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When I was a teenager, I fell madly in love with the local music scene. It seemed to me like a dank oasis of sincerity on a sterile, shrink-wrapped island of lies. It was my church, and I was convinced that it could save the world if only everyone would join in its sweaty embrace
Obviously, I was naive. The scene was narcissistic, full of hurt and anger. It was sincere, but its custodians were brash, and did not have the wisdom to tend to its fragile heart. Nobody taught us to be tender. We inflicted vicious wounds on each other, on our closest friends
It was one of the first instances where I began to care about community management. It was intensely true that a few bad actors could ruin everything for everyone. This was a tragedy that weighed heavily on my mind - like watching individuals scuttle lifeboats at sea. Preventable
It's intensely true that all it takes for evil (or plain viciousness, which can be scarier because there's no discernable motive) to flourish is for good people to do nothing. As groups, we are terrible bystanders, relying on the disproportionate heroism of a few. This is wrong.
I had a habit back then - whenever I saw someone fall in the moshpit, I'd rush to help them up. It seemed like a decent thing to do. I was mocked for this, by some 'tough guys'. They called me the Moshpit Medic, and said it like it was bad, uncool, dorky, etc. I felt shame then.
But looking back now, I feel pride. I saved others from being injured, sometimes badly! I realize now that the tough guys had a belief: that moshpits are supposed to be violent, and that getting hurt is a rite of passage. They believed that Moshpit Medics were ruining the fun.
This generalizes to a lot of things. It shares the same root as the idea that consent is unsexy. "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen". That any sort of attempt at kindness kills the vibe, etc. I honestly don't want to kill the vibe. The vibe is what drew me in!
I suppose you could say we have philosophical differences about the nature of the vibe, and how to nourish it. I think the tough guys suffer from a lack of imagination, an overly narrow conceptualization of what is fun, what is sexy, what is good. That's half the problem
The other half of the problem is that the rest of us fail to stick up for each other. We collectively live under the tyranny of tough guys, in all sorts of contexts. I get private messages about this sort of thing all the time - but for things to change we need more public action
The tough guy selfishly thinks of the moshpit as a place that he can go into and flail around violently w/o looking out for others. This is toxic. A healthy moshpit can only support so many tough guys (& requires medics to clean up after them) before it effectively becomes a riot
This is the general problem of assholes in public commons. They make up 1% of the group, cause 74% of the damage, and ruin everybody's experience. And we let them, because we still haven't learned to do better. https://t.co/ClwTHgW4Na
How do we begin to solve this problem? A mental image of herd animals comes to mind. We need to learn to communicate with each other, build consensus, coordinate collective action. When you see a bully, don't fight him 1v1. Don't be a martyr. Coordinate w others! You aren't alone https://t.co/mjJ2bcB6MO
And don't be quiet https://t.co/a9KJ1tcU1P