This post is dedicated to those tireless champions of free speech on the Drowned In Sound message boards who see nothing wrong with using an offensive word or phrase as long as everyone else does.
Presumably, next week we'll see them using the word "nigger" everywhere - unless, of course, not enough people use that word as an insult anymore.
(From Facebook)
ReplyDeleteEverett True
Interesting (ish) thread going on over on DiS, touching on gender imbalance in indie music and involving the outing of an admitted user of homophobic insults
Tue at 8:52am · Comment · Like · Share
Sean Adams
not sure "interesting" is the right word. there's a much older thread that you'll be interested in about sexism in indie, see if you can dig it out.
Tue at 9:08am · Delete
Lauren Marie Ding
Part of me wants to mention how DiS apparently used to routinely avoid paying their female contributors while sharing money out between the male ones... but, eh, I won't.
Tue at 9:13am · Delete
Robin Wilks
d'oh!
Tue at 9:14am · Delete
Everett True
hey, I did say interesting (ish)! And the idea of linking is to encourage debate... right?
Tue at 9:31am · Delete
Ian Edward Wade
Just read it and it confirms that ALL ROCK & ROLL IS HOMOSEXUAL, or at least the best stuff has a feminine quality anyway. Jesus though, messageboards are the new 'BURN HIM!' chant. A 21st century lynch mob of twats. A few interesting points swamped by morons throwing tomatoes.
Tue at 9:46am · Delete
Michael Patrick
It is interesting...though would be more so if Mr. Stealthy could actually make a cogent argument.
Tue at 9:50am · Delete
(More from Facebook)
ReplyDeleteDaniel Chan
The problem isn't with free speech. The problem is when people can say things on the internet behind a username. The vast majority of people who are abusive on the internet would not say the same things if they had to put their real names next to it or if they had to do it face to face.
about an hour ago · Delete
My eyes glazed over about two-thirds of the way through. Urg. The problem with free speech is that people don't understand what it defends -- political speech. It's got nothing to do with someone's 'right' to be a cunt to people.
ReplyDeleteI hate the Drowned In Sound messageboard; it's like a public hanging attended only by illogical drunkards with unusually bad grammar. I don't know why you bother with it, Everett...
ReplyDelete...and it makes me increasingly sad that discussion of music and the arts and whatever might fall under that vague umbrella has become so full of misdirected and inarticulate spite and hate and almost VIOLENCE, of late. I used to use messageboards to join in colourful, considered, enthusiastic chat about stuff we loved or loathed - yeah, you could hate stuff, that was the point, but you wouldn't call the person you were arguing with a homophobic motherfucker. It never became personal, or at least, if it did, it didn't degenerate into that instantaneously. Now it doesn't seem like people know how to talk to someone else in any other way. When did everyone become so... vicious?
oh, just re-read and realised some of that could be misread;
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to accuse *you* of calling people homophobic motherfuckers - that was just a random example of two words that could be used in a vicious way that I plucked out of the air.
specifically, i should have said, 'you wouldn't tell the person you were discussing something with to 'Fuck off, you patronising has-been. Your articles are shit.' (as 'unfamiliar' did.)
*clarification*
I think your first comment was perfectly justified actually, Lauren.
ReplyDeleteThere's no such thing as 'free speech' on the internet - domains are owned and domain owners choose the standard of discourse they want for their domains. If DiS allows homophobic, racist or ablist language to pass without challenge, then more reasonable people will, just as I have, self-select out of reading their boards (they'd better hope they don't also self-select out of their site readership too).
ReplyDeleteMaybe DiS feels it's absurd for a music website to be challenging homophobia, ablism and racism on its boards. Fine - then they can state that position and defend it, rather than allowing the prevailing culture to look like an accident. That's one unpleasant spotty oik communitiy they've got going there, by the looks of things.
(More from Facebook)
ReplyDeleteBernard Langham
You're talking to the taxman about poetry. It doesn't work.
58 minutes ago · Delete
Everett True
yes, I agree. But I still think it's worth addressing because while everyone ignores it, the casual homophobia etc doesn't go away - it gets worse. And I do appreciate most of it is practised by 20-something students who still haven't gotten over the fact they're allowed to say 'fuck' in public, bolstered by the facade of anonymity given to them by message boards, but... well, does that make it any better? I was never really a big fan of the use of the word 'nigger' in early 20th Century literature but at least in that example you could (possibly) argue that the lack of media communication led to pockets of ignorance.
41 minutes ago · Delete
Bernard Langham
oh, it absolutely is worth addressing. however, from longstanding personal experience, these "debates" rarely warrant more than a single reply stating your position because (a) the last word is not to be had and (b) the gradual increase in blood pressure until it spurts from your eyes after the nth post really isn't worth it (for which, see http://bit.ly/2x17Xg )
17 minutes ago · Delete
Bernard Langham
randomly, the Facebook Captcha challenge text for the above post was "hanged Rockaway" o__O
17 minutes ago · Delete
it seems to me like debating online always will lead to finding out that most of the persons around are morons to a certain extent. painfully true and very sad especially when discussions involve matters of sex / color of skin / political preferences / taste in music...
ReplyDeletesuch is the way nowadays - you're ANON, you're FREE to type in as much shit as your fingers allow you.
suggested: DIARY OF THE DEAD by George A. Romero...
ET
ReplyDeletere your comment
"I do appreciate most of it is practised by 20-something students who still haven’t gotten over the fact they’re allowed to say ‘fuck’ in public"
isn't this somewhat ironic coming from somebody who's made a entire journalistic career out of never getting over the realisation that, so long as you say controversial stuff, people are going to react to you?
And to be honest the most sexist thing in the entire section you posted is this sentence here:
"because the male experience has been so well documented, only rock/indie music made by females has any value."
On the face of it, it seems positive towards women but actually it really really isn't. Instead it puts forward a view that women are there to be patronised and to be praised for the merit of being female alone and actually denies the idea a woman can be a talented individual in her own right, instead suggesting that their gender alone is the thing that much define her.
So, as well as being utter tosh (some women will be interesting, some not some men will be interesting, some not, some men - disabled men such as myself perhaps - won't really have had their experience documented in popular culture at all). The idea you inadvertently put forward -that gender alone rather than personality is the thing that defines us - is the very barrier that needs to be challenged if any form of true equality is ever to be achieved.
"There’s no such thing as ‘free speech’ on the internet"
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Petra. And one could go further and say that "there's no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing, too" (and by "one" here I mean Stanley Fish). In which case, we would ask after the specifics of the situation of constraint within which an utterance was made and consider how those constraints may shape the intelligibility of the utterance even "before" it is uttered by a speaking subject. Now, to my mind, Fish underestimates or downplays the extent to which the limits of a context are only _relatively_ firm, "neither absolutely solid, nor entirely closed" (Derrida), and so we might be inclined to note the potential counter-readings or alternative significations of such utterances, and we might even go so far as to assess them for their "politics" (though why does the image of a KGB officer demanding to see a person's papers pop into my mind as I write that phrase?).
But then we might want to consider the ethics (or, indeed, politics) of our analysis and intervention, by reflecting on the consistency or otherwise of (1) beginning from a position that situates subjects _within_ discourse, i.e. which begins by recognising that a person's discourse is not really their own as such and that their speech acts are constrained (and enabled, of course) in advance by the more or less accepted, but often unrecognised, bounds of the speech situation, and then (2) proceeding to attach a range of possible counter-meanings, which themselves depend for their intelligibility upon speech contexts other than the one under analysis, to the phrases from the first discourse and granting those alternative significations the status of pure speech, self-present to the consciousness of the utterer.
In other words, the moment one person accuses another of being not simply careless or insensitive, but a full-blown homophobe for uttering terms such as "gay", "art-fag", etc. without considering that the range of uses, meanings, etc. of these terms includes derogatory, offensive uses/meanings, that first person demonstrates an equal carelessness and insensitivity with regard to that range of meanings.
Stealthy was responding to ET's ceaseless posting ("spamming") of links to his debatable cultural criticism, and in doing so he used a phrase that, in some circles can be used without _intending_ offence — circles which include both "heteros" and "queers" (though why anyone feels it necessary to define themselves in terms of a putative "sexuality" is, I admit, a bit beyond me). That term may (or may not) nevertheless be received as offensive by people outside (and maybe by some inside) those circles, and we might even argue that for certain terms one has something of an obligation to consider their potential to cause offence, even though one does not intend such an effect. For Stealthy to be accused of homophobia on the basis of what at worst could be described as carelessness or insensitivity seems to me, however, to be a massive, even unjust overreaction.
And, of course, once his lexical choices became the cornerstone of debate for the outsiders (and I use that term advisedly), every aspect of every utterance becomes but grist for the interpretative mill: hence what to the insiders is a hostility towards ET for his "spamming" and "trolling" is for the outsiders nothing less than indicative of the intensity of the insiders' imputed bigotry.
Personally, I don't care much for terms such as "gay", "art-faggotry", etc. regardless of whether they're being "re-appropriated", but I can't help but feel that "interventions" along the lines of that which has spurred this post are what give reasoned political/cultural criticism a bad name.
Paul.
ReplyDelete1. You've (deliberately?) misquoted the line "because the male experience has been so well documented, only rock/indie music made by females has any value". It's way out of context. Go back and check. That's not what I said. Not at all. If you're going to cite others, please do so properly.
2. What would you suggest then is the reason for the gross under-representation of women (and disabled people) within rock/indie music? Surely it can't be because they're not as "creative" (an argument that has been used many, many times in the past). Positive discrimination is often necessary, especially when the majority group refuse to accept discrimination even occurs.
a couple of things. i don't have a comments box on my blog (and this post has largely confirmed my reasons why) but, hey, that isn't going to stop me poking my nose into other people's! The term 'free speech' gets bandied about a lot these days - and usually as a veil to hide some nasty prejudice. I'm thinking, for instance, of those Danish Mohammed cartoons that were little other than cheap racism, a dirty attack on a poor and oppressed minority in Denmark, and to dress it up as some sort of noble defence of 'free speech' can only devalue democratic ideals. I like Lars von Trier's comment though, about how the Danes have a history of provocation - not that he thinks that excused the authors of those cartoons though, not at all, as he put it, you should only provoke those more powerful than you, anything else is an abuse of power.
ReplyDeleteNow, 'the internet' - and please excuse me for talking as though the internet were, a, one monolithic thing with a single intention, and, b, a sentient being capable of any kind of, even hopelessly multifarious, intention - seems to propose the possibility of some sort of, if not exactly 'free speech', then perhaps public address, for those who feel themselves excluded from the public domain of speech. Time and again however, a trawl through the message boards and comments boxes of even relatively esteemed online publications, reveals that people seem invariably to use this virtual soap box as a plinth from which to declare their basest, most unpleasant instincts. why? i'm not sure, but i don't think it is all about anonymity. the sheer scale and willingness of people to be publicly unpleasant reminds me a little of that old bbc documentary, the nazis: a warning from history, which makes the case that, in a weird sort of way, the nazis were enacting a kind of direct democracy. hitler was incredibly popular, but he was also very lazy, and as such his power was relatively loose and vague, left a lot for people to interpret. but he/they created a space where it was acceptable for people to admit to, and indeed wallow in, celebrate even, the basest most unpleasant aspects of themselves. in a city the size of munich, in the late 30s, there were only about twenty gestapo officers. that's all they needed. everyone was so willing to shop their friends and neighbours. in east berlin, a couple of decades later, there was almost one stazi officer per citizen, and they needed each and every one of them, still they weren't as successful at rooting out potentially subversive elements.
As for women and music, I find Everett's position relatively non-controversial - though i don;t hold it myself, largely because music is basically the one thing that i allow myself to be a sort of aesthete about, and i'd just rather listen to Wagner and dancehall than any number of more politically worthy or under-represented social groups. But ideas like all-women shortlists for selecting candidates for election, or all-female art shows, and so forth, i mean these are pretty well-established and have been basically proven to have a positive effect. It is odd that whenever anyone suggest anything even vaguely along similar lines in the domain of indie music though, people get up in arms (there was for instance a brief conflagration on the indiepop list recently on the subject of all-female band shows at pop fests). does this mean that indie music has so successfully rid itself of all gender-based discrimination that to bring such a thing up is degrading or reactionary in some way? i don't think so. in fact, this seems to be Boris Johnson's argument in cancelling anti-racism free festivals in london. The alternative, however, that misogyny is so entrenched in indie music, more so even than in mainstream politics or 'fine' art, should be of serious concern to anyone who thinks that kids with guitars but little money, ideas but little technique, might have some access to the truth.
Three points.
ReplyDelete1. First rule of being bullied. Stand up to the bullies (if you're able). More often than not, they will go howling on home to mother whining about how they were "unfairly" represented. (Especially when they're separated from the pack.) This applies equally well in the playground and on message boards.
2. When does the use of homophobic language become a homophobic act in itself? Or is it OK to be homophobic if it just involves your mates?
3. To take another example, it's very rare that a racist person will admit to being racist. Ninety-nine times out of 100 they'll seek to explain it as something else entirely.
Hi, Petra again.
ReplyDeleteLol, outsiders? Funny. Godwin's by proxy for the KGB officer, too. Interesting that you summon Derrida to support your perpetually receding firmness of context. He tends to give me a hardon, not a softoff.
Your contention that the conversation's 'original' context should naturally take precedence is also pretty revealing. I'd argue for the immanence of various contexts, certainly in this case: Stealthy admitted as much when he conceded that the sting of the terms he uses is located in more than one meaning. I'd argue, of course, that one context is dependent on another, but that certainly isn't allocating 'pure speech' status on it - you misunderstand. I also think your argument for the absence of a more political context would depend on the absence of readers for whom these terms are political. When it comes to the DiS boards, you may be right. I don't imagine they have a particularly diverse readership, for precisely this sort of reason.
Finally, I accused no one of being a homophobe. I even went so far as to say 'I don't care what you mean by what you say'. I am absolutely not interested in imputing intent, as I'm sure you are aware. Nor do I think it's true that criticism of ET posting his blog links on a discussion board is being read as bigotry, unless by morons. The responses have all been clearly about the specifics of the language used; you're being vastly disingenuous.
"What would you suggest then is the reason for the gross under-representation of women (and disabled people) within rock/indie music? Surely it can’t be because they’re not as “creative” (an argument that has been used many, many times in the past)."
ReplyDeleteI would suggest, but I do not know, that part of the reason is that the level of dedication, obsession, and sacrifice of principles required to make the break-through, at the risk of your health, friendships, relationships etc is a fair chunk of the reason. Women value stability more highly and are perhaps less likely to sacrifice that for a 'work experience' non-salary.
I am not arguing the fundamental point you are making. Personally I would change the emphasis however. Rather than 'positive discrimination' (if my understanding of the phrase is the same as yours) I would prefer to see policies such as ensuring fair payment to work experience people, and better ways of challenging workplace nepotism and bullying, better ways of ensuring sensible working hours etc. This would - again I hazard a guess - result in workplaces that would be just better. It may well be that women and the disabled would benefit most - that is no bad thing - but it would be fairer and less open to criticism.
A couple of very good posts there - I look forward to responses.
ReplyDeleteOne little aside though. What upsets me most about the debate on DiS is the lack of debate. I genuinely detest it when I hear kids refer to bad things as 'gay'. 'Art-Fag' is much less offensive to me, much more open to debate in my mind.
But perhaps the most depressing thing is the extent that DiS posters seem unwilling to discuss the issues properly. Or even admit that there is an issue to debate. Or even insist that they were right but concede that they will change their ways anyway because it is better to do that than offend a tiny and irrational minority.
I suspect many if not most of the posters are neither racist nor homophobic... it is the ease with which they are happy to dismiss the concerns of others that is almost the most offensive thing. The refusal to consider that perhaps the highest moral ground is the place to occupy.
According to folk on the DiS message boards, use of homophobic insults is OK depending on the context.
ReplyDeleteFor example, in the context of a public forum (the DiS message boards) it's perfectly acceptable to use homophobic insults and then get yr cronies to SHOUT DOWN ANY FUCKING TWAT who dares to suggest otherwise.
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/
ReplyDeleteTrust me, as bad as you think the DiS board might be, it doesn't hold a candle to the NME Board. I actually find it offensive the depths that board goes to at times.
ReplyDeleteHypocritical, racist and bigotted cowards hiding behind their usernames in a vapid attempt to bate each other into saying more and more hateful and repulsive things.
Homophobia is the least of it's problems. At least the people on DiS actually talk about music...