Ucky Conversations

I'm writing a response to others' papers in my roundtable about polarization. Something I'm trying to get into words is the notion of an "ucky" conversation. By "ucky" I mean those kind of (usually internet) debates that are certain to be messy, complicated, defined by strong feelings, and practically unavoidable.

Just about every domain or subdomain has longstanding internal debates that qualify as possible dealbreakers for a significant percentage of the participants. Airing out those debates fully can lead to schism; in the middle of it, you wonder how you were ever a coherent community to begin with.  There's polarization, ingroup/outgroup dynamics, virtue signalling (and its cousin, contempt signalling), biases up the wazoo. And above all there's that sinking, dreadful feeling of seeing people very close to you get extremely angry with each other--and maybe with you. Part of the dread is the knowledge that you yourself will eventually be asked to take a side. 

Or maybe you're already on a side, all-in by virtue of some facet of your identity. The conversation's still ucky, but it takes on a doomed, wearying tinge as well. Are we really still arguing about this? Is my continued participation in this community worth my time/energy/mental health? 

Ucky. 


The philosophy website Daily Nous recently hosted just such an ucky conversation about the tensions between female trans* philosophers and a group of feminist philosophers who are variously called "gender critical" (their term, which other feminists and gender theorists object to) or "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" (or TERFs, a term which they view as a slur).

Multiple issues intersect in this fight,and as an outsider to academic philosophy, my grasp of them is limited.  Is it ethical for cis-women to insist on cis-women-only spaces? What are the philosophical underpinnings of the statement, “Trans women are women”? Is asking that question an act of violence to trans* people? What kind of questions can philosophers pose about gender and trans identity without calling into question trans* folks’ lived experiences? Is that even a relevant consideration? What literature is relevant/required to cite/consult/master before writing about such issues? What kind of philosopher (cis or trans*) has the right to pose and address such questions?

It’s all very complicated. Lives and careers are at stake for the participants. Various trans* philosophers write that they feel pushed out of the field. Various trans-critical philosophers express the same feeling. The fight has become a lightning rod for multiple tensions in philosophy.

I have lots of feelings about this issue. But I have no wish to pretend like it's my place to weigh in on this debate, so I'm going to keep mum about it for now.

The point is that, a few months ago, Justin Weinberg, the founder of Daily Nous, attempted an irenic essay about how philosophers and Philosophy as a discipline could charitably but rigorously think about gender and identity. His post was long, thoughtful, perhaps painfully even-handed. The comment thread was—well, a flamethrower battle royale waged by advanced philosophers.

Ucky.

But fascinating. And yes, I realize I'm in a privileged position--as a non-philosopher and as a cis male person--to derive fascination from this debate. But I the dynamic in that argument isn't unique. Ucky conversations happen all the time, in and out of academia (the progressive/centrist-vs.- traditional UMC debate is ucky; the progressive-vs.-centrist debate about what to do is ucky). So yeah, such debates are things I feel the need to be curious about and not just upset by.

So, I'm trying to define some of the features of an ucky conversation. Here's a working list of some features of "uckiness":  

1.  Simmering tensions: extremely complicated, difficult, and overlapping histories and politics create longstanding tensions within a domain. Often these tensions have not fully been voiced in honest, direct, or sustained ways.
2. Precipitating scandal/crisis: These tensions culminate in a single precipitating event--a straw that breaks the camel's back--that provokes reaction, counter-reactions, counter-counter-reactions, etc.
3. Lightning rod: the reactions/counterreactions overload the precipitating scandal with all the affective baggage of those complicated tensions. The debate ends up being about more than what it's literally, ostensibly about.
4. Existential stakes: the prime participants on either side frame the stakes of the debate as existential struggle, a matter deeply tied to an aspect of their social selves.
5. Zero-sum: The identity struggle gets framed in zero-sum, winner-take-all terms. There can be only one. The existence/victory of one side means the obliteration of the other. There's no middle ground, and attempts to find one get branded as betrayal.
6. Affective polarization: Feelings run hot, and bad faith allegations (and bad-faith behavior) abound. The other side isn't just wrong but some version of wicked.
7. Splatter damage: in the debate/reaction/counterreaction (or even studious non-participation) comes at the price of marking oneself—or being marked—as a member of one “side” or the other. No one gets out clean.

Ucky.

I'll tweak this more. But it's a start, maybe.

More tomorrow,

JF