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There's this idea of "punching up". I gather it comes from comedy. The idea is that taking the more powerful to task in one's comedy act is fine: that's "punching up", meaning attacking up the status hierarchy, and therefore is fair game. But, concomitantly, attacking those who are on the outs with society, who are marginalized and discriminated against and disadvantaged, that's "punching down", attacking those lower on the status hierarchy, so is therefore uncool, because it's kicking someone who's already down. It's both unsporting, and likely unfunny.
It's spread from comedy into general social justice activism as a norm that says attacking people or groups of higher social status is righteous and okay in a way that is absolutely not okay when directed at a lower status individual or groups.
And I want to make this really clear: that "absolutely not okay when" part is crucial to the implicit popular definition we can observe of "punching up". We don't need – or use – the expressions "punching up" and "punching down" to regulate criticizing. As a society, we're generally fine with the idea that you can criticize anyone, in any direction, all the time. Likewise, it isn't applied to disagreement, or argument, or debate.
No, the "punching" in "punching up" refers to behaviors that are not generally morally licit, such as: belittling, mocking, shaming, making fun of; denigrating the person rather than just the position; ostracizing, "canceling", boycotting; driving away advertisers; de-platforming. Some would continue the list into more severe behaviors: harassing, doxxing, death threats, and even physical violence.
There's a lot to be said for this norm, because it attempts to regulate the morality of the use of verbal aggression and what's called relational aggression. Either you believe that all verbal and relational aggression are morally illicit - which I most definitely do not – or you need to have some principled system for determining when they are morally licit. And that's what this "punching up vs punching down" paradigm is doing for us. Thus, it's probably better to have it than not to have it, since most people generally don't have an alternative. But there's a problem with it.
When you "punch up", the parties most likely to be in arm's reach are those hanging lowest from overhead.
Sure, that party you're "punching" – berating, harassing, no-platforming, etc. – may be higher than you on the West's modern Great Chain of Being, but that doesn't mean they're all that high in an absolute sense. Just because they're higher than you (or whatever group you're advocating for) doesn't mean they're not laboring under a considerable burden of discrimination and marginalization themselves.
Consequently, you may have just "punched" someone who is themselves oppressed and struggling to get by. Sure, they may have more privilege that you, but that doesn't mean they're all that privileged. You may be "punching up", but you're still kicking someone when they're down.
I'm not saying your cause is wrong, and I'm not saying that people higher than you on the Great Chain of Being can do no wrong or shouldn't be held to account when they screw up. But we're talking about "punching", remember: the use of tactics which are otherwise illicit. If you're legitimately "punching up" but still managing to hit oppressed minorities, well, maybe that means the concept of "punching up" as moral heuristic leaves something to be desired.
Furthermore, in "punching" someone just above you in social status, you just "punched" somebody who otherwise shares most of the same oppressors as you and would otherwise be a natural ally, what with all you have in common. Sure the "punching up vs punching down" doctrine says that morally you get to do that, but, pragmatically, is this going to lead to the result you want?
Get real for a moment: do you think that "punching" leads to either the party being punched or the other parties that witness the punching that identify more with the punchéd to be more inclined to ally with you? To be activists on your account?
It's pretty clear to me that there are a lot of sullen twits who feel "well I ought to be able to 'punch' somebody and still expect them to stand up for justice for my people". And you know, maybe they're right in a moral sense that you should be able to punch somebody in the mouth and they'll still give you their coat if you're cold. But "ought" and a buck five will get you a regular at Dunks: we're talking about ordinary, mortal humans, not saints and angels. And let's also stop and appreciate how from the perspective of an oppressed, marginalized person, when you "punch" them, you just demonstrate that you aren't going to stand up for justice for them. After all, you just attacked them while they were down; if the fact that they were going through their own shit didn't slow you down at all, why would they assume you would show up for them? You just showed them that their suffering didn't matter to you at all. So why do you think they'll show up for you?
The people who cling most tightly to this "punching up vs punching down" paradigm are those who really, really want to punch people, and want to know which people it's okay to punch. Remember, this was originally a moral principle for regulating comedy. Insofar as comedy involves ridicule and mockery, comedy is "punching" as an art form – as entertainment – and "punching up vs punching down" is a professional ethic for comedians, people who "punch" others for a living. As such, comedians have an a priori desire to get on with the punching, and thus a need to identify which targets are fair game.
But there's plenty of other people who just want to get their "punching" on, and are delighted to have this "punching up vs punching down" principle because otherwise they didn't have any principle at all which said that punching was ever acceptable. As far as they knew, being mean was always morally bad, which is a total bummer if you really, really, really want to be mean but also want to not think of yourself as someone who does morally bad things – or don't want other people to think you're bad for being mean. For people nursing this kind of covert aggressive impulse, this moral principle, that it is totally licit to "punch" people of more privilege, was like a declaration of open season.
I expect there will be a lot of yowling and hissing about this post from people whose favorite toy I just took away, like cats protesting being deprived of their half-dead mice. Yowling from people who aren't actually standing up for social justice - just getting their vicious jollies on.
And then there's people who treasure getting to "punch" others because they've been "punched", and they feel - maybe deep down, in an inchoate, unexamined way – that fairness dictates that there be someone they get to "punch" in turn. The people who "punched" them used the rhetoric of fairness, or justice, or being wronged, to justify abusing them, so they feel when they're wronged they should get to "punch". Sunshine, that is not how this works. Nobody is entitled to have victims on demand. That is not what "punching" is for. Even if we allow the "punching up vs punching down" standard, it does not mean that because you had a bad day at work or a fight with your spouse that you are entitled to find someone of more status than you to use as a punching bag for the sake of soothing your emotional disregulation. People are not things to be used, and most specially not things to be used as drugs for self-medicating bad moods.
So when, then, does one get to "punch"? If "punching up vs punching down" is not adequate, what's the alternative?
I have some thoughts of my own, but at this point I think it would be less useful to say. I think it would do us all a world of good to actually stop and think about the question. And by "think about the question", I mean stop rushing forward with what well may be specious post-hoc moral justifications for doing what one wanted to do despite the klaxons of one's conscience, and sit with the question and engage in some moral reasoning.
And by "the question" – because I am sure some reading this will have already lost the plot – I mean the question of "when is it morally okay to engage in behaviors we mean by 'punching'?" Which, is to say: when is it okay to mock someone? When is it okay to berate others? When is it okay to demand third parties exclude others? When is it okay to dox others?
And the very first thing I would hope absolutely everyone notices with a half a second of thought is that probably there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to all these examples - that, no, the standards for mocking someone are probably nowhere near as strict as need be the standards for doxxing someone. Indeed I would propose just that much of this exercise illuminates one of the crucial problems with the doctrine of "punching up": it does treat all these the same - "it's okay so long as you're punching up". The doctrine of "punching up" elides the differences in different types of aggressive behavior - or rather it does when applied outside of comedy. Comedians doing standup or skit have a constrained range of behaviors: they generally are constrained to behaviors that can be committed in the context of the performance, such as on stage, and, to a first approximation, they're constrained to being funny (pace Hannah Gadsby). The ethics of comedy are generally concerned with regulating making fun of, not endangering; with mockery not boycotts or doxxing. The paradigm wasn't built to carry that load; no surprise it crumbles under it.
So I enjoin you to stop using this "punching up" paradigm as a short-cut for moral reasoning, and actually think about it. Actually ask yourself, what do you think the rules should be for aggressive behaviors. Bring your logic to a sit-down meeting with your conscience. Serve them tea and cookies and facilitate a discourse between them. Tell them they are to be exploratory and expansive, and that their conclusions will not be binding, not yet, and that they're to attempt to be thorough and comprehensive, putting on the table all the concerns and considerations and edge cases and reservations they can come up with. Because it's only then that you can possibly sort through them.
And do not do what so many have probably exhorted you: don't take this consultation with yourself as The Moral Truth. I am not exhorting you to adopt sui generis morality. This? Is a starting place for moral reasoning, not the ending place. Hold what you have learned from inward contemplation as a weakly held hypothesis - and go forth and discuss it with others. Compensate for the inevitable limitations of your mortal, human perspective by conferring with people of other, different perspectives, and find out what it never occurred to you that you hadn't thought of. Polish the rough-hewn moral ideas you have mined out of your depths by tumbling them with those mined out of others'.
Important note! Some people reading this will take it as invitation to launch into lecture in the comments on this post, declaiming at length what conclusions they think my readers in my space should come to, and how they should go about doing their thinking.
Please do not do that.
First of all, I think your journal (or blog) is an excellent place for that. By all means, feel free to drop a comment here to the effect of "I wrote about my thoughts on this at [url], everybody is invited to come discuss". Or just a bare URL with the rest implied. Or maybe you want to have a brief summary of what's at the link to let interested parties know? Just a suggestion.
See, I am not volunteering to moderate your discussion about your ideas. If you have a bunch of moral ideas you feel strongly about and want others to know about, I think it's awesome if you want to have a discussion about them, and I might even show up in your space to participate in your discussion. But you should have it in a space you moderate. Or any other space you have someone else who is willing to do that moderation for you. Which would not be this space. I have enough of my own moderation to do. Please do not make more work for me. Thanks.
(I get the impression that a lot of people have the idea that doing this - I'll call it "out-linking" – to one's own journal/blog/space to continue or fork the discussion there is a faux pas or otherwise gives offense. Personally, quite to the contrary, I love when people do that. I think it's delightful. Please consider yourself encouraged to do that, at least here.)
Second of all, walking into a discussion about how it would be a good idea to have a discussion about morality so that people can explore and develop their moral reasoning and laying down a lecture about how other people should do their moral reasoning is not playing well with others. Note the bit, above, about "weakly held hypotheses". Show up tentative. Show up vulnerable. Show up as willing to be changed as to change others. And show those traits in how you express yourself. Or if all that feels really not okay because of the intensity of your convictions, give the conversation a pass. That's okay, too; comment is never mandatory.
Your cooperation with this is much appreciated!
This post brought to you by the 146 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.
Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!
There's this idea of "punching up". I gather it comes from comedy. The idea is that taking the more powerful to task in one's comedy act is fine: that's "punching up", meaning attacking up the status hierarchy, and therefore is fair game. But, concomitantly, attacking those who are on the outs with society, who are marginalized and discriminated against and disadvantaged, that's "punching down", attacking those lower on the status hierarchy, so is therefore uncool, because it's kicking someone who's already down. It's both unsporting, and likely unfunny.
It's spread from comedy into general social justice activism as a norm that says attacking people or groups of higher social status is righteous and okay in a way that is absolutely not okay when directed at a lower status individual or groups.
And I want to make this really clear: that "absolutely not okay when" part is crucial to the implicit popular definition we can observe of "punching up". We don't need – or use – the expressions "punching up" and "punching down" to regulate criticizing. As a society, we're generally fine with the idea that you can criticize anyone, in any direction, all the time. Likewise, it isn't applied to disagreement, or argument, or debate.
No, the "punching" in "punching up" refers to behaviors that are not generally morally licit, such as: belittling, mocking, shaming, making fun of; denigrating the person rather than just the position; ostracizing, "canceling", boycotting; driving away advertisers; de-platforming. Some would continue the list into more severe behaviors: harassing, doxxing, death threats, and even physical violence.
There's a lot to be said for this norm, because it attempts to regulate the morality of the use of verbal aggression and what's called relational aggression. Either you believe that all verbal and relational aggression are morally illicit - which I most definitely do not – or you need to have some principled system for determining when they are morally licit. And that's what this "punching up vs punching down" paradigm is doing for us. Thus, it's probably better to have it than not to have it, since most people generally don't have an alternative. But there's a problem with it.
When you "punch up", the parties most likely to be in arm's reach are those hanging lowest from overhead.
Sure, that party you're "punching" – berating, harassing, no-platforming, etc. – may be higher than you on the West's modern Great Chain of Being, but that doesn't mean they're all that high in an absolute sense. Just because they're higher than you (or whatever group you're advocating for) doesn't mean they're not laboring under a considerable burden of discrimination and marginalization themselves.
Consequently, you may have just "punched" someone who is themselves oppressed and struggling to get by. Sure, they may have more privilege that you, but that doesn't mean they're all that privileged. You may be "punching up", but you're still kicking someone when they're down.
I'm not saying your cause is wrong, and I'm not saying that people higher than you on the Great Chain of Being can do no wrong or shouldn't be held to account when they screw up. But we're talking about "punching", remember: the use of tactics which are otherwise illicit. If you're legitimately "punching up" but still managing to hit oppressed minorities, well, maybe that means the concept of "punching up" as moral heuristic leaves something to be desired.
Furthermore, in "punching" someone just above you in social status, you just "punched" somebody who otherwise shares most of the same oppressors as you and would otherwise be a natural ally, what with all you have in common. Sure the "punching up vs punching down" doctrine says that morally you get to do that, but, pragmatically, is this going to lead to the result you want?
Get real for a moment: do you think that "punching" leads to either the party being punched or the other parties that witness the punching that identify more with the punchéd to be more inclined to ally with you? To be activists on your account?
It's pretty clear to me that there are a lot of sullen twits who feel "well I ought to be able to 'punch' somebody and still expect them to stand up for justice for my people". And you know, maybe they're right in a moral sense that you should be able to punch somebody in the mouth and they'll still give you their coat if you're cold. But "ought" and a buck five will get you a regular at Dunks: we're talking about ordinary, mortal humans, not saints and angels. And let's also stop and appreciate how from the perspective of an oppressed, marginalized person, when you "punch" them, you just demonstrate that you aren't going to stand up for justice for them. After all, you just attacked them while they were down; if the fact that they were going through their own shit didn't slow you down at all, why would they assume you would show up for them? You just showed them that their suffering didn't matter to you at all. So why do you think they'll show up for you?
The people who cling most tightly to this "punching up vs punching down" paradigm are those who really, really want to punch people, and want to know which people it's okay to punch. Remember, this was originally a moral principle for regulating comedy. Insofar as comedy involves ridicule and mockery, comedy is "punching" as an art form – as entertainment – and "punching up vs punching down" is a professional ethic for comedians, people who "punch" others for a living. As such, comedians have an a priori desire to get on with the punching, and thus a need to identify which targets are fair game.
But there's plenty of other people who just want to get their "punching" on, and are delighted to have this "punching up vs punching down" principle because otherwise they didn't have any principle at all which said that punching was ever acceptable. As far as they knew, being mean was always morally bad, which is a total bummer if you really, really, really want to be mean but also want to not think of yourself as someone who does morally bad things – or don't want other people to think you're bad for being mean. For people nursing this kind of covert aggressive impulse, this moral principle, that it is totally licit to "punch" people of more privilege, was like a declaration of open season.
I expect there will be a lot of yowling and hissing about this post from people whose favorite toy I just took away, like cats protesting being deprived of their half-dead mice. Yowling from people who aren't actually standing up for social justice - just getting their vicious jollies on.
And then there's people who treasure getting to "punch" others because they've been "punched", and they feel - maybe deep down, in an inchoate, unexamined way – that fairness dictates that there be someone they get to "punch" in turn. The people who "punched" them used the rhetoric of fairness, or justice, or being wronged, to justify abusing them, so they feel when they're wronged they should get to "punch". Sunshine, that is not how this works. Nobody is entitled to have victims on demand. That is not what "punching" is for. Even if we allow the "punching up vs punching down" standard, it does not mean that because you had a bad day at work or a fight with your spouse that you are entitled to find someone of more status than you to use as a punching bag for the sake of soothing your emotional disregulation. People are not things to be used, and most specially not things to be used as drugs for self-medicating bad moods.
So when, then, does one get to "punch"? If "punching up vs punching down" is not adequate, what's the alternative?
I have some thoughts of my own, but at this point I think it would be less useful to say. I think it would do us all a world of good to actually stop and think about the question. And by "think about the question", I mean stop rushing forward with what well may be specious post-hoc moral justifications for doing what one wanted to do despite the klaxons of one's conscience, and sit with the question and engage in some moral reasoning.
And by "the question" – because I am sure some reading this will have already lost the plot – I mean the question of "when is it morally okay to engage in behaviors we mean by 'punching'?" Which, is to say: when is it okay to mock someone? When is it okay to berate others? When is it okay to demand third parties exclude others? When is it okay to dox others?
And the very first thing I would hope absolutely everyone notices with a half a second of thought is that probably there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer to all these examples - that, no, the standards for mocking someone are probably nowhere near as strict as need be the standards for doxxing someone. Indeed I would propose just that much of this exercise illuminates one of the crucial problems with the doctrine of "punching up": it does treat all these the same - "it's okay so long as you're punching up". The doctrine of "punching up" elides the differences in different types of aggressive behavior - or rather it does when applied outside of comedy. Comedians doing standup or skit have a constrained range of behaviors: they generally are constrained to behaviors that can be committed in the context of the performance, such as on stage, and, to a first approximation, they're constrained to being funny (pace Hannah Gadsby). The ethics of comedy are generally concerned with regulating making fun of, not endangering; with mockery not boycotts or doxxing. The paradigm wasn't built to carry that load; no surprise it crumbles under it.
So I enjoin you to stop using this "punching up" paradigm as a short-cut for moral reasoning, and actually think about it. Actually ask yourself, what do you think the rules should be for aggressive behaviors. Bring your logic to a sit-down meeting with your conscience. Serve them tea and cookies and facilitate a discourse between them. Tell them they are to be exploratory and expansive, and that their conclusions will not be binding, not yet, and that they're to attempt to be thorough and comprehensive, putting on the table all the concerns and considerations and edge cases and reservations they can come up with. Because it's only then that you can possibly sort through them.
And do not do what so many have probably exhorted you: don't take this consultation with yourself as The Moral Truth. I am not exhorting you to adopt sui generis morality. This? Is a starting place for moral reasoning, not the ending place. Hold what you have learned from inward contemplation as a weakly held hypothesis - and go forth and discuss it with others. Compensate for the inevitable limitations of your mortal, human perspective by conferring with people of other, different perspectives, and find out what it never occurred to you that you hadn't thought of. Polish the rough-hewn moral ideas you have mined out of your depths by tumbling them with those mined out of others'.
Important note! Some people reading this will take it as invitation to launch into lecture in the comments on this post, declaiming at length what conclusions they think my readers in my space should come to, and how they should go about doing their thinking.
Please do not do that.
First of all, I think your journal (or blog) is an excellent place for that. By all means, feel free to drop a comment here to the effect of "I wrote about my thoughts on this at [url], everybody is invited to come discuss". Or just a bare URL with the rest implied. Or maybe you want to have a brief summary of what's at the link to let interested parties know? Just a suggestion.
See, I am not volunteering to moderate your discussion about your ideas. If you have a bunch of moral ideas you feel strongly about and want others to know about, I think it's awesome if you want to have a discussion about them, and I might even show up in your space to participate in your discussion. But you should have it in a space you moderate. Or any other space you have someone else who is willing to do that moderation for you. Which would not be this space. I have enough of my own moderation to do. Please do not make more work for me. Thanks.
(I get the impression that a lot of people have the idea that doing this - I'll call it "out-linking" – to one's own journal/blog/space to continue or fork the discussion there is a faux pas or otherwise gives offense. Personally, quite to the contrary, I love when people do that. I think it's delightful. Please consider yourself encouraged to do that, at least here.)
Second of all, walking into a discussion about how it would be a good idea to have a discussion about morality so that people can explore and develop their moral reasoning and laying down a lecture about how other people should do their moral reasoning is not playing well with others. Note the bit, above, about "weakly held hypotheses". Show up tentative. Show up vulnerable. Show up as willing to be changed as to change others. And show those traits in how you express yourself. Or if all that feels really not okay because of the intensity of your convictions, give the conversation a pass. That's okay, too; comment is never mandatory.
Your cooperation with this is much appreciated!
This post brought to you by the 146 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.
Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!
Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-26 10:31 pm (UTC)Outlinking
Date: 2020-01-26 10:51 pm (UTC)https://liv.dreamwidth.org/488186.html
(Post from c 4 years ago. Yes, I am entirely happy to moderate any new discussion that may show up on my old post, and yes, I am entirely interested in changing my views on this topic in the light of new ideas.)
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-26 10:59 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-26 11:13 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-26 11:48 pm (UTC)A dichotomy between private individuals and "persons in public roles of power" is I think not adequate category system for discussing this. Is a famous actor a "person in public role of power"? Is a famous activist? MLK? Greta Thunberg? How much power is enough power to qualify as "punchable"? What kinds of power?
Our legal system uses a doctrine of private person vs famous person, and I think it's colliding terribly with the realities of the modern internet, where anybody who speaks up in public is at immediate risk - should they go viral - of being legally classed a famous person, and stripped of what would otherwise be their privacy rights.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 03:04 am (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 03:14 am (UTC)Is Justine Sacco someone who should have a spokesperson but is too lazy or cheap to? Because clearly a lot of people felt she was fair game.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 03:23 am (UTC)The problem, of course, is that now the media in that has expanded to, ahem, everyone.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 03:17 am (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-26 11:04 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-26 11:09 pm (UTC)I didn't realise people disapproved of out-linking now. I wonder if they're importing the Twitter concept of subtweeting, and over-generalising it to the point where it's considered rude to refer to someone without naming/alerting them.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-26 11:41 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-26 11:44 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 12:57 am (UTC)I think that you are right that we need to think about who we are punching and why.
I am trying to explain to people that the language of social justice has now been weaponized against us all, and we must be careful and understand that people are people and not angels or demons.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 01:18 am (UTC)My behaviorism prof said something I think is true: you can't stop a behavior, you can only replace it with another behavior. That's what I'm up to.
And I don't think it's just the language of social justice has been weaponized, it's that social justice took some wrong turns that lead here pretty inevitably, and lacked the cultural substrate that would have checked the progression of that error.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 01:25 am (UTC)Yes, this is true too, but I was afraid of saying it for fear of being punched. 🤣
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-29 08:59 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 04:27 am (UTC)It's nice to see someone else suggest something to that effect, plus some other bits I had not considered. So thank you.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 12:40 pm (UTC)Really?
I agree with this, but I see a lot of people who don't - who think it's completely wrong to criticise an individual or a group, or to try to debate their position, because of a marginalised identity they have.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 03:43 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-27 08:11 pm (UTC)I had a dust-up with this recently with a Discord server I moderate, where I felt pretty strongly about what was and wasn't an acceptable way to complain about things (essentially I wanted the same rules to apply for all targets of complaint, not special rules for punching up) and other people felt equally strongly that not being allowed their usual forms of complaint was creating a threatening environment. And I understand how that happens - my rationale for that rule was not the same as the usual one, and the usual one does imply a hostile environment - but at the same time --
I don't know if you're aware of the Isabel Fall debacle from Twitter a couple of weeks ago; that illustrated for me in excruciating detail a lot of the problems with a moral framework that sets hard rules about who is and isn't elgible for abuse. Not least of which is that when there's a category of people you're allowed to abuse, it's very tempting to put people into that category no matter how pretzeled you have to make your reasoning to do it.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-28 02:30 pm (UTC)That's a thing I have observed--sometimes from painful proximity-- and is a major consideration for me in my own reasoning about the limits of acceptable 'punching'.
The "if you're not with me, you're against me" is another popular moral reasoning shortcut and it combines interestingly with the presumption that there must be some category of people who are morally acceptable targets for aggression.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-28 04:22 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-28 04:59 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-29 04:17 am (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-29 04:26 am (UTC)(Oh hey, I have a typo - that "to to" should be a "to do". I've fixed it in the OP.)
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-01-29 11:54 am (UTC)I agree in particular both that it seems as though "punching up" is something which people will very eagerly jump to as an excuse to validate their own desire to behave unpleasantly without having to think of themself as a person who does unpleasant things, and that it is, pragmatically speaking, fundamentally unproductive in terms of increasing social justice.
Good!
Date: 2020-01-29 06:01 pm (UTC)Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-07-09 03:15 am (UTC)I hope this comment doesn't count as telling other people what conclusions to read, but I couldn't stop thinking about some things in relation to it.
When someone is just a little bit 'up', matters of relational privilege get very murky very fast. Who decides which groups are above others? What is this based on? Data? Theoretical framework? Whose? How do you compare different kinds of oppressions?
And unfortunately, sometimes this defining happens after people decide who they want to punch. Then, recognising the suffering of certain groups is much harder, because a) they already really want to punch them, and b) it would mean that they did a Bad Thing by punching them and they don't want to think of themselves as bad.
And...well, I can give a personal account as someone who is part of a group who, for an extended period time, online communities I was part of suddenly decided it was okay to punch. Around 2015, I realised that I might not actually be full bi, and was probably asexual. Possibly aro/ace. This was terrifying to me - being bi or even gay was never that big of an issue, but if I was aro/ace, I'd have to re-evaluate my entire future. I had no idea how I could financially survive without a partner or how I'd ever find happiness without romantic love.
Unfortunately, this was also right when ace discourse got moving, and central to it was the idea that aces and aros were privileged and so deserved to be bullied, mocked and harrassed, especially if they 'invaded' LGBT spaces. It was never super clear to me what people did believe about aros and aces - were we oppressed, but not as much as gay people? Disadvantaged but not oppressed? Better off than straight people (because 'society doesn't want women to want sex')? I could never tell when people were arguing genuinely or 'just venting', and it usually didn't seem to matter. We were better off than them, theoretically, which made us fair game.
It...affected me emotionally really, really badly. Seeing people in my own LGBT+ communities I'd been part of since I was like 13 talking about me like I was an abuser or some sick person who needed to be fixed devastated me. But I couldn't disagree with the validity of the 'punching up' logic, so the only way I could believe I didn't deserve to be treated that way was if I could convince them I was just as bad off as they were.
I got really obsessive about it. I collected surveys on LGBT+ depression and homelessness and scoured them for statistics that said aces weren't happy. (They... weren't hard to fine? Actually, every survey I've ever found has said aces are about as bad off as gay people?) Whenever I'd come across ace discourse, or even just the thoughtless aphobic comments people unintentionally make now and then, I'd feel awful for 'invading' and 'trying to shut up oppressed people', and the only way I could make myself feel less morally corrupt was to recite those statistics back in my head. I really felt like I could be miserable or I could deserve to be miserable - those were the only two options.
All that obviously happened years ago, but to this day it still leaves its mark on me. Whenever I start to feel a bit better - a bit more hopeful about the future - I feel this tide of anxiety, as though it means I'm Privileged and Awful and Deserve To Be Bullied. And unfortunately, I haven't been able to get away from it - fandom is still filled with people who entirely believe that aces and aros are their oppressors, and while overt ace discourse is easier to avoid, it's still there, and the quiet aphobia is still really insidious.
Well. I'm trying not to end this with any moral exhortation so. All of this just affected me a lot so I really, really appreciate posts like this that ask questions about this line of thinking so I can try and escape these self-destructive traps in my mind a little easier.
Re: Comment catcher: The Problem with Punching Up
Date: 2020-07-09 03:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-01-27 12:13 pm (UTC)We're all familiar with the trope of chains of down-punching: the CEO abuses the mid-level manager, who abuses the line worker, who abuses the janitor, who abuses his wife, who abuses the child, who abuses the younger child, who abuses the dog. Or think of Arlo Guthrie's humorous 1960's monologue about "the last guy", the one who's so low on the totem pole that there's nobody he can look down on with pity and/or scorn. (The "happy ending" is that even the last guy can get attention from the FBI by appearing to have Communist sympathies, thus demonstrating that he's of enough consequence for the FBI to bother with, and that's what's great about America.) I hadn't thought of reversing the trope into a chain of punching-slightly-up, but yes, that's definitely an interesting phenomenon.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-17 02:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-03 01:39 am (UTC)