Comment by taeric
3 years ago
It isn't a straw man, though. It literally happens all the time. Role play a woman in an office. And, I should have stated flat out I can see this style can exist. My discourse is why not to lead in with it. Pretty much anywhere.
I think I see what you're saying, and it makes sense. But in a scenario with abusive power dynamics injustice is going to play out the same regardless of preferred conversation style, an outlet will trivially be found.
Ok, I grant that going full on abusive is not helpful. Such that I apologize on jumping there immediately. :(
My concern is more in the ones that aren't quite as stark. Role play that you are talking to someone that doesn't feel safe enough to tell you that they don't feel perfectly safe. Now, how do you know this? If they felt safe, you could ask. But, we have established that they don't, per the role play.
And this is a large part of why the conversation around "privilege" is so tough. At large, what we call "privilege" can be easily recast to more subtle dynamics of folks that are allowed to give voice without as much interruptions. Note, not none. Just fewer. (Note that there are obviously other aspects to this that don't necessarily make the recasting.)
> Now, how do you know this?
What I'm describing is founded on both participants being well-intentioned. If one person interrupts another to ask for a clarification, or to let them know they are already aware of something, and the original speaker is threatened by it, I would say this is an unusual circumstance: someone with a preoccupation about being interrupted may feel that way and may need special treatment, sure. If they are uncomfortable about it, hopefully the well-intentioned interrupter is able to perceive that. If there is a combo of someone with this preoccupation + someone who is bad at reading body language, that would be unfortunate.
As far as that recasting of privilege, it's an insightful metaphor imo, but at the end of the day still just a metaphor: the dynamics of not having your voice heard in society are in practice just a separate matter from this communication style.
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Oral arguments before the Supreme Court are a fairly formalized interrupt culture in which the justices literally interrupt the attorneys to ask questions, and funny enough, the women justices tend to speak more than the men justices. Clarence Thomas famously speaks the least; he actually would prefer to hear out the attorneys making their case to the court.
> Clarence Thomas famously speaks the least; he actually would prefer to hear out the attorneys making their case to the court.
Eh, my impression is that he's extremely arrogant and doesn't care what anyone else thinks. He's deeply uncurious and consequently relatively ignorant. He rarely engages in good faith with the facts and merits, and frequently misconstrues them to suit his own ideology. These are not the acts of an active listener who wants to learn and be shaped by what they learn. They're the acts of someone who believes they've got it all figured out.
I'm basing this off of what Justice Thomas has said when he has been asked about this in the past. But if you want to form your impressions based on your personal biases and prejudices, there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.
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It is also definitively a hierarchical culture where the justices are the absolute top of the chain.
That's definitely a big part of it.