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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNo, We Won’t Calm Down – Tone Policing Is Just Another Way to Protect Privilege
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/12/tone-policing-and-privilege/Have you ever tone policed someone in a conversation on oppression? Tone policing focuses on the emotion behind a message rather than the message itself – and you might think you’re helping by making the conversation more “comfortable.”
But in this comic, Robot Hugs makes a great point about how tone policing protects privilege – and silences people who are hurting. This is no way to get justice, and this breakdown will help you understand exactly why.
With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism
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Warpy
(114,615 posts)Fuck you, tone police, I earned every bit of my rage.
ncjustice80
(948 posts)I just SHOUT over top of them 
Bonx
(2,353 posts)Beyond ridiculous.
marble falls
(71,932 posts)Bonx
(2,353 posts)is just fine.
marble falls
(71,932 posts)and in fact for you being concerned only justifies ignoring further.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)and not act obnoxious, I am not going to listen to one thing you have to say, and I apply that rule to everyone, whatever their politics may be. This is the left's version of the religulous idiots saying "because god says so, that's why." It's intellectually bankrupt.
hunter
(40,691 posts)It has often seemed to me, in my half century plus experience, that I am a master of inappropriate speech.
I always say what I'm thinking, or else mostly, for my own safety and well-being, I don't speak at all.
As a little kid my mom says I'd stare at people as if they were interesting insects, and it would make them very uncomfortable. I like to stare at insects that way too, but insects don't mind.
I was also a Dr. Asperger's "little professor."
I don't remember not being able to read as well as I wanted to, but I do remember being called out of class in elementary school during Dick and Jane type reading sections for speech therapy, and various other class sections for what the specialists called "posture" or "movement" therapy because I was a danger-to-myself-and-others klutz, not allowed on the playground equipment during recess and lunch break. Bad enough that I could damage myself, but I'd also damage other kids, mostly by falling on them or otherwise crashing into them in uncontrolled highly ballistic trajectories. So sometimes I brought matches to school, or borrowed a big magnifying glass, and burned wax paper milk cartons in the sandbox, campfire style.
A third grade teacher sort of had me figured out, her husband was an aerospace engineer, probably near as strange as my misfit aerospace engineer grandfather, so she gave me a copy of "Boys first book of Radio and Electronics" which changed my life forever. The other thing I remember about her class was hiding under the desk in air raid drills, my little butt facing the windows just in case the Soviet Union should ever drop a nuclear bomb on Rocketdyne or the Lockheed Skunk Works.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 9, 2015, 05:32 PM - Edit history (1)
try to never raise my voice unless strongly provoked and, when confronted with the grossest stupidities, like cretins who know me but insist on trying to convert me (questioner since 8 y.o., agnostic leaning-to-atheist by 13, full blown secular humanist/atheist since 20, "out" since early 20s) I simply ask to change the subject in the name of continued civility.
I was kind of kluzy as a kid but eventually developed enough coordination to be good at kickball and baseball. Loved playing marbles, which was a big thing for about half a year in 5th or 6th grade for some reason. Definitely a little professor as a kid and preferred the company of adults to kids my own age.
I always found a kid or two who though I was smart and funny, though a little odd, through elementary school but did get bullied a fair amount. I was accelerated two years when I started school - started a year early and was promoted to 2nd grade after a month because I was reading and writing at a 3d-4th grade level already; I'd been reading since I was 3. Being the smallest and the smartest kid in class was not a happy combination.
I've led a strange life even by Asperger's standards. Finally wound up back in the right grade for my age in my early teens - it's a long story - and dropped out of high school when I was 16. Played bass in bands and worked odd jobs, including vending herbal substances for a few years, and decided to go to college in my 20s. Got my GED on a dare, enrolled at my state's flagship public university and graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa in four years. Went on to an Ivy League law school - the same one as the POTUS and my classmate, the FLOTUS - and have bombed out at everything since.
Too geeky, too asocial, too weird and WAY too working-class for a very class-conscious and social profession. Now I'm just a broke, broken down crank on DU. If I could change one thing about myself, it wouldn't be the Asperger's - it would be my mathlexia, which is unusual for people on the spectrum. Then I'd have been an astronomer, astrophysicist or a cosmologist (NOT cosmetologist 
. In those fields being rather odd is not a disqualifier, it's practically a requirement.
hunter
(40,691 posts)... and jamming my head into toilets and such, and it never got better.
The few adults who were aware of the abuse told me to "be a man."
Yeah, right, I was a skinny, squeaky, highly reactive kid. A chew toy for bullies. We did wrestling in P.E. and I was in the lowest weight class. There were just two of us, me and a kid who had worse endocrine and mental health issues than I did, plus he wore very thick glasses.
A circus geek act for everyone watching!
College was awesome. Adults who beat up minors face serious legal consequences. Nobody physically abused me. But there were a few professors, especially in field classes, who clearly felt it in imposition upon them that they had to be chaperons. They needn't have worried. My parents are artists, I'd seen people of all ages skinny dipping and otherwise being silly in the wilderness
I was still such a clueless screw-up in college that I was "asked" to leave twice (the implied threat being permanent expulsion), but I did eventually manage to graduate, nine years to get a four year degree, but starting kindergarten as a four year old who could already read, and quitting high school for college, I did have a head start.
Curiously, among my big-catholic-family siblings, it's my sister and I who both quit high school for similar reasons, who have the university degrees and beyond. Our other siblings who were much happier in high school, graduated and did well enough in the business world that once they had mostly night school two year community college associate degrees they never went back to school, and have no regrets.
My oldest kid has graduated from college and is making good money, talks about graduate school sometimes, but we'll see.
My wife and I met as big city public school science teachers. That was a very rough job, especially for me. I couldn't "read" the kids as my wife does so I had to be a hard-ass disciplinarian to keep my classes in control, which is not my nature. I was hoping to be some kind of Welcome Back Kotter teacher. I was not. When my wife was accepted to graduate school in another state, I joyfully followed her.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Tight schedule. Clear rules. Clearer expectations. The map of how to get where I wanted to go could not have been more brightly illuminated and the judging standards were wholly objective. One knew the material or one did not. I always did, better than anyone else.
For four years as an undergraduate I was told by my professors and the administrators of the honors program alike that I was something very special even by their elevated standards. Years later classmates, some of whom I went on to attend law school with - who had all gone on to very successful careers - told me that they were scared and in awe of me back in college, where everyone expected me to end up in an academic career, which was my fondest wish. I'd have made a terrific law professor, but I didn't have the big federal clerkship one needs; that possibility has been gone for decades.
I think it was a result of two things - I was 5-7 years older (intellectually and chronologically, but definitely not socially) than they were and had read ferociously on a wide range of topics before entering academe, and had already had my irresponsible years of partying with my pals, mostly musicians and hangers on, for years before ever going to college. I was extremely disciplined and organized (Wow an Asperger's person being disciplined, focused and organized, whatta shock! , never pulled an all nighter and worked about 50-60% as hard as most of them did, while still blowing their doors off. But I think I only got drunk twice on school nights in the entire four years. That's what weekends were for.
Law school was more of the same and I took it in the way a parched camel drains an oasis. I LOVED every minute of it. I will never again be around so many smart people, and I mean both the students and the professors. The vast majority of them, at least.
I've also always been alone, and knew I would be by the time I was in my early 20s. Never a relationship, not even a date. Ever. I knew that was a minefield into which I should never walk in order to preserve my own sanity. And, like some people on the spectrum, I have an almost pathological aversion to being touched. Then everything was sublimated to school. I was in my early 30s by the time I graduated, and then shortly thereafter wound up unemployable in the legal profession (blackballed everywhere by a partner at my first firm, for years) and managing a sci-fi bookstore. Never managed to bounce back. Clerked for a couple of state judges, worked a bit as a staff attorney, and though my work was always praised highly, no one ever liked it enough to put up with having me around to do it and I was always let go as soon as it was prudent to do so.
So my opinion of the "American Dream" scenario is well beneath sewer level. I did everything I was supposed to do but wound up a step above the gutter because I was (1) on the autism spectrum and (2) working class. Nothing else mattered to the people who make the decisions. Nothing.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)But out of those six words you wrote, one is a mere exclamation ("Ha!" , two are denigrating ("ridiculous / pantload" and the other three are serve adverbially to the denigrating terms.
In short: there is no argument to answer in your post.
Bonx
(2,353 posts)in teh thread about how tone policing is wrong.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)Well done.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)
lark
(26,081 posts)is the tone I get from your reply. 
Bonx
(2,353 posts)There's no gender specific language in anything I've posted.
aikoaiko
(34,214 posts)The example in the toon of emotion is: Our bullshit government doesn't even pretend like it gives a damn.
That's not an emotion. That's hyperbole or extreme rhetoric.
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Trying to override deeply seated elements of human nature (like reacting badly to someone being an asshole, regardless of the validity of their message) is pointless and foolish.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The "problem" is human nature - which is the end product of countless generations of evolution over 3.2 million years, arbitrarily picking the famous Lucy as a starting point.
Humans are what they are. We share common ancestors with modern apes and have all the characteristics - selfishness, a tribal nature, clannishness, and territoriality of those apes. Just because we have also evolved empathy and more socially desirable and adaptive traits doesn't mean that our inner ape is any less there, as any evolutionary biologist worth their diploma can tell you.
Someday we'll live on Venus, men will walk on Mars
But we will still be monkeys down deep inside
If chimpanzees are smart then we will close our eyes
And let our instincts guide us, oh oh oh oh no
- David Byrne
And the simplistic reductionism of using so-called privilege as a deus ex machina to try to stop any argument is intellectually bankrupt; it's the "but god says so and that's that" of the left and may be dismissed on its face in many cases though not all. Emotional responses are not facts and evidence-based facts are the only possible basis for sound reasoning.
Full disclosure - I am professionally dx'd on the autism spectrum multiple times. Everything for me goes through the logic processors, ala Data or Spock. i've even been told by therapists that I am the most logical and rational person they have ever met.
And you are so right - "I have a grievance" (whether totally legit or completely ginned up) does not excuse you from basic concepts of civility and rational discourse. I don't waste my time listening to rude assholes anywhere on the sociopolitical spectrum.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)All these made up internet communication and sociology phrases are getting out of control.
Facility Inspector
(615 posts)is there a safe space for that trigger?
Bonx
(2,353 posts)Is there an app ?
Facility Inspector
(615 posts)Bonx
(2,353 posts)Is that stereotyping ?
snooper2
(30,151 posts)STFU!
If you would STFU!
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)Feel free to help yourself to some cookies and juice. Coloring books are at the front desk.
ncjustice80
(948 posts)Facility Inspector
(615 posts)if you want to be taken seriously by grown ups, you have to interact with other people like a grown up and not like a spoiled child.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Many adults believe tone is never used in serious conversations. An inaccurate observation, as tone covers a multitude of unspoken communication, yet still a common observation made by spoiled children trying far too hard to be taken seriously by other adults.
Facility Inspector
(615 posts)require mutual respect. And behaving civilized.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)is not respectful by any measure. It infers the other.
FBaggins
(28,706 posts)... merely that engagement is for adults. The petulant child is the one who isn't "engaging" but rather emotting.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)Respect has to come from both sides for the exchange to be respectful.
MeNMyVolt
(1,095 posts)On Tue Dec 8, 2015, 01:07 PM an alert was sent on the following post:
Many adults believe tone is never used in serious conversations
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7431501
REASON FOR ALERT
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.
ALERTER'S COMMENTS
LanternWaste's 23,000th post passive-aggressively insulting another DUer. Quelle Surprise. When is enough enough with this petulant, belligerent buffoon?
You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Tue Dec 8, 2015, 01:13 PM, and the Jury voted 0-7 to LEAVE IT.
Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: When will enough be enough with petty alert stalking?
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Now that the weather is turning cold, when my security pass is covered up by my jacket I have get really close to the card reader and kind of looks I'm dryhumping the door frame. I'm not. Door frames suck for dryhumping.
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: "When is enough enough with this petulant, belligerent buffoon?" Really, alerter? Maybe tend the bean in thine own eye
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: So....you're alert stalking him?
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Matariki
(18,775 posts)You inspire me!
MeNMyVolt
(1,095 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)
Someone's getting a 24-hour timeout on alerting.
And petty alert-stalking is what some here live for. It gives them a reason to get up in the morning.
Though I very much disagree with the alerted-upon post. In fact I could not disagree more. But an alert is absurd.
d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)That's some sound advice right there! 
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)
hunter
(40,691 posts)They're the assholes who create most of these problems.
DLevine
(1,791 posts)Shandris
(3,447 posts)Ah well. Keep chasing that 'privilege'. LOL.
saturnsring
(1,832 posts)the new privilege
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)But unfortunately, the OP about tone-policing, true as it is, is a bit of tone-policing.
Tone-policing is an expression of fear.
Mostly we do it with our teenagers. Then we do it with others who scare us with their emotional expression. Their expression of emotions that we learned to repress, to suppress within ourselves, expression of emotions that we learned to suppress at a very early age.
So, scolding people about tone-policing is probably rather a futile exercise.
The important thing is to breathe deeply, find a quiet place in ourselves and then listen and wait and wait until the emotion is expressed and then respond from that quiet place.
There is no point in scolding about tone-policing although I appreciate the OP because it at least raises the issue.
Listening from a relaxed and quiet place is the best. I'm trying to stay away from posts on DU that do a lot of scolding because I think they are useless. The tone-policing or scolding is counter-productive. The OP is right, but setting the example of listening is the best way to get the point across.
Thanks for the OP. I do not mean at all to silence what you are saying. I am just pointing out the irony, the problem with trying to deal with tone-policing. The minute we do that, we tone-police ourselves. What a conundrum.
Listening rather than tone-policing is one of the secrets of a long and happy marriage. Just saying after 52 years of mine.
Good OP. Gets to the heart of the matter.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)
Xithras
(16,191 posts)If you want to be taken seriously, don't act like a child having a temper tantrum. It really is that simple.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)should not be anywhere near discussions of the topics.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)Are you actually saying that minorities and the oppressed are only capable of expressing themselves by screaming and shouting, and that we are incapable of having civil conversations? What kind of bigoted garbage is THAT? As a member of a group you'd certainly label as oppressed, I find the suggestion that we're all incapable of acting like adults to be offensive and rude.
News flash: Normal people of ALL orientations, nationalities, religions, and backgrounds are capable of having civil and adult conversations. If someone choses to devolve a conversation into a screaming match and act like a child, that is THEIR choice. I don't argue with children, and I certainly won't support other people who choose to pointlessly scream and shout at the expense of constructive and civil conversation that actually solves problems.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Come back when you've calmed down.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The point passed several miles over your head.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Calm down and discuss it like an adult.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)it's pretty much the default for any atheist who speaks out, but when you corner people and get them to describe what constitutes a rabid angry fundamentalist atheist you get something that can be applied to any garden variety Christian.
It is most definitely a tactic used to keep people in line, you reduce the people who are being oppressed to children, then refuse to talk to them until they "Grow up" and it's sad to see so much of that attitude going on here.
I read here today a quote off the intertubes:
And that covers so many.
Throd
(7,208 posts)I would much rather hang out with mellow Christians than angry atheist guy.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)in calm, reasoned tones and using rational arguments. So many people don't even want atheists to speak up, ever, that they've got a reflex response of "You're so rude! You're so angry!" to every statement that doesn't agree with the presumption of the existence of a supernatural/magical realm.
Bubzer
(4,211 posts)Maybe not the best reply...but it usually startles them enough to let me speak. Either that or lets me know the person wasn't interested in conversation in the first place.
Throd
(7,208 posts)I'm quite sure others have, but I can only recall a few times in my entire life where someone had really seemed put off by my expressed atheism.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Throd
(7,208 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)to shut down any promotion of non-theist ideas.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Because it's only happened to you a few times that you can recall.
Throd
(7,208 posts)The world is filled with billions of intolerant religious dickbags. I avoid them as much as possible.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)But irrelevant.
No one is saying you should be angry, much less that you should be angry at a specific group of people. It's merely being suggested that you try understand why some people might be upset with the status quo instead of writing them off like you did.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)when speaking in very calm tones. The mere notion that one is an atheist flips a switch in the minds of the religulous that immediately identifies the non-believer as "angry" or "militant."
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)It's about shutting down conversation. It's also only directed at minority groups, no one ever tells the conservative that they are angry when they spout off about how liburlz are gunna take der funz, but when a trans person rattles off a litany of stastics, they are told to not be so angry.
But you know, when your own kind are being murdered on a regular basis, and you get told you are angry for just talking about the facts, then something else is going on.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Being a rude/screaming/obnoxious asshat who will not listen to reason or converse rationally is quite another. I don't bother with the latter, whether I might agree with them or not.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)And doing their best to shut down discussion, and also the ones coming from a position of privilege.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)and respond rationally, while expecting a rational response in return and to be listened to until I have made my point. I pay no mind to any table-pounding blowhards of any persuasion.
Playing the emotion card before the facts are even on the table is to me an a priori disqualifier of any argument you might be making.
Speaking strictly for myself, of course.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)If someone is upset there is probably a good reason, and they are often more upset because no one will listen to them unless they "calm down" and that goes on and on until one side has been sut down completely and the problem is unaddressed.
Saying you won't listen to the issues people have until they engage you on your terms alone, and that you will walk away unless they capitulate to your demands first does not lead to any kind of progress.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)and don't want to waste my time with people who cannot be reasonable or those who believe rather than know, to paraphrase Carl Sagan. And anecdotes =/= extrinsic evidence.
If you're someone who has just been traumatized by an accident or the death of a loved one, a natural disaster or some other piano falling out of the sky I don't expect that person to be calm and reasonable. When discussing abstractions/ideas/issues I expect, indeed demand, some reason and rationality.
There are plenty of things I could indignanaly bitch about, principally the way neurotypicals treat those of uson the autism spectrum, but I seldom do, and when I do discuss them I try not to generalize things that are unique to my situation and always come to the table armed with facts to be presented in a reasonable way.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)The issue here isn't people who were recently traumatised, it's people who have been trying to raise awareness of their cause (generally systematic oppression) and when they finally get their voices heard people come in saying they are angry and put them right back at the starting point.
You are putting a value on what someone has to say based on your perception of how they are saying it, and that you won't even validate that they might have something to say until they submit to your terms first. That's a privilege that you need to recognize. Imagine being stopped by a cop and when you ty to answer their question they interrupt you saying you need to calm down, even though you weren't upset. You are setting up that same position, hopefully not as deadly.
If you are honest about rational discourse then you need to know about deescalation, saying someone is angry and walking away is escalating a situation. Deescalation would be finding out why they are "angry," validating their anger then moving from there.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Calm down and then join the discussion.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)almost inevitably you will be told that you're rude and angry for evening mentioning such a thing, and that you should keep it to yourself lest you alienate other humans. Zealous religious expression, however, is always okay because of "deeply held beliefs."
The "calm down -- you're so strident and angry!" is always used against women asserting their rights, as well.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Calling someone angry isn't about reasoned discussion, it's about shutting down discussion. If one were interested in discussion they wouldn't say "come back when you aren't angry" you would say "why are you angry?" And then listen.
Most of the times that discussion is shut down with the angry fallacy, no one is acting angry, but being told you are angry when you aren't makes you angry and less able to focus. It's also a form of gaslighting.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts) Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)Just been flipping it back on them, they've gone silent, which proves my point about it being used to shut down discussion.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)The tone in which the argument is presented is irrelevant. The character of the person making it has no bearing on its validity.
It's despicable in that it betrays the fucked-up priorities of the tone troll. They are saying their personal feelings are more important than the real shit you're dealing with.
ananda
(35,148 posts)Listening always works best.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)And he has been one of the best and most successful presidents of my lifetime. It's the "tone" of people like Trump that I object to.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)And I think Obama can be very passionate on many topics.
Proserpina
(2,352 posts)blackspade
(10,056 posts)I see it here at DU all the time and out in the real world.
This 'tune is dead on.
KG
(28,795 posts)Throd
(7,208 posts)This applies to everyone on earth.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)it's expression that gets falsely characterized as ranting and raving as a tactic to shut down that point of view.
Throd
(7,208 posts)I'm not saying that these concerns are not legitimate. When I want people to seriously consider my concerns I try to craft my message so that it will be received in the best possible manner. Otherwise, I'm just venting, which is an entirely different purpose.
niyad
(132,443 posts)to many. women are not SUPPOSED to get angry, according to many. these beliefs are a convenient way to ignore women, to completely discredit their legitimate views and feelings. and most of us are well aware of the game that is played.
MynameisBlarney
(2,979 posts)
Bubzer
(4,211 posts)There's quite a bit of psychology at play here. People who perceive others as being hostile or aggressive, tend to shut-down, or simply stop being receptive. I think there's some legitimacy to maintaining civil discourse.
Perhaps the issue is more about those who use a call for civility as a way to shut down those who're oppressed, rather than those who genuinely want to hear what's being said.
hueymahl
(2,904 posts)I don't know if I should yell my outrage or be self loathing for not acting respectfully. Can you help?
Rafale
(291 posts)BLACK LIVES REALLY DO MATTER. Somehow I knew it was true.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)being angry. You see it all the time here.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts) bettyellen
(47,209 posts)when you forget to to the super polite softening it thing we often do, it can be an eye opener.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts) 
PassingFair
(22,451 posts)
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts) 
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Democat
(11,617 posts)Hillary must start shouting people down and acting like a spoiled child.
Ex Lurker
(3,966 posts)In the real world, invading someone's personal space and screaming at them may earn you a punch in the face.
hunter
(40,691 posts)... until they either hug me or punch me in the face.
In the so-called "real world," which is actually a place of illogical absurdities, far too many mean and venal people, and horrors beyond comprehension, I mostly don't talk because I don't like getting punched in the face.
It's also true I'm a terrible listener, and rarely notice other people's manners, often entirely missing subtle insults and the other verbal diarrhea of "polite" society.
In the written word (but god no, not "instant messaging" and such) I can take my time decoding these things, or sharpening my own foul emissions.
I have a horribly perverse love-hate relationship with language. In my relaxed state my mind is empty of words, even when I'm thinking furiously about something.
That's why I love this cartoon:
wikipedia
This one about what dogs hear by Gary Larson is pretty good too:
I'm the dog.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)I always assume that I have to be as precise in my language as I can possibly be to make sure my point is getting through. "Nonverbal communacation" means less than nothing to me, but I cherish words. I have to, they're all I have. And I detest sloppy thinking and arguing. I very much judge people by how they use and communicate via words and ideas and I am neither an easy nor a forgiving judge.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)"And bring some shit for my fly" is ok too.
Kurska
(5,739 posts)On various parts of the spectrum. I've always tried to communicate as bluntly and clearly as possible. When I'm upset instead of sulking and showing it with body language and tone I have to consciously force myself to just say "What you did upset me".
I think that is a barrier most people have difficulty overcoming. When you do a lot of autistic people are wonderful, generous and very insightful.
Iggo
(49,928 posts) TipTok
(2,474 posts)However, no matter how angry he gets, the conversation isn't going anywhere until he calms down. The odds of a successful result decrease the longer it goes on.
Is that the goal of these groups? To be treated like children?
Maybe you could try holding your breath...
In short, you want to say and act however you want and then blame others for not accommodating.
me b zola
(19,053 posts)All of the micro aggressions against adoptees and attempts to silence an adoptee are cousin to this. Except when adoptees challenge adoption laws & practices we are told there is something wrong with us, or our adoptive or natural parents. I've heard it all, sometimes all three in a thread about the institution and practice of adoption law. Most of this comes with the intention to silence. There is an acceptable narrative, and anything that deviates from that narrative must be from a malformed person.
Dismissing a person and/or their narrative is an aggressive act. I wished that more people understood this.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)Response to KamaAina (Original post)
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cyberswede
(26,117 posts) Response to cyberswede (Reply #77)
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cyberswede
(26,117 posts) 
NutmegYankee
(16,478 posts)
Township75
(3,535 posts)If this doesn't work them out shouting someone will continue to be considered obnoxious.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)AMIRITE?
Bonx
(2,353 posts)But don't be surprised when no one is paying any attention to what you are saying.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Hey, do you remember when minorities were quiet and obeisant and as a result everyone liked them and they were treated like equals?
Cuz I don't.
hueymahl
(2,904 posts)Nor tolerate microagressions:
Cartoons are fun!
Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)
Photographer
(1,142 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)The theory being bad laws are passed when emotions are high.
Then things calm down and the issue is ignored or an unrelated distraction comes along.
Besides, we NEED guns everywhere because of terrorism so the occasional classroom of dead children is the price we have to pay.
d_legendary1
(2,586 posts)................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................with guns.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)
romanic
(2,841 posts)the tone affects the message given out. If you're aggressive and display a scorched earth mentality, don't be surprised if you're standing out in a burned out wasteland by yourself.
ecstatic
(35,075 posts)Generally, I think tone is important as far as showing respect... I'll speak to people the way I want to be spoken to. But some people/ institutions have betrayed our trust to the point where they probably don't deserve any respect. Like certain police departments and the worst of the baggers. How can you respect an organization that thinks it's ok to lie and kill with impunity? Or people who want to reinstate Nazi-like practices?
ncjustice80
(948 posts)
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Well newsflash, when most people encounter abusive behavior they usually disengage and remove themselves from it, as they have a right to.
Nobody has to change their tone; nobody has to listen to it either. So if SJWs enjoy echo chambers, their tactics are perfect for it.
Bonx
(2,353 posts)How does that work ?
Democat
(11,617 posts)So that no one can reply to whatever you shouted.
craigmatic
(4,510 posts)Heeeeers Johnny
(423 posts)another newly created PC term to add to my list of butt hurt, scorn and amusement.
Trigger warnings... white privilege... micro-agression... jazz hands... safe zones.
When the fuck does it end?
Beartracks
(14,593 posts)
===============
Heeeeers Johnny
(423 posts)
Beartracks
(14,593 posts)
Looking for the jazz hands smilie now...
=================
Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)to yell and express their displeasure and anger loudly.
The only trouble is sometimes those emotions are aimed at the wrong people merely because they conform to some superficial surface detail of who the "enemy" is. Who you may think is an enemy may be a member of an exploited and abused minority like yourself. We can't tell who is an offender just by looking at them.
That's why I advocate challenging institutional policies and the specific offenders rather than blanket blaming entire demographics.
niyad
(132,443 posts)
valerief
(53,235 posts)
DemocraticWing
(1,290 posts)Lots of the responses here are cringe-worthy. Lots of Very Serious People who would very much like other people to stop pointing out society's flaws so much, masquerading as progressives on a Democratic message board.
betsuni
(29,078 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)and I will leave it at that.
MadDAsHell
(2,067 posts)If I'm the Yale professor with a student 12 inches away from my face screeching at me at the top of her lungs, calling me names, etc., no I'm not going to listen to that message.
It is not "tone policing" to say "you are out of control right now, and for the sake of my safety as well as those around us, I'm not listening to this right now."
While I generally agree with the OP, people don't have to/and shouldn't stand there and absorb hate, inflammatory accusations, etc. just to avoid accusations of "tone policing."
I've had TERRIBLE things happen to me, and do I want to get in the face of those I find responsible and give them what for? Absolutely.
Do I expect for a second that they'd just stand there and take it? Of course not, and neither would I if I was in their shoes.
To sum: You either want to be effective with your message or you don't. Free speech gives you near complete control of the content and delivery.
But you do not AND SHOULD NOT have control over how it's received and interpreted. That part is controlled by free thinking, something which we all have a right to.
If you have something to say, it is YOUR JOB to frame the message so it's received and interpreted how you want it to be; it IS NOT the listener's duty or job to change their worldview/thinking to accommodate your message.
tblue37
(68,436 posts)
ileus
(15,396 posts)We don't want to hurt people.
Renew Deal
(85,155 posts)People criticize both the same way. And when they do it is often a shield for hate speech.
NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)Just don't be surprised when someone won't listen to you because of it. I for one have no intention of standing around listening to someone yell about their favorite subject.
Paladin
(32,354 posts)Democrats_win
(6,541 posts)We all know that the louder you talk, the more right you are....
Yeah right. Sadly, that's the way it is and Donald Trump shows how these obnoxious people won't listen to reasonable people and will just talk over whomever else is in the room.
whathehell
(30,469 posts)Last edited Wed Dec 9, 2015, 07:45 PM - Edit history (1)
That's the question... I know I won't, whatever the issue, and I don't know anyone who will.
Good luck trying to convince people that only the "privileged" object to having others scream in their face.
hunter
(40,691 posts)whathehell
(30,469 posts)
earthside
(6,960 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)to protest? Is he the second to last face in the cartoon?
romanic
(2,841 posts)proves how infantile the identity politics crowd have become.
bluedigger
(17,437 posts)Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1962, 1966, 1967 the Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1971 New Directions Publishing Corp. Used with permission.
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night
Brainstormy
(2,542 posts)think it makes very important points that are rarely heard. There's a saying that goes, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Maybe that goes too far, but to pretend that one has no emotional investment or strong feelings about an issue for the sake of appearing "civil" is ridiculous, insincere, hypocritical. Obviously there's a range. But I would never fail to listen to a person just because they're angry.
mercuryblues
(16,413 posts)of tone policing is to get the person wanting to discuss an oppression to say it soft and polite enough for the privileged to pretend they
did not hear it. When finally said loud and clear enough for them to acknowledge what is being said, they give themselves an out. You weren't "nice enough" so they will not support your cause.