Speculations about the feuding

This is how it looks to me now: Atheist and secular events and Internet discussions used to provide safe spaces for some atheists, mostly white men. Now the safety of those spaces for those people is being threatened by some alleged feminists and their allies, who are trying to take control of the whole atheism movement, and some other people are fighting back.

That's what I see people feuding about, but I don't see that as the reason for the feuding. What I see as the reason for the feuding is that it's a popular thing to do.

Some actual social problems that I'm seeing, and hypothesizing:
- I'm seeing the popularity of depreciating and defaming people in Internet discussions causing a lot of grief, and I'm hypothesizing that it's causing a lot more besides what I see, and feuling animosities and hostilities off line.
- I'm hypothesizing that the environment in atheist and secular events and Internet discussions is far more hostile to some people, mostly other people besides white men, than it is to most white men.

Does anyone know of anyone who is trying to do something about those problems, besides finding fault with what other people are doing or not doing; or where I could look for such people?

Here are some examples I can think of:
- An organization that published a new anti-harassment policy.
- The Atheism Plus forum, providing some comfort to some traumatized atheists.
- Maybe Michael Nugent, possibly trying to facilitate dialogue.
- Some posts and comments in some blogs and forums, which look like they might be attempts to help improve the situation, or associated with attempts to improve the situation.

(later) I don't know why I didn't take a closer look at Michael Nugent long before this. He might be one of the people I'm looking for.

Blondein, I'm trying to extricate myself from this, because I have other priorities that I've been neglecting too much, but I'd like see what you think of my current perspective. First I'll say what I might try to do if I had any circles of influence anywhere in any of the atheist communities that might be affected by the feuding.
- I might volunteer to try to help make conferences and other events more friendly to more people.
- I might try to promote training for volunteers.
- If I had any friends who were being distracted and diverted by the feuding, I might try to turn their attention back to whatever they were doing before it all started, or to any other productive activity I could find that might interest them.
- If I had any personal relationships with any people who were being demoralized by cruel emails, comments etc., I would try to cheer them up.
- I might try to persuade bloggers to blog more about the talks of the speakers that were invited to WiS2, rather than helping Dr. Lindsay make it all about him.

That would be besides learning to practice and promote better conduct on the Internet, as I've been doing.

Those are all good ideas. I don't see what else you CAN do.

I comment when I see something worthy of comment, whenever I have the time. I try to be reasonable, I try to be polite, and I try to set a good example for others. I try not to be reactionary, I try to listen, and I try to self-evaluate and be as honest as possible and concede when I realize I'm wrong. My motto, as always, is "Listen and learn".

Blondein, that means a lot to me that you're practicing and promoting better conduct on the Internet.

Okay, part of this post is just wanting this forum to be as active as possible because it's awesome even if I don't have much to say. But I think you both have good points and ideas. There's a lot of value to kindness. I especially like what you said about trying to be a good example. Talking is great and really important, but I think especially outside of a religious framework actions and outcomes are what you can judge things by. Turning feuding friends to old or new interests is great. I think it's better to let the ugly go unresponded to (unless it's in meat world and truly demands a response, or better yet an action, verbal counts) because it withers in silence. If we turn towards the beauty in our movement and give voice to what interests and inspires us, that changes things, right?

dandelionc, I love that. Thank you!

dandelionc wrote:Okay, part of this post is just wanting this forum to be as active as possible because it's awesome even if I don't have much to say. But I think you both have good points and ideas. There's a lot of value to kindness. I especially like what you said about trying to be a good example. Talking is great and really important, but I think especially outside of a religious framework actions and outcomes are what you can judge things by. Turning feuding friends to old or new interests is great. I think it's better to let the ugly go unresponded to (unless it's in meat world and truly demands a response, or better yet an action, verbal counts) because it withers in silence. If we turn towards the beauty in our movement and give voice to what interests and inspires us, that changes things, right?

I second that emotion!

If I hadn't been crazy busy this last week dealing with the follow on issues from being in a car accident (no one hurt fortunately) I would have joined in many of the discussions too. Look forward to next week when I'll have more time.

I'm glad you and everyone else are okay. I look forward to that, too.