1.
I decided to “do philosophy” when I got into my current PhD program. Shortly after this decision, I decided I should join a community of philosophers. For reasons explained before, I didn’t really have a community. Part of this was external, part of it was how I have a tendency to resist counting chickens before they hatch so much that I’m routinely ill prepared when chickens do hatch.
Anyway, I found this chat group of then-20-some people, mostly Chinese philosophy grad students based in Canada. It was created by someone who’s also coming out of a Canadian MA program and ready to start a PhD. We chat about philosophy, academia, living internationally, etc. It was lovely.
With time, the group grew. With more people, it became less lovely. I stood by the group in uncharacteristic fashion (I don’t really do big group chats) partly because I respect the group’s creator, partly also because it has filled in a networking/mentorship role for not just myself but numerous others.
At some point, I noticed someone joining. Let’s call him X. I had already quit another group chat after he called me a snowflake for reasons I don’t even remember. But I stood my ground for some time. I figured- I joined this group first. I shouldn’t be the one who have to yield.
I started speaking less in the group. X is, of course, not the only bad one. He’s not even the worst or the most vocal. I started to remember why I never considered returning to China.
About half a year ago, I got into a heated dispute in the group. Someone had posted a caption of a famous you-know-who arguing how there is no reason to believe police killings of black people in the US is racialized. “That’s a stupid view”, I said, “racist and stupid.”
Apparently not everyone agrees. A couple of guys jumped on the opportunity to abstractly debating others’ lives, pointing out that I couldn’t pronounce racism “bad” unless I refute moral nihilism first. I was labeled a snowflake again for refusing to prove the racial factor in police killings analytically from first principles. A girl tone-policed the hell out of me. “You are so aggressive and unfriendly and making me feel so unwelcome.” “I don’t understand why you can’t calmly make your case.” (“You are only calm if you don’t care”, I responded, “plus I was just labelled a snowflake and so have to live up to my reputation.”)
A couple of people spoke out in support of me. More people reached out privately. I’m usually not bogged down by these things, plus I have the privilege of not being the life they are debating. Still, I was exhausted.
The conversation died down like any other conversations. People were tired out. Slowly but surely, other topics returned.
But something has changed. Only few days prior did these guys tell me how, by calling denial of the racial element of police killings “racism”, I was using labels instead of engaging in rational arguments, before they themselves labeled me a snowflake and demanded that I derive morality from first principles… and now they are joking like nothing happened. They chat about life, about reading philosophy, about teaching. They joke with people who, only days prior, private messaged me telling me they were glad that I said things they were too afraid to say.
It made me sick.
Still, I stayed in the group. I stayed until today, 5 months later, where I realize the existence of the group brought me nothing but pain. The community has decided that I was not a part of it.
2.
What made me realize this fact is actually something far less agonizing. A few months ago I left Douban, the only Chinese social media I was on. The reason was similar, though less dramatic and centralized than the above story — I realized that I was no longer receiving pleasure from engaging in it, so I left.
To fulfill my procrastination needs, I joined a forum that sprung out of Douban. It’s called “Women Overseas”. Its members are, well, Chinese women who live overseas.
To be completely honest, I was skeptical at first. The forum was developing in lightning speeds: something like five thousand registered users in the first week. A life-sharing event with four panelists was organized in the second week. The Zoom room maxed out at a hundred people, so a full transcript was produced soon after. Something was always happening. Everything was so fast, so good, so organized. I didn’t think it would keep up.
If you have a hard time picturing what it’s like (and I don’t blame you — I still can’t quite believe that this happened), just imagine the most on-top-of-things woman you know, the one where you wonder something out loud and she goes “yes I’ve also noticed that and here’s a plan to resolve it that I’m working on tomorrow” and two days later she goes “ok it’s done”. Imagine 50 of those people in a room with no particular agenda. You come back a week later and they’re like “so we built a castle and tomorrow is the second pride event and here’s a hologram for accessibility”.
Anyway, the forum is a success.
It is such success, it is also big. When a community is big, things happen.
One thing that happened recently is: a member who has been very active across the forum was muted due to multiple complaints, and then decided to delete everything and quit the forum. I have seen her posts on the forum before, of course. She has very strong views. Some of them I agree with; others I do not. Many come off borderline offensive. I thought muting for a day sounded like a reasonable course of action. I also understood her decision to leave, even though many people (including those whom she has offended) probably would’ve been fine with her staying.
After she has left, though, a few members jumped to her defense. She was passionate, they said, and people who found her offensive should’ve just stopped looking at her posts.
What’s fascinating to me is how so many of these arguments sound so familiar: “if you find everything you disagree with offensive, you’re just perpetuating a close-minded community where nothing can be discussed rationally.” “By labeling what she says as offensive according to your own sensibilities, you have created an environment unfriendly for her to express her views, thereby infringing on her freedom of speech.”
Every so often, these arguments come around on Twitter. Basically the idea is that I can say something offensive to you, which you can’t complain. If you do complain, you are infringing on my freedom of speech, which I will complain constantly about. Also, I’m allowed to complain that your complaint silenced me, but you are not allowed to then complain that my complaint of your silencing me silences you for… reasons.
That’s the gist of it. I’ve only really seen old white men do it on Twitter because, well, there are a lot of old white men on Twitter. So it’s fascinating to see it’s done by someone who “look like me”. As my friend Christy (who is also on the forum) says: there is nothing new under the sun.
And I find this to be an incredibly valuable experience. Usually there are so few of us such that, whenever I meet someone, we are just too busy commiserating over shared struggles to notice the insurmountable gulf that exists between our understandings. When something does come up, I either gaslight myself into believing that I have misread the situation or fall into an existential crisis over the forever lost community, forgetting the fact that we are just people, and people disagree.
3.
Some people have strong attachments to their identities, communities, or “roots”. I do not. If I wake up one day and someone tells me “you are not an Asian American anymore; you are going to be Eastern European from now on”, I would be like, “ok that’s a little odd but if you say so.” For this reason, I am usually uncomfortable being the “voice of a minority”, as I never really feel like I “count” as whichever relevant category.
I have tried to figure out why this is the case, but I now think it’s probably just ordinary personal difference. I have felt that this was a shortcoming of mine, like some sort of “ungratefulness” or internalized inferiority. I have tried very hard to force myself to care more about identities, including forcing myself to speak from some identity that I seem to hold (such as “WoC” and “philosopher”, but even there I often hesitate). It’s hard to say whether it has worked.
Whether or not it has worked, these (not always pleasant) experiences have taught me something important about myself that I happen to like very much. It taught me that I do stand for something. It’s empowering for me to finally admit: no, we can’t all be friends, even if you look like me; I stand for something and I disagree with you.
- It might happen after all - May 14, 2023
- Another job market data point - December 17, 2022
- Our place in the fediverse - November 30, 2022