surely?). I agree that tumblr ideally wouldn’t be your only political outlet and its strengths don’t lie in mobilization or ‘active social justice’ in and of itself. (I don’t think that’s limited to tumblr though I think it’s common to the internet) and that culling members of a group who largely agree is a bad thing – however there are some opinions members of the group might have that might need some examining and that’s fine, challenge people on them please.
However, my issue is I don’t think there are binary two options it’s either active or it’s performative if it’s not one its the other. You aren’t actively advocating for change by posting to tumblr no…but tumblr is good at spreading information and ideas, connecting people with each other and introducing them to concept or ways in which to talk about their own experiences. Those are not active (although could subsequently lead onto that) but they also aren’t performative. My main issue with this idea is that it only applies if you aren’t part of the affected group you are talking about – if you are you can’t really be performative; a lot of what people refer to as social justice on here is people talking about their lives those people are not performing anything
Also…safe spaces should include the ability to tell someone when they’ve hurt you or someone else. ‘Your ideas are respected’ sure ‘people are afraid to say the wrong thing’ I mean good? when the thing you say is harmful to someone else, people who are telling you this are assuming that you are a good person who is inadvertently hurting someone and you would like to stop and will if you are informed of this. You don’t get a safe space to say or do hurtful things in that isn’t how this works. This entire thing also treads a line with ‘tell people they’ve hurt you more politely’ arguments.
And hey, maybe what you experience on tumblr isn’t what I experience, it’s a big website and I’m not saying what you talk about here isn’t stuff I have seen but my overwhelming experience with people who’s ideas or experiences overlap but not completely with my own is that of solidarity and alliance – it could be the issue is you don’t have as many common ideas as you think with someone who doesn’t do that.
Honestly, I think one of the biggest issues on here is people who advocate for the right to disagree, the right to their own opinion etc etc. who can’t handle critisism or aren’t interested in discussion with people who do disagree with them (not necessarily on that issue but you know). ‘I have the right to say this so you have to shut up cause you disagree’ is never a particularly compelling argument as it lacks internal consistency. I generally agree with the sentiment that people should be able to have an express different opinions, the argument just too often turns into ‘and those opinions should never be challenged cause opinions are sacred for some reason’
I am not saying that’s what this post is doing however…saying people who are doing the thing you disagree with are ‘a little cultish’ is not an example of ‘engaging in discussion and finding common ground’ and is in fact a thought terminating cliche – in fact its one of the ones given as an example in the article linked to only 7 lines before it. If you want discussion of ideas you’ve got to include those people you disagree with and not categorise them as a cult and be done that runs counter to everything else you’ve said pretty much.
Yes, dismissing small steps towards making the world a nicer place cause they are not totally perfect is a good way to become the type of activist who never does anything and that’s important not to do. But the perspective here is limited, it assumes you’re always talking to someone not that far off from you of viewpoint, whereas sometimes you do need to tell the white power guy to fuck off – and sometimes that’s for your own protection. And I don’t think the idea that you can’t approach ever interaction the same way actually runs counter to what’s said in the original post.
fearlessstateofmind backup 