Sorry for the delay on getting back to this; work and illness have kinda sidelined me for a bit.
I don't expect anyone to be a walking teacher by any means, but I feel that the best no answer would be something like: "read this book," or "visit this website."
Oh, I agree. I also think that civility should be a standard of any serious discussion, no matter what the other side is doing and no matter what points your arguing. But humans are emotional, fallible beings, and it's easy to wear past the point of patience. Some people have precious little patience to start with; some people have lives which wear down their patience as a matter of course. I can't presume to say who falls into what category, and whether or not people are justified in feeling angry is entirely a different post – all I can do is examine the underlying motivations.
And to go on with the statistics vs. personal experiences in learning about something you don't understand, I obviously can't speak for everyone but I would be more likely to empathize with a cause after hearing a personal story than I would after reading charts. I keep seeing people say this is exploiting someone's experiences, which I think might be reading too much into it; but that's just how I feel.
I think this is largely a matter of how it's put across. If someone is asking because they have an interest in how that person is feeling – because they're a friend, or something – that's empathy. If someone is willing or eager to share their story, that's voluntary education. Things get hairy around the point when someone wants to know someone's personal story as an illustration of the group (which skirts into tokenization), or when people seem to think that people, either all people of a marginalized group by virtue of being in a marginalized group or specific people they're talking to by virtue of, well, being in a marginalized group and being the person they're talking to, are obligated to share their experiences.
It happens to a lot of people. When I crossposted this to my LiveJournal, friends of mine brought up twoposts on the subject over at Ballastexistenz – both my friends and the writer had had a lot of experience, in their own lives and in working with others in their groups of people who would demand their personal stories. A couple of highlights from those posts:
Many people believe, however, that the story of my life should be public property. The boldest will tell me outright that it is my obligation to provide them as much detail as possible about my life, that anything else is pure selfishness and avoidance of responsibility.
People’s belief that our stories belong to them may not be a conscious one, but it’s implicit in asking autistic people routinely for our stories when the same people would rarely ask a non-disabled complete stranger for the same thing. People’s belief that our stories can and should be taken by force might not be a conscious one, but it’s implicit in the numerous ways they try to convince us to “tell our stories” after we’ve made it abundantly clear that we don’t want to.
I don’t know about other people, but my life story is a hell of a lot more private than my genitalia, and I don’t give out my genitalia to everyone willing either.
Again, I think it's a matter (isn't everything?) of moderation. Curiosity and interest in a personal touch can be harmless, even a good thing. When that interest turns into an expectation or, worse, a demand, it gets threatening, and if forced on someone, it can get exploitive. And it is, I imagine, best asked of someone you're already friends with, or someone who's voluntarily put themselves in a position where they say "Okay, ask me questions about this." (Amorpha, for example, did this on the topic of plurality some time ago, for which I'm eminently grateful.) Otherwise it can all too easily come across as someone interested in another person more as a case study than as a person who has to deal with this sort of thing every day of their lives. (See the comment to this post at July 30, 2006, 0:54 – I'd direct link, but the layout doesn't seem to support that.)
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chiming
no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 12:27 am (UTC)From:Oh, I agree. I also think that civility should be a standard of any serious discussion, no matter what the other side is doing and no matter what points your arguing. But humans are emotional, fallible beings, and it's easy to wear past the point of patience. Some people have precious little patience to start with; some people have lives which wear down their patience as a matter of course. I can't presume to say who falls into what category, and whether or not people are justified in feeling angry is entirely a different post – all I can do is examine the underlying motivations.
I think this is largely a matter of how it's put across. If someone is asking because they have an interest in how that person is feeling – because they're a friend, or something – that's empathy. If someone is willing or eager to share their story, that's voluntary education. Things get hairy around the point when someone wants to know someone's personal story as an illustration of the group (which skirts into tokenization), or when people seem to think that people, either all people of a marginalized group by virtue of being in a marginalized group or specific people they're talking to by virtue of, well, being in a marginalized group and being the person they're talking to, are obligated to share their experiences.
It happens to a lot of people. When I crossposted this to my LiveJournal, friends of mine brought up two posts on the subject over at Ballastexistenz – both my friends and the writer had had a lot of experience, in their own lives and in working with others in their groups of people who would demand their personal stories. A couple of highlights from those posts:
Again, I think it's a matter (isn't everything?) of moderation. Curiosity and interest in a personal touch can be harmless, even a good thing. When that interest turns into an expectation or, worse, a demand, it gets threatening, and if forced on someone, it can get exploitive. And it is, I imagine, best asked of someone you're already friends with, or someone who's voluntarily put themselves in a position where they say "Okay, ask me questions about this." (Amorpha, for example, did this on the topic of plurality some time ago, for which I'm eminently grateful.) Otherwise it can all too easily come across as someone interested in another person more as a case study than as a person who has to deal with this sort of thing every day of their lives. (See the comment to this post at July 30, 2006, 0:54 – I'd direct link, but the layout doesn't seem to support that.)
I hope I'm making sense ^^;.