Post
by Stranger » Sun Nov 16, 2014 2:10 am
Well neither side has much organization, which is probably the root of some of the problem. It's easy to shift blame when where you're shifting it to and from is unclear. It makes it so you can say that the actions of a few belligerents are not representative of your side, or that they are representative of the other.
What I think we're really discussing here is the idea of guilt by association. Something compounded by a lot of confusion on what people think these associations mean. It seems that the reason for anyone in this to be angry at the other side is based on the belief that the other side favors harassing people. Something that all rational people involved will condemn, because, well, that's what rational people do.
I will say that the anti-gg side is more nebulous than the pro-gg side, if that's what you're getting at, in that it is more of a reactionary side.
The whole situation is a clusterfuck of misdirected anger, because there's too many people with other agendas that they're trying to force into the issue. And too many people assuming their opponents have other agendas. I think we can agree that harassing, threatening, and doxxing people is a dick move, regardless of the stance of the individual being harassed. And I think we can also agree that journalism should have ethical conduct, regardless of the political aims of the journalists and publications.
If we could dismiss all the people who want other things out of this, we could make some progress. All the people who are in this to paint industries, identities, and individuals as positive or negative for political reasons, all the people trying to force ideologies, all the people who seem incapable of rational discussion and think single label sums up a person's entire viewpoint and think that's a good reason to hate them.
Harassment and ethics are not controversial topics in any sane discussion. If we could ditch the arguments about who's holier than who, we could get to real questions. Like what do journalistic ethics really mean? What are ethical and unethical behaviors? How do we qualify these behaviors? How do we hold people accountable for unethical behavior? These aren't necessarily easy questions, but they are actual questions, not just a lot of anger and blame. Having sides based on this arbitrary shit is only poisoning the potential for real debate.