5 tweets · July 2020 · 40 likes · 1 retweets · read on Twitter
@maybegray @mauve_sky any place where people are encouraged (either explicitly or just by incentives) to reason "I'm uncomfortable → somebody is doing something wrong" are doomed to be shitshows. This has two forms, inward & outward blame. "safe spaces" probably usually create the outward version
@maybegray @mauve_sky Everybody is traumatized and of course they will be triggered by things that have very little to do with what's happening. That's to be expected and needs to be held with love—so does the inclination to blame, which also comes from cultural trauma!
@maybegray @mauve_sky So yeah, "safe space" style norms say "it's your job to never trigger me", which isn't gonna work. People are already in the dream mashups, so no matter how hard you control your behavior, you can't *always* prevent them from projecting past abuses onto you! (& vice versa)
@maybegray @mauve_sky There can also be a kind of oscillation here, where to the extent that someone knows their discomfort isn't fully about the other person, if you feel obligated to change to accommodate them, they may end up avoiding sharing their experience.
@maybegray @mauve_sky Oh another thing I was thinking about this morning is that this sort of approach inherently creates double binds. If everyone (or even some subset of people) is entitled to feel comfortable, then they're going to have conflicting demands about others' behavior.