Nov 18 2013

There used to be a post here: https://web.archive.org/web/20131118145002/http://words.steveklabnik.com/on-leftist-infighting

After having some conversations on Twitter, I was made aware of some context around ‘infighting’ that made it problematic. I decided that the post was unworkable, as I certainly didn’t mean some of the things it implied, and so decided it was better to simply delete it.

I’ve been told that some people have been trying to cite this post as me saying that I believe any and all dissent should not be public, or that I believe in covering up incidents of wrongdoing because they may ‘harm the movement’ or something. This is wrong. I wrote this post after trying a number of different tactics to get other men to stop tone policing several women, specifically Shanley. “If you don’t like the way she says things, why not distract from the issue at hand and instead say nothing, and focus on the misogyny instead” was one strategy that actually worked. Hence the post. But since I didn’t just straight-up come out and say that, it failed.

Wrongdoing should be called out as wrong, and tone policing is bad. End of story.