Sometimes I shouldn't use words

VVC vid recs part 1

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:02:13 GMT

So Vividcon has happened. I haven’t watched ALL THE VIDS or even downloaded them but there is one I’d like to talk about.

On the Prowl by sisabet and sweetestdrain

( Peeping Tara or this vid has ALL THE PAIN )

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Notes to self: vid warnings at VVC

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:24:10 GMT

Having been following the open policy revision process being hosted by astolat and read a large number of other people's posts and comments about warnings and VVC accessibility I think my current, entirely non-authoritative and not very original position is this:

People at risk of being triggered by vids and requesting warnings are grown ups. They are perfectly aware that vidder or VVC or VJ supplied summaries of potentially triggering content are just someone else’s judgements. They don’t guarantee safety but they would make the con more navigable and feel more hospitable. An explicit warnings policy, however imperfect and far from comprehensive a guide it produces/makes available, also at some level acknowledges that they exist, they are visible.

People at risk of being triggered by vids who are not asking for warnings or are arguing against some of the more pro-warning policies are also grown ups. There may be different reasons for their stance but at least in some cases it may be that they have evolved strategies for balancing the risks that rely on convincing themselves that they don’t need to trust other people who are not them to figure out what they need to know. A very in your face pro-warning culture may make the attitude required to do this more difficult to maintain. Where the message one person gets from content notes and checklists is “you are seen” for someone else it might be “ you are being watched (over).”

I think compromise is possible and that several of the suggested models for the new warnings policy could achieve it, the main thing being that warnings/content information need to be kept as separate as possible from other types of information about the con that people might want to access. The need to make the con accessible to warning averse people would place certain restrictions on where information could be made available. For example, warnings should not be integrated in the programme notes or embedded in vids but could be supplied on separate printouts. Lists of which vids and or vidshows vidders, VJ’s or the concom consider may contain specified potential triggers would ideally be collated in one central place that can be linked to but (on request) not copied and pasted into unlocked journal posts. Private correspondence with the concom or VJs should be encouraged but with, if logistically possible, a way for individual attendees to opt out of being e-mailed about whether they need such information. And so on and so on.

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Not sure what to call this one

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:02:04 GMT

There’s a post I’ve thought about making several times but my thoughts on the issues always start out chaotic and unfocused and by the time I’ve thought them into line the moment has passed. It’s a post about ablism/disablism and language, about the rights and wrongs of using words like blind and deaf and retarded and lame and autistic (the one I have a personal stake in) and crazy and crippled for anything other than as value-neutral descriptions of the literal condition.

Obviously using these words as playground taunts is wrong. It’s all too easy when first coming across the issue to feel spuriously virtuous that one would never dream of using ‘retard’ or ‘cripple’ as personal insults. One is too nice for that. Equally spuriously, some of the words are part of other people’s vernacular. I wouldn’t say something was lame without major irony tags because I’m not an American teenager. Which I suppose brings up one of the reasons there is resistance to being made to reconsider the use of such words. Vernaculars are part of how people, particularly marginalized people, define themselves and being told to redefine yourself never goes well.

But it’s not only the young or the less privileged who cling to their vernaculars. Metaphorical language, which can act as a vernacular of erudition, includes formulations such as “He was blind to the consequences and deaf to protesting voices.” Or “the economy is crippled, the situation is crazy, Gordon Brown’s behaviour is quasi-autistic.” The argument is that these metaphors and comparisons are intended as pejoratives and, particularly to someone with the non-metaphorical condition, carry the strong implication that the condition itself is a sign of moral failing. I get that and also that these phrases are clichés, used to give an impression of style but not specific enough to add anything meaningful to the description. I get it. But then I get confused by my actual response to the one example that ought to trouble me personally.

“Gordon Brown’s behaviour is quasi-autistic” is annoying but not because it feels like my children are being insulted. Possibly because despite his failings as a party leader I still have a fondness for Brown (for not being Blair), it might be different if I’d seen the description applied to Bush. Also because I find it hard to think of “autistic” as an insult. Autistic is a word for my children and the other children at their school, it’s a word that conjures faces. It’s not a bogeyman word or a “there but for the grace of god” word but something familiar and embraced. And if anyone uses it as insult in their hearing, I will kill them with my brain.

No, Gordon Brown’s alleged autism is annoying because it’s obviously inaccurate and betrays a basic ignorance of the condition on the part of the alleger. It comes back to the niceness thing in a way. I don’t want journalists to stop calling politicians autistic or bipolar or schizophrenic because they don’t want to hurt my feelings or other people’s feelings (although I can’t really speak for other people, not even for my own children). I want them to stop casually throwing out such labels because they recognize that they’re misleading. I want those words to have faces. When it comes down to it, I think it’s a very good thing to make people think about language but I think it’s a means to an end and not an end in itself.

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