Folks need to be reminded that their voice matters. What right do I have to be heard, if I do not listen - is more or less how I learned it. (but not at home!! Thanks Unitarians!)
Even just quoting a bit back to someone and agreeing is an important step in dialogue. Yes, And⌠is so much more powerful than No, ButâŚ
I understand what your trying to say, and your aims are noble if overly optimistic for me.
People like Damore donât want to be heard, they want to be obeyed, they want their rightful success that all media has told him since birth that all white males in America get. Heâs rebelling against the world not recognizing that heâs the protagonist. And as others have said, weâve heard it all before, and I for one am tired of it, and will not listen to it anymore.
This gets passed around on Tumblr a lot, I like it so much I bookmarked it, because its perfect, and I think applicable here.
Sometimes people use ârespectâ to mean âtreating someone like a personâ and sometimes they use ârespectâ to mean âtreating someone like an authorityâ
and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say âif you wonât respect me I wonât respect youâ and they mean âif you wonât treat me like an authority I wonât treat you like a personâ
and they think theyâre being fair but they arenât, and itâs not okay.
How does that work?
I understand the words he is saying, but also know theyâre obvious bullshit that shouldnât be repeated anywhere. Does that count as hearing him?
This guy went to Harvard, then got a senior level position at Google. Itâs not like heâs pumping gas somewhere in western Nebraska. Do you honestly think he thinks he isnât important?
Also, he got thrown out of Harvard basically for being a bigoted douchebag, and then got thrown out of Google for similar conduct. What makes you think he really wants to listen?
That explains a lot. If you are trying to resolve a conflict, both sides better want to resolve the conflict as well, otherwise youâre just wasting your time.
If you watch the video, he has to listen to a woman who works as a UI programmer talk about some of her work, so itâs not just about him being listened to, but also him listening to someone else with a different point of view.
I see him as that sort of person who was (as far as he would see it) lucky to have been born white cis male in the USA in 19XX.
âthat sort of personâ being win-lose oriented, rather than win-win. Iâm sure itâs part of the current human condition to win by âthrow their stuff into a pit, and laugh aloud as they dive after itâ.
I like your approach of disengagement. It is about attention and having an expectation, well enabled by our culture, for it to flow one way not both.
do you think, by doing so, he is challenging his preconceived notions? I think thatâs possible.
Yeah, see, I donât think he wants to resolve the conflict. Unless that means getting women out of engineering to make room for more of him.
And as a Canadian, gotta say, that idea gets my back right the fuck up. Because the last guy in Canada who came up with that idea also perpetuated Canadaâs worst mass shooting. December 6, 1989. We memorialize this every year. And people like Damore, who arenât violent murderers, are giving people who might be violent murderers ideas. This is why we should no-platform him.
I support his learning. That he seems to want us to watch him learn, like maybe his is going to be the greatest example of learning⌠it rather obviates that that isnât what is happening. No-Platforming is a great term!
Imagine you got to have 30 minutes face to face with this guy to try to convince him of your point of view on how to solve the issue of bringing more women into STEM workplaces. Imagine how he would perceive you walking in. You would be just another âlibtardâ whoâs views he already knew.
This is exactly what is being expressed about him. We assume we know what he has to say and where he comes from.
The idea of NVC is that you have to speak to the actual human in front of you, not the constructs you have of each other. When you model deep listening to the other person, then they understand how to do it and can respond in kind.
Excuse my lack of precision on this, but the - not assuming - can be difficult for those on the autism spectrum as thin-slicing and the quick judgement can take the place of a very difficult emotional task of identifying with. Itâs not impossible, and in many ways a high IQ can help one intentionally intellectualize the situation and apply basic rules to such an interaction.
Rules such as you are laying out better than I could.
I donât think that is a deserved equivalence at all. Are we only assuming we know what Damore has to say? The reason weâve heard his name is because he wrote up his say and sent it to everyone. We literally got the memo on the subject.
I get your enthusiasm for NVC as a way to resolve conflicts, and maybe it can help reach someone like him. Thatâs of course what your thread is about. But this example also touches on another topic: as has been said, not everyone wants to resolve this conflict, but rather some are finding purpose in creating it. Treating that as an issue of understanding, as if we have somehow missed out on what they have been repeating perfectly clearly, is not fair.
Not quite the same thing, but I saw this one and started it. I havenât made it all the way through.
But I will see if I can come up with some rules.
Sam V⌠ugh! 
In my case, heâd probably think Iâm another dudebro like he is. After all, Iâm white and male, just like him, and I donât exactly give off crunchy-liberal vibes. Most of his kind are shocked to learn that just because I look like one of them doesnât mean that I am one of them.
Recently I interviewed a massage therapist for my community. We were discussing the #metoo hashtag and about inappropriate touch in yoga spaces. Even though this guy is pretty liberal, he expressed something similar to what Google Guy was saying, that he felt that sometimes he, as a white male, wasnât allowed to speak lately. Heâs a guy who is very loving and caring, who works professionally helping people to heal, and he tries to be understanding, but heâs expressing, too, this feeling of being muzzled.
The way that NVC works is that it helps to uncover the universal needs people are seeking to be fulfilled. People needs are never in conflict, the strategies for getting those needs met are. One of the universal needs is âto be understood.â Allowing someone to be understood doesnât mean that you endorse their views. It gives you an opportunity to explore, what need is this person seeking to get filled? Perhaps the strategy for getting that need filled (writing a stupid memo intending to be sent to all of Google) is not a good one, but the fundamental need is still there and, like any human, his needs deserve to be met.
The consequences of not meeting those needs is what we are seeing right now - people going into siloed communities where they are circle jerking with each other about their opinions, because they can feel safe. How many of us would, say, go into Breitbart comments and try to be heard there? And, how many of the people trying to be heard there would come here (please no - we had too much of that at Boing Boing and itâs why I left; I wanted to choose to engage with trolls, not invite them to my party). I think itâs a huge problem that people are not talking to each other.
Just because you engage in a conversation with someone doesnât mean that you have to give in to their world view. One outcome for a mediation or a conversation is for one personâs solution to âwin.â But it just feels very different when both people participated in coming to that decision together, rather than one person dictating the terms to the other.
Sam is not a narcissist, he isnât even a psychopath, heâs just a terrible person.
I highly recommend the documentary âI psychopathâ about him.
(http://documentaryheaven.com/i-psychopath/)
Full disclosure, I used to hang out on the SamV run NPD boards (i was going through some shit) and like a lot of people there, came to the conclusion that he wasnât NPD, he was fully a psychopath who gave terrible advice. (That doc was so validating!)
Again, I do hear what youâre saying, but as a feminist woman with opinions on the internet I have no more spoons to give to privileged white men who want me to educate them. He is so far away from the kind of person I would even attempt to explain anything to. So if you want to, feel free, but I bristle at the notion that Iâm failing with regards to empathy or that I ought to be more empathetic. The oppressed do not owe their oppressors compassion.
I havenât followed SamV at all and I only watched like 5 minutes of the video before shutting it off because heâs hard to watch him. I probably shouldnât have posted it. I thought it was interesting to try to have an empathetic conversation with someone not capable of empathy.
I think there is a big confusion between compassion and empathy, and that is what makes it really hard for people to grok. Itâs been hard for me to grok. We donât need to appreciate bad ideas, but listen with concern for the underlying needs people are expressing.
No one wants to be told their needs arenât important or worthy of consideration. Itâs the fight women have been fighting forever, and itâs the fight that has made me seek out other ways of learning to speak. I wanted to learn to give voice to my needs.
When I first got into NVC, my coach told me that my needs wouldnât get met when I was listening, and that was a tough thing to swallow as it was my exact thing I went to NVC for. But now I see what he was saying, that my own needs can not be met until I model being listened to the way I want to be listened to. The only need I can get met at first is for connection. Truly listening to other people is the only way to break out of the defensive stances.
It is really super counterintuitive and I have struggled with it for so long. It seemed like the only way to hold on to my own ideas and needs was to fight for them. But itâs possible for everyone to be heard and then come to agreements together instead of each battling for their own position.
See, this is where we fundamentally disagree.
Listening to bad ideas, like sexism, racism, white supremacy, is not something I want to do. Its not my job to make the people that espouse those ideas feel better and certainly not my job to âmeet their needsâ. My needs are in direct conflict with them.
I need to know that other people view me as a whole and equal person with rights and bodily autonomy and, despite being born with a vagina. And listening to people like Damore goes against those needs.
Again, feel free to listen and offer help and psychoanalyze those that actively want to hurt you and oppress you all you want, but I will not join you in this effort, and I disagree that I should.
I think I am doing a good job of modeling how arguing for a particular point just pushes me further into my own position. I havenât quite figured out how to do this online.
Let me try this differently.
Are you saying that by giving Damore a platform to express his ideas, just his speaking those toxic ideas violates your own needs to be seen as a person worthy of respect? You know what he has to say and the only way to keep yourself safe and strong is to shut him down?
In a way yes.
Because giving him a platform encourages others like him who do not see me as a whole person.
Weâve seen an increase in hate crimes since Trump was elected and since Spencer and his ilk have become media darlings. Up 20% in 2017 - https://www.voanews.com/a/hate-crimes-rising-in-us/4034719.html For me, this is the same thing.
Damore and his sexist racist views is only encouraging others. Giving him any sort of amplification only encourages him and others like him. No-platforming him, like what happened with Milo, takes away their power. (Milo canât book speaking space anymore.) You may think you can engage him and have a positive outcome, but I donât think you can. I doubt his ability to change or even to want to change.
In a way, I blame social media for this. We donât get space to have bad ideas and grow out of them anymore. Instead weâre giving the world all our bad ideas and then doubling down on them, as one does when one is confronted. Topic for another day: is social media compromising personal development?