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midnightactual · 3 days ago

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PSA: Respect is Minding Your Own Damn Business

Let's have a little chat about what basic respect actually is. Now, this isn't contemporarily political, so don't run away screaming into the night just yet. Stick with me. I know it's hard in the age of TikTok and doomscrolling, but stick with me. Tim Walz articulated a pretty good idea of respect not even a year ago:

[...] because in Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make. And even if we wouldn't make those same choices for ourselves, we've got a golden rule: mind your own damn business.

This applies anywhere and everywhere in this world you happen to find yourself. I know, I know, it's the zeitgeist to look at this or that and say it's problematic, that it's triggering, that it's whatever. I'm not going to lecture you about the abject failure of purity culture to do anything besides divide people, make the perfect the enemy of the good, and give those who actually are the devout enemies of inclusivity and cosmopolitanism all the ammunition they could ever dream of. I'd be here all day if I was going to do that, and it still wouldn't be enough.

Instead, I want to ignore the forest for the dirt, and focus on some basic concepts that seem to have been forgotten both here and more generally in society:

Just because you like something doesn't make it good.

Just because you don't like something doesn't make it bad.

Liking good things doesn't make you a good person.

Liking bad things doesn't make you a bad person.

Being nice does not mean being kind.

Being kind does not mean being nice.

Someone engaging with problematic material does not mean they are problematic.

Someone not engaging with problematic material does not mean they aren't problematic.

Unless something actually presents a real, tangible physical, emotional, or psychological danger to others with intent to harm or exploit, it is not your business to point it out or "warn" others. It is also not your personal decision as to what constitutes real, tangible danger. You are not an authority. You do not have credentials. You are not held accountable by the public. You were not voted for by the public or appointed by representatives. It's not your business.

I could go on. I think you ought to begin to understand: respect is leaving people well enough alone if they're not hurtin' nobody, and "hurtin' nobody" doesn't include things like "they said a thing I disagree with" or "they said something that was true but it hurt my feelings". That's free speech. Now, I could have a whole entire diversion here about how free speech cannot survive including hate speech—and how hate speech can be much more than advocating for harm, and can include the normalization of hateful actors—but we're not talking about that because we're taking baby steps here.

It is okay for you (or someone else!) to like bad things, even openly, and doing so doesn't make you (or them!) a bad person. Now, hold on, I'm not defending pedophiles or rapists or racists or misogynists or whatever else here, let alone saying they have a right to promote their viewpoints. Don't get it twisted. Those are not simply bad things, and you know I'm not talking about those kinds of matters when I talk about it being okay to like bad things. You know exactly what I'm actually talking about.

You know what I'm talking about includes acknowledging those listed things actually do exist and happen, and that censoring ourselves about their existence or happening doesn't make them go away. You know that what I am advocating for includes being able to discuss the existence of such things (and much more) in a mature, adult way, that is respectful and sophisticated, especially within art. I am not talking about fetishizing it, glorifying it, or whatever else.

You know that in an age where people are self-censoring and saying "unalived" instead of "killed" and "unalived themselves" instead of "committed suicide", and it's considered "cringe", that all this has gone too far. You know that in an age of book bans and government censorship, all this has gone too far and been weaponized by the worst people you know of.

So, let's do something about it. But first, let's go over some examples, because this has been highly theoretical so far.

A piece of fiction that includes infidelity as part of its structure is not in fact promoting or glamorizing or normalizing infidelity. Even if it was, with characters openly saying things like, "Infidelity is amazing!" protesting that particular piece of fiction would not change the rate of infidelity in the real world. To complain about the media would, in fact, be avoidant of the issue—pretending one is doing something while actually doing nothing. This is usually called "ragebait" these days.

I think guns are fascinating machines, even if they are only machines made to put holes in things (usually people). I sometimes watch videos about guns. I sometimes talk about guns. I sometimes think about guns. I have never owned a gun in my life. I have never even handled a real gun—the closest I've gotten was an airsoft M4. Do you see the separation between thinking about a subject, engaging with a subject, supporting a subject, promoting a subject, and actively utilizing a subject? Even someone who owns guns and promotes gun ownership is probably not regularly shooting people with them.

My main muse, Yoruichi, is the tropenamer for the TVTropes entry "Ambiguously Brown". She's right there on the page. I have seen people in the wild make statements like, "If you think Yoruichi is brown and not black, you're a racist." We could argue back and forth all day on her ethnicity, but the truth is it doesn't matter. If it mattered it would've been stated. Some possibilities are perhaps more likely than others, but she can be whatever you want to imagine her to be. Likewise, some people think she was in the form of a cat for a century; some dubiously canon sources promote that idea, and some people run with it. I'm not one of them. I've stated my opposition to that take here, in my own personal space, but do you know what I've never done? Gone and jumped down the throat of someone who took up and propagated that idea with a public callout wherein I trash them as a racist and a misogynist who actually secretly hates Yoruichi and wants to tear her down and dehumanize her. I haven't done that because that would be insane to do in like 99.99% of cases, and the remaining 0.01% would almost certainly be "ragebait".

Now that I'm finally talking about muses, let's really dial in on roleplaying.

I don't go police what other people do with Yoruichi because even if I do style myself an expert on her (let's be real: the expert on her) I don't have any authority to tell other people what to think about her. I can present my ideas and other people can take them or leave them, but that's on them, not on me. It's not my business to tell others what to think, how, why, when, where, or to whom. It's only my business to state my opinion in my space. My opinion might be informed by facts and evidence, or it might simply be my opinion. My opinion might be as close to factually correct as could be, or it might be as far away as could be—and even if I had all the facts on my side, roleplaying is a transformative activity where people can do what they want.

It would be wrong of me to go out and hit other people with my opinions like a cudgel. It would also be equally wrong of other people to come here and attack me for my opinions. This is why being a hater or an anti is stupid: content doesn't just flash into your mind unbidden. You usually have to go out and look for it, and even if it comes to you, you have to choose to look at it or read it, and then you almost always have the option to block, unfollow, say you don't want to see the post, or simply exercise some self-control and choose to ignore it.

The only time you reasonably ought to say something if you see content you don't care to see is if something has been said which is factually untrue, and even then you're not Snopes: it's not your job to be public fact-checker. In the case of roleplaying, this occurring is even less likely.

So, your opinions! It's okay if you don't like something! You can make your dislike known in your space. You should, in fact. It's your responsibility to establish your boundaries and to curate the content that you see. That's entirely on you. Whatever you have to do to make your space comfortable for you? Go right ahead! No one can complain.

The moment you step outside your space though, all bets are off. If you put one toe over the threshold in order to tell someone else to not make certain kinds of content, not do certain things, not talk about certain things? You're in the wrong. You're the problematic one. You're the bad guy—yes, the bad guy—because what you are trying to do is censor other people for the sake of your own comfort.

What gives you the right? What could ever give you the right? Nothing. You're not entitled to be the Thoughtpolice for any reason whatsoever, unless as long-ago specified there is some real, tangible danger occurring.

When you act like you're the one who gets to decide what is and isn't acceptable for people to put forward, you're fundamentally being a disrespectful asshole. You're inherently acting like you're the adult, and the stupid children over there need to be yelled at to stop doing whatever—or else.

When this happens in real life, we call it "being a Karen". Well, don't be a Karen here either. Nobody wants it. If you can't articulate a real, tangible danger, keep your mouth shut and stay in your lane, because that's the fundamental basis of respect. You know as much too, which is why everybody and their mother writes some variant on "muse does not equal mun" in their rules.

If you can't adhere to that most basic definition of respect, you don't belong here.

#Out Of Character #PSA #Long Post #Politics Mention TW #Gun Mention TW #Confrontational TW #[ I'm not tagging the rest ]#[ yes this is in response to recent drama in Bleach RPC ]#[ but it applies anywhere and everywhere ]#[ this purity culture bullshit needs to die ]#[ have your opinions but grow the fuck up ]#[ and learn to accept not everyone can will or should ]#[ agree with you all the time ]#[ and it doesn't make them bad if they don't ]#[ this is FINE to reblog so don't ask me if you want to ]

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