If anyone at my place of work hit anyone for any reason they would be fired. We can talk about why this happened, but assault is something people bring to H.R. and the assaulter has no way to say it was aggravated. You just cannot hit people.
Your take ranks right up there with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s, Erin. I just don’t get why anyone would want to go around feeling insulted all the time. It doesn’t make us happier!
When my son was in elementary school, he took Tae Kwon Doh at a really wonderful, family-run place. The owner, Master Jeff, used to tell the kids, “You get to decide whether something other people say about you bothers you.” My son is autistic and was bullied (actually bullied--not just having someone disagree with him or make fun of his shirt or something) a lot in middle school, but he was able to handle it because he had taken to heart what Master Jeff had said. He felt empowered to decide that he wouldn’t let those a$$hole kids wreck his life.
I think it’s easy to forget that self-mastery is the highest form of empowerment, and the one that’s most likely to grant us happy and peaceful lives.
(2) I’ve been embarrassed by the extent to which I care and have a strong opinion about the Chris Rock - Will Smith thing. Maybe it’s because I’m a mom who’s occasionally dealt with an unruly kid, but Will Smith needed to leave the premises and forgo his winning moment and his speech.
If you slug another kid at a birthday party for no defensible reason, any decent parent thinks “ok the natural consequence is we leave the party and Junior has to miss out on the fun.” Duh. And Will Smith is a grown ass man, not some 4-year-old without a fully developed prefrontal cortex. What’s his excuse? He has no excuse and needed to suffer the consequences of his action.
The fact that people stood and applauded his win after he physically attacked someone working at the event, a guy just doing his job, is just incomprehensible to me.
Are these people in there audience the world’s worst parents? The world’s most uncaring and stupid people? I don’t know. I had strong feelings about it.
Great piece! And that photo has me both terrified & interested. Ha!
But seriously, one question. When you say "Chris Rock making fun of Jada Pinkett-Smith’s hairstyle doesn’t seem to fall into that category." You mean both categories of emotional and/or physical abuse. Right?
I only ask because like everyone I've been too obsessed with this Oscars incident. I'm team Rock for sure. To the point where I don't even think his joke was that bad. Especially if he didn't know about her condition. (I have a feeling Rock doesn't follow the Smiths instagram). So I don't even think it was a conflict. I think it was just a misunderstanding on Rock's part.
Regardless, what I'm getting at is that while I agree that emotional abuse is real and not to be minimised, a lot of discourse over the last couple of years, especially on social media, is that WORDS can be violence. I really have a problem with that. I could be wrong of course.
But even Will Smith's "apology" smacks of waffling on this point. He talked about how he's against violence "of all forms". Is he implying that Rock's joke was a "form" of violence?
I may be straining the soup to thin, but if that's his point then I'm more disappointed in Smith than I was Oscar night.
For me you don't even have to qualify it at all. Whether or not you think Chris's joke was funny or tasteless, he wasn't being abusive. He wasn't being violent. Will Smith was abusive. Will smith was violent. Will and only Will.
I'm gonna' turn off the internet now. (Right after I look up that weird blue guy thing. Ha!)
Conflict Is Not Abuse took some of its conclusions to some tough-to-get-to places, but I appreciated much of the first two-thirds of the book. (As for the third... litigating the Israel-Palestine conflict through screenshots from a Facebook argument sure was a choice, Schulman.) In particular, I have tried to put into practice her recommendation that when conflict arises over text that can’t simply be ignored or forgiven, there should be a close-in-time attempt to resolve it over the phone, and found that it’s always been appreciated by the other party.
I also really like this fairly recent profile of her: https://www.thecut.com/2020/08/sarah-schulman-conflict-is-not-abuse.html It describes some situations that I would have called definitively Not Worth Talking Out, that she resolved through ironclad dedication to talking it out. It also points out that her approach to conflict is an intense way of life, which not everybody can maintain to the level she insists on it. On some level I really respect somebody that dedicated to a principle; but I think your advice to your son, with a possible addendum of “pick your battles,” is more often the way to go.
I'm going to comment like eight times not even counting replies. I have been waiting so patiently for Slap Discourse I could partake in (other than about 800 text messages a day with friends). It's the greatest moment ever.
On a serious note, this is a really important thing (the rest of what you wrote, although The Slap is important too because laughter is important). We have a real problem with the way we deal with mental health in the internet Discourse and, increasingly, elite society (Ethan Strauss has a great piece on this last week re: elite athletes). We have started to valorize being hurt so much we've completely ignored the concept of not letting yourself be hurt. It's like we can't carry two thoughts in our head: just because someone is an asshole to you doesn't mean ignoring it is some grave injustice. In fact, it's probably the right move most of the time.
But on an even more serious note, this has taught me how few people have apparently been slapped (or otherwise struck) for a joke they've made. I assumes my experiences were more universal than they apparently are.
High-energy/stressful situations are one of those times where people often do stupid things. That, said, mitigating circumstances almost never zero out consequences. Professional and legal consequences are also different beasts. In short, I think both narratives, "no consequences because..." and "proof positive of a secret violent abuser" are both out of touch, with the later totally off the deep end.
Pretty fucked up for your textbook to include a photo of me without my permission.
If anyone at my place of work hit anyone for any reason they would be fired. We can talk about why this happened, but assault is something people bring to H.R. and the assaulter has no way to say it was aggravated. You just cannot hit people.
Your take ranks right up there with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s, Erin. I just don’t get why anyone would want to go around feeling insulted all the time. It doesn’t make us happier!
When my son was in elementary school, he took Tae Kwon Doh at a really wonderful, family-run place. The owner, Master Jeff, used to tell the kids, “You get to decide whether something other people say about you bothers you.” My son is autistic and was bullied (actually bullied--not just having someone disagree with him or make fun of his shirt or something) a lot in middle school, but he was able to handle it because he had taken to heart what Master Jeff had said. He felt empowered to decide that he wouldn’t let those a$$hole kids wreck his life.
I think it’s easy to forget that self-mastery is the highest form of empowerment, and the one that’s most likely to grant us happy and peaceful lives.
(1) The homunculus!!
(2) I’ve been embarrassed by the extent to which I care and have a strong opinion about the Chris Rock - Will Smith thing. Maybe it’s because I’m a mom who’s occasionally dealt with an unruly kid, but Will Smith needed to leave the premises and forgo his winning moment and his speech.
If you slug another kid at a birthday party for no defensible reason, any decent parent thinks “ok the natural consequence is we leave the party and Junior has to miss out on the fun.” Duh. And Will Smith is a grown ass man, not some 4-year-old without a fully developed prefrontal cortex. What’s his excuse? He has no excuse and needed to suffer the consequences of his action.
The fact that people stood and applauded his win after he physically attacked someone working at the event, a guy just doing his job, is just incomprehensible to me.
Are these people in there audience the world’s worst parents? The world’s most uncaring and stupid people? I don’t know. I had strong feelings about it.
Great piece! And that photo has me both terrified & interested. Ha!
But seriously, one question. When you say "Chris Rock making fun of Jada Pinkett-Smith’s hairstyle doesn’t seem to fall into that category." You mean both categories of emotional and/or physical abuse. Right?
I only ask because like everyone I've been too obsessed with this Oscars incident. I'm team Rock for sure. To the point where I don't even think his joke was that bad. Especially if he didn't know about her condition. (I have a feeling Rock doesn't follow the Smiths instagram). So I don't even think it was a conflict. I think it was just a misunderstanding on Rock's part.
Regardless, what I'm getting at is that while I agree that emotional abuse is real and not to be minimised, a lot of discourse over the last couple of years, especially on social media, is that WORDS can be violence. I really have a problem with that. I could be wrong of course.
But even Will Smith's "apology" smacks of waffling on this point. He talked about how he's against violence "of all forms". Is he implying that Rock's joke was a "form" of violence?
I may be straining the soup to thin, but if that's his point then I'm more disappointed in Smith than I was Oscar night.
For me you don't even have to qualify it at all. Whether or not you think Chris's joke was funny or tasteless, he wasn't being abusive. He wasn't being violent. Will Smith was abusive. Will smith was violent. Will and only Will.
I'm gonna' turn off the internet now. (Right after I look up that weird blue guy thing. Ha!)
Conflict Is Not Abuse took some of its conclusions to some tough-to-get-to places, but I appreciated much of the first two-thirds of the book. (As for the third... litigating the Israel-Palestine conflict through screenshots from a Facebook argument sure was a choice, Schulman.) In particular, I have tried to put into practice her recommendation that when conflict arises over text that can’t simply be ignored or forgiven, there should be a close-in-time attempt to resolve it over the phone, and found that it’s always been appreciated by the other party.
I also really like this fairly recent profile of her: https://www.thecut.com/2020/08/sarah-schulman-conflict-is-not-abuse.html It describes some situations that I would have called definitively Not Worth Talking Out, that she resolved through ironclad dedication to talking it out. It also points out that her approach to conflict is an intense way of life, which not everybody can maintain to the level she insists on it. On some level I really respect somebody that dedicated to a principle; but I think your advice to your son, with a possible addendum of “pick your battles,” is more often the way to go.
At least we got a new meme template!
I'm going to comment like eight times not even counting replies. I have been waiting so patiently for Slap Discourse I could partake in (other than about 800 text messages a day with friends). It's the greatest moment ever.
On a serious note, this is a really important thing (the rest of what you wrote, although The Slap is important too because laughter is important). We have a real problem with the way we deal with mental health in the internet Discourse and, increasingly, elite society (Ethan Strauss has a great piece on this last week re: elite athletes). We have started to valorize being hurt so much we've completely ignored the concept of not letting yourself be hurt. It's like we can't carry two thoughts in our head: just because someone is an asshole to you doesn't mean ignoring it is some grave injustice. In fact, it's probably the right move most of the time.
But on an even more serious note, this has taught me how few people have apparently been slapped (or otherwise struck) for a joke they've made. I assumes my experiences were more universal than they apparently are.
High-energy/stressful situations are one of those times where people often do stupid things. That, said, mitigating circumstances almost never zero out consequences. Professional and legal consequences are also different beasts. In short, I think both narratives, "no consequences because..." and "proof positive of a secret violent abuser" are both out of touch, with the later totally off the deep end.
Never too soon to break oneself of the Email to Coach habit. :)