Language Matters

While I need to recognize I am a little late to the party on the jumping off point of this look at the world around me, I would like to say in my defense that I have some reasons.

• I needed a bit of space from the situation as it relates to my motivation for this.
• The Holiday season kicked me in the place that shall not be named.
• Writing a book is harder than I thought. Actually, writing it is easy, editing it is hard.
• As an aside, I learned how to code lists.

What is the jumping off point you might ask, well it is the manosphere, Patreon, and young men (boys really).

For some background let us look at what has happened with a man named Carl Benjamin. Carl is better known as his you tube and web handle, Sargon of Akkad. This is a reference to the Progenitor of Mesopotamian Empires. I am sure that is not an ego thing, right? Anyway, let me tell you what happened to Mr. Benjamin.

A little over a year ago Carl went on to anouther YouTube channel and utilized a few racial epithets and homophobic slurs to make his points. I am sure this was not a wise decision, but it was what it was. He has since defended these statements by claiming he was trying to criticize the Alt-Right by using their own language against them.

Flashing forward to December of 2018, the content provider pay platform Patreon decided he was violating their terms of use when he used that sort of language. Because of this perceived violation of their terms, he was removed from their site. At the time, Mr. Benjamin was making more than $12,000 a month through their service. As a side note, that would mean that Patreon itself would be giving up around $400 of that money, which they collect as a service fee from members of the site.

This was not the only ban they handed out, though many perceived that most of the bans at the time were directed at what some might consider provocative conservative voices, such as Benjamin and Milo Yiannopoulos. Much criticism was leveled at Patreon for what many described as political censorship and bias. Patreon responded with this defense of their actions.

While it cannot be argued that they have a bias here; as a private corporation they are in fact allowed to have a bias. They are not forced to allow anyone on their service, and can in fact remove anyone they want. This is not the point I want to make.

Many have said that Patreon over reached by punishing Benjamin for things he did outside of their site. They have a point there; although, as a person who could be fired from his day job for doing things unbecoming in the community, it is a weak point. People’s actions are always associated with the groups they belong to, and it is ok for a group, or in this case, a business to not want to be associated with something they find offensive. Think of the responsibility that group has to the other members. Patreon is guilty by association, and everyone is guilty by association if they are on Patreon. It is how a system or organism functions. All individuals in the system or complex organism are associated with said system, and make up the entire system. If your system is made up of one million happy cells and only one thousand diseased cells, the system is still diseased. Everyone will think you are diseased if you are part of the system that is diseased, whether or not you are. This is not the point I want to make.

Some have criticized Patreon for not giving out a warning to Benjamin before cutting off his income. I do think it can be an undue hardship to immediately cut off someone\s income, I have little sympathy in this situation. Maybe they should have given him a warning or a suspension, or a month to get his affairs in order. Actually, now that I think about it, when most people are fired they are given some notice. While they may be booted out the door straight away, they are usually given some sort of parment in lieu of notice. That might have been nice to do in this case. Notify him that his revenue stream would be cut off after the next payment. Agree or disagree with his actions, Carl Benjamin is a human being and should be treated as such. If Patreon had issue with taking their cut, they could have donated it to charity. This is still not my point.

All of this background is to help you understand where I was when I heard a student crying in the basement of a school.

I went to the student, a 12 year old boy, and asked him what was wrong. He told me that everyone thought he was a racist. I asked him why that might be, even though I actually already knew the answer.

He figured it was because he had called several students by that awful word we are not supposed to say. He was confused because they were white students. He was confused because he said it just slipped out when he was angry and excited, just like it did to anouther YouTuber. He was confused because he said he was just using the language that he heard other people use against them.

He was using the same points these famous people he followed used to excuse their actions, but it wasn’t working for him and it was causing him to get in trouble at school.

This is the point I am making.

Language matters. What we say and do matters a great deal, and even more so when we have a platform and a bullhorn. It is often said that children are watching, and it is even more true in the information age.

We live in a great time, a time when I can post my thoughts on the internet for everyone to see. We live in a time where a person with motivation and a camera can become a star. We live in a time where anyone can have a voice, and an audiance, if their voice resonates. Or if they do stupid shit. I’m looking at so many people with the last name Paul.

What are we doing with these platforms?

We must be aware the world is watching, and we must be aware of what they are seeing from us. Carl Benjamin does not know this student, and wouldn’t be able to find him on the Sargon Youtube channel subscriber list, but there he is. He is watching and he is learning. What are you trying to teach people Carl?

What responsibility do we have for the unintended consequences of our voices, and does this mean we need more regulation?

I think not. I think we need more self policing. There was a time when I followed Carl. It wasn’t so much that I agreed with all the things he was saying, it was that I liked he was adding counterpoints to what was out there. Then, a couple of years ago, his counter points got further and further away from discourse, and closer and closer to things I was not personally comfortable with. Points became rhetoric, rhetoric became ad hominem and so on. I told him so, and I ended my subscription to his channel. I was never a patron as nothing he did enriched my life enough for me to even consider paying him for it.

Patreon ended their support of his work because he had crossed a line they were not comfortable with. I am ok with that.

While I want as free and open discourse as possible, I think we have a responsibility to not abuse that unnecessarily, and that was Carl’s sin. It wasn’t so much as what he said, it was why he felt the need to do it that way.

This is why language matters. He intentionally used inflammatory language to make a point in a way that was not necessary. He caused harm to his point, and to my student by not taking the time to actually make a cogent point. If you want to point out you think a group is acting in a way that resembles what that group is protesting against, say that.

Sometimes you have to use all the characters, even if twitter caps you. Sometimes you have to make your point by describing the behaviour you don’t like, rather than a short hand couched in racism and homophobia.

Like my student, I do not know if Carl Benjamin, PewdiePie, or Milo are racists, or homophobes (Milo is gay, I know), but in the end, it doesn’t matter. They wrap themselves in the language of the racists and the homphobes.

After soothing the student, I talked to him about this very thing.

I asked the student what I should think if he came to school dressed like a monk. Or dressed as a skater, or as a hipster. He understood that if you dress yourself like a skater, people are going to think you are a skater.

If you use the language of a racist, people are going to think you are a racist and not want to associate with you. This grade seven student understood this, and so should Carl Benjamin. That is the essence of self policing and social stigmatization for unwelcome or destructive behaviours.

As the information age moves ever onward, the world needs less division, less racism, and people are going to star addressing not just those who are racist and homophobic, but also those who dress like them.

Since then, I have dealt with other teenagers who are lost in the red pill and incel worlds. Both of these manosphere subsets are really starting to anger me for the way that they think no one is listening. Or more to the point, the head in the sand way they pretend they are only preaching to the choir, and not publicly available to be seen by anyone.

The fact of the matter is, they think or act like they are only broadcasting to adults. They are not. Children and young people are also paying attention. It is near unavoidable at this point, as more and more mainstream outlets take on these topics. It is also unfair to lay all the blame on parents. Kids are sneaky.

In the case of red pill, the young men I am working with are being led to believe there is a secret feminist behind everything that happens. It’s like some sort of sick conspiracy theory where aliens have been replaced with blue haired fascists with a lady boner for destroying masculinity. Thanks Gillette, by the way.

These boys are not sure whether to hate themselves for something they haven’t done, or hate females for hating them.

The incels are more insidious here. They are preaching a level of self hatred and bottomed out self worth that more than borders on the destructive. The othering and self hatred is so strong they are imploding. For many reasons, they are almost an internet nomad group as their gathering places are jetisoned from the shadowy corners of the internet. I know it sounds like they might be hard to find, but they are not. They are simply not on the stabdard hosting sites any more. Google points the way very easily though.

Boys who are just experiencing hormones for the first time are being pushed and pulled, proded and derided. It is no wonder they start to identify with and use the language of incels. They are being taught they are doomed from the start. Think about what would have happened to you if , during your awkward phase, you stumbled in to a room of average looking people who told you you were the very embodiment of revulsion and unattractiveness? Some boys are feeling rejected by females before they even start asking them out.

A Trans YouTuber calling herself Contrapoints has a video that discusses the incel movement and how some of their behaviour is mirrored in parts of the LGBTQ community.

These people too need to think about the effect they are having on the impressionable. These people too need to think about how it is they are changing the organism that is humanity.

One more special message to go, then I can go home.

This editing of society is, in this case not a bad thing. Even I can see the slippery slope of my argument. It is not a bad thing to edit out the lines that don’t make sense or that are harmful. Organisms, systems do this all the time. Your immune system edits out or attacks things that are bad for you. Hate is bad for the world system. Cut it out.

Prize for anyone who can tell me what I was referencing at the end there with those weirdly worded sentences. No seriously, a real prize.