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1. Embed this notice
   mekka okereke :verified: (mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 01:59:00 JST mekka okereke :verified:

   This is fine:
   👴🏻I want to say whatever I want! I don't want to have to consider other people! (But then I must accept that other people might leave).

   Also fine:
   👴🏻I don't want other people to leave! (But then I must consider how my words and actions affect others).

   Not OK:
   👴🏻You just have to take it!

   This isn't complicated.

   I feel like a lot of folk, usually people with privilege, have an underdeveloped sense of empathy, and a dangerously incomplete knowledge of the concept of consent.

   They want "free speech" for themselves, but not "freedom to choose not to listen" for others.

   Which is how we wind up with weird inconsistencies like:

   "The people who bleat the loudest about free speech... are the very same people that think that you shouldn't be able to block."
   🙂🙃

   What they really mean is "I can say whatever I want, and you just have to take it."

   I don't have to take anything.

   I don't even have to debate you or fight you. If you talk out of pocket, I can just walk away.

   This isn't some "Just ignore them!" Or "Turn the other cheek!" nonsense.

   This is "I can choose to be in places specifically where you are not. Reclaiming my time."

   • clacke likes this.
   • Paul Cantrell, Rich Felker and Rocketman repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Shar(yna)Tran/Shark(aeopteryx) (sharksonaplane@mastodon.sandwich.net)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 04:07:46 JST Shar(yna)Tran/Shark(aeopteryx)

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke Yes!!! The whole thing of these types is they always think they are entitled to 100% access, 0% consequences, it's at the core of their entire way of being and thinking. I've seen people who claim all kinds of liberal values do exactly this because the one thing they cannot stand is when *you* are the one walking away from *them*.
     It's not enough just to unlearn the bad opinions; if they don't unlearn these toxic patterns of thinking, they just keep being shitty people.

   • Embed this notice
     mekka okereke :verified: (mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 04:10:49 JST mekka okereke :verified:

     in reply to

     • kit 🌃👶☕

     @wlonk

     No I haven't yet! But I will give it a read.

   • Embed this notice
     kit 🌃👶☕ (wlonk@mastodon.transneptune.net)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 04:10:51 JST kit 🌃👶☕

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke Have you come across Michael Chwe’s work on “cluelessness”? He lays out clearly how “not thinking about others” is an act people do to express power. No surprises there, but you might find it adds to the examples to hand!

   • Embed this notice
     Jürgen Hubert (juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 14:27:20 JST Jürgen Hubert

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke As always, my take is:

     "Everyone has the right to free speech, but no one has the right to a captive audience."

     I see the right to leave spaces you are not comfortable in to be pretty fundamental. And people who _insist_ that their voices should be heard by everyone are deeply suspect to me. Especially since they usually want to drown others out.

     mekka okereke :verified:, clacke and Paul Cantrell repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Carolyn (cstamp@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 14:40:10 JST Carolyn

     in reply to

     • Jürgen Hubert

     @juergen_hubert @mekkaokereke Every kid grows up knowing that they can't say anything they want to all audiences without consequence.

     Free speech is supposed to protect people from consequences of speaking up against their government.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Coach Pāṇini ® (paninid@mastodon.world)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 14:40:20 JST Coach Pāṇini ®

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke

     Ultimately, I think the reason folks with privilege and underdeveloped empathy insist on a captive audience is because their egos need a foil.

     There is no value in saying transgressive things if there’s no one triggered by it.

     The point is to offend and provoke a reaction. That’s it. It’s not complicated.

     Reactionaries get bored with themselves.

     They need someone to “react” to their crude, self-destructive, nihilistic ways.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     mekka okereke :verified: (mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 23:00:45 JST mekka okereke :verified:

     in reply to

     • Court Cantrell prefers not to
     • blaue_Fledermaus

     @blaue_Fledermaus @courtcan

     *Gospel music plays*

     https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oyyU-sMZuv8&t=10m45s

     "🎼Try Jesus
     Please don't try me
     Cause I throw hands

     Talk to 'em Luke

     I know what it says
     About getting slapped
     But if you touch me or mine
     We 'gon have to scrap

     Oh he said
     Turn the other cheek
     Oh but that's one part of the Bible
     That don't sit right with me

     Talk to em Dave

     Don't let this falsetto fool you y'all

     Jesus is always there for you
     But I'm not
     I might let you down sometimes

     But he's always there
     So try Jesus
     Don't try me
     🎹"

   • Embed this notice
     blaue_Fledermaus (blaue_fledermaus@mstdn.io)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 23:00:46 JST blaue_Fledermaus

     in reply to

     • Court Cantrell prefers not to

     @courtcan @mekkaokereke

     Perfect!

     Either way it creates social consequences for the wrongdoers.

     It's not a passive "let it be", but can (most certainly) also result in you receiving more abuse.

   • Embed this notice
     Court Cantrell prefers not to (courtcan@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 23:00:47 JST Court Cantrell prefers not to

     in reply to

     • blaue_Fledermaus

     @blaue_Fledermaus @mekkaokereke The interpretation I've read that makes the most sense to me is that the Romans would only use the left hand to hit a Jew, because the left hand was "sinister," and the right hand was reserved for equals.

     If a Roman hit a Jew using the left hand, the struck cheek had to be the right cheek. But if the Jew "turned to the Roman the left cheek also," it would force the Roman to use the right hand in order to hit that left cheek.

     1/2

   • Embed this notice
     Court Cantrell prefers not to (courtcan@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 23:00:47 JST Court Cantrell prefers not to

     in reply to

     • blaue_Fledermaus

     @blaue_Fledermaus @mekkaokereke So if the Roman did use the right hand in order to dole out abuse, that would mean the Roman was acknowledging the Jew as an equal.

     It was all a metaphor for standing up against empire and not allowing the bastards to get you down. Jesus was encouraging his Jewish followers to engage in malicious compliance as part of resistance against being treated as subhuman. This was rebellion and a demand for the institution of human rights.

     /sermon 😉😁🖖

     2/2

   • Embed this notice
     blaue_Fledermaus (blaue_fledermaus@mstdn.io)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Jan-2025 23:00:48 JST blaue_Fledermaus

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke

     100%!

     Small aside on "turn the other cheek": it possibly originally meant to be "bait an evil person into publicly showing their true colors". It may be noble, but also means you get hurt.

   • Embed this notice
     Sophie Schmieg (sophieschmieg@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 01:09:10 JST Sophie Schmieg

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke you famously cannot not communicate. And choosing not to listen, and walking away is the ultimate counterargument, that does not even need a word. It is a show of force, saying "your opinion isn't even important enough for me to respond", and they cannot abide by that. They need their words to define reality, and every indication that it doesn't needs to be destroyed.

   • Embed this notice
     2xfo (rndanger@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 01:30:35 JST 2xfo

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke
     "The other cheek" is my butt.

     "Turning it" is me turning around to leave

   • Embed this notice
     JackieM (jackiemauro@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 02:11:32 JST JackieM

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke I always imagine these guys coming up to strangers in a bar just having a conversation and yelling some of their nonsense at them.

     Of course the people would be totally free to leave the bar, but they probably wouldn’t have to. Some big dude being paid to remove problems would come and remove the problem. Bodily, if need be.

     But maybe these guys have never really gone out in the world to know that.

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     PaulDavisTheFirst (pauldavisthefirst@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 02:11:32 JST PaulDavisTheFirst

     in reply to

     • JackieM

     @Jackiemauro @mekkaokereke i think this highlights the problem: conflict between what social media actually is & what a lot of (most?) people actually want.

     We need totally different models of for social media, rather than hoping that changes could lead to a better experience.

     People who want semi-private spaces with implicit conventions (e.g the bar) are not going to get it from any current social media platforms, because they are not designed to be that. Behavior/moderation can't fix this.

   • Embed this notice
     Ben Lopatin (bennylope@social.benlopatin.com)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 02:12:31 JST Ben Lopatin

     in reply to

     • Jürgen Hubert

     @juergen_hubert @mekkaokereke Well put; in general I think *many* people conflate a right to speak with some reciprocal obligation to listen.

     Its close cousin is the belief that the right to "having your own opinion" comes with the right to be taken seriously.

     What bugs me most about both fallacies is that they seem to be most loudly expressed by people complaining about everyone else's sense of entitlement.

   • Embed this notice
     Brian David (bcdavid@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 03:28:50 JST Brian David

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke This is also the problem with the "we shouldn't abandon spaces to the bad people" line of reasoning, which I sometimes hear from well meaning people who will say this is what causes bubbles and polarization. And maybe to some extent it does. But also, if the ground rules of remaining include "you must accept being abused and unsafe", then it's unreasonable to expect anyone to deal with that.

   • Embed this notice
     Kelly Guimont (verso@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 05:56:02 JST Kelly Guimont

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke YOUR right to freedom of speech means you can say whatever you want. MY right to freedom of speech means I can laugh and walk away.

     mekka okereke :verified: repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Carolyn (cstamp@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 05:56:02 JST Carolyn

     in reply to

     • Kelly Guimont

     @Verso @mekkaokereke That "right to an audience" thing never ceases to infuriate me. Especially when they refuse to listen to or acknowledge provable facts.

   • Embed this notice
     mhoye (mhoye@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Jan-2025 07:10:09 JST mhoye

     in reply to

     @mekkaokereke A lot of the people who think "Freedom Of Speech" means "Freedom From Consequences" insist on earning their surprised-pikachu-faces the hard way.