1) Some of you have asked why I take things seriously on here that you wouldn't take seriously, or why I exercise patience when you wouldn't, or why I respond to arguments in good faith when you wouldn't. This is a brief explanation.
2) Part of it is just my personality. I don't like myself when I'm telling people to fuck off or calling something trash or assuming the worst in someone or their motives. It's not that I never do those things; it's that they often leave me depressed.
3) I'm sure to some of you this makes me look like a pushover or naive. You obviously don't know me very well. That's fine, why should you? But suffice it to say (for Twitter) I'm not the way I am because I haven't considered speech act theory or ill motives or 'the political.'
4) I've lived as me for long enough to understand where I'm more and less effective, and I'm less effective as just another person who's Angry Online. I'm more effective leveraging the assumptions people make about me and taking time with pernicious things my peers would dismiss.
5) Part of the reason for that is I come from a family of conservative religious Trump voters who live in rural Western PA, and I understand that what's self-evidently 'trash' to people on here is not necessarily so others who are reachable.
6) I also see highly educated parents and students continually spreading little lies not out of malice but because no one has bothered to explain e.g. the job market for English majors or what an adjunct professor is or how the NHS works, etc.
7) I also believe we all have different parts to play. I'm not a physical leader. My presence doesn't inspire people to rally around me. I reach people in other ways.
8) Why do I make such an effort to take the high ground on Twitter? Why do I make such an effort to fight with rationale and evidence? If part of the answer is my personality and composition of traits, another part is my experience of being attacked and threatened by the right.
9) It's cute you have that anonymous Twitter account from which to tell everyone to fuck themselves. Have you ever had the largest right-wing media org in the world try to get you fired from your job?
10) Have you ever had right-wing agitators posing as former students accusing you of sexual impropriety? Have you ever had people leave death threats at your door? Call you through the night? Leave phone messages of themselves masturbating while narrating how they'd kill you?
11) Hey, for some of you the answer may be yes, though I sincerely hope not. But these experiences have taught me a lot about how, when, and where to push. I'd be lying if I said there isn't some degree of disciplining to these threats. However...
12) On balance I'm stronger, savvier than I was beforehand. Part of which is understanding I'm not as good at playing a dickhead in a tearing-things-down competition as I am at building understanding and goodwill. Doesn't mean I'll do that w/ anyone, but I know my strengths. /end
