Lately I’ve seen an increasing number of discussions here and other places devolve into criticisms of people for worrying about A when they “should” be worrying about B. For just a couple of examples, a discussion here of concerns about BC gets responses of “but what about NPS – why aren’t you worrying about that?” or my discussion with a relative who thinks we’re worrying too much about COVID-19 devolved to “but what about food insecurity?”
Most of us are completely capable of worrying about more than one thing at a time. I worry about BC’s irresponsible handling of a serious public health concern and I also worry about the NPS’s inept handling of serious building safety issues. I worry and speak out about a host of other issues in various venues.
V14 posters, if you think we’re not paying attention to an important issue, feel free to submit a guest post. But let’s not hijack other people’s posts with “what about”-ism. V14 had plenty of room for posts on a variety of topics, and if you think someone else’s post is on something unimportant you always have the option of not reading it.
Crazy Divers: Men be like...
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It is truly wonderful and so, so inspiring that Ms. Warshaw has the intellectual capacity to worry about more than one thing at a time. Kudos to her. That though is largely irrelevant to the issue she raises. While some individuals may have this ability (perhaps not the same extent as Ms. Warshaws might mind), institutions, especially those of government, have proven themselves far less capable of being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. As such entities must prioritize, it is more than reasonable for folks to debate the import of the many issues facing Newton.
Meredith, I’m sorry but this is really, really, dumb.
Those of us that waste time on this board can worry about whatever we want. What concerns some of us is the explicit, operational agenda of the people in Newton with the power to make things happen. So for me that means I want those people to be exclusively worried about getting all kids back in school, and not at all about the city crest, the golf course next to the new Riverside development, or where to put the senior center.
As an aside, if you can’t see the fake BC “scandal” as a manufactured distraction then perhaps you have bigger things to worry about.
Congratulations to elmo for the first ever use of a whatabout whatabout-ism.
@Craig – I never said people on V14 shouldn’t worry about whatever they want. Quite the opposite. I said people who are worried about something on V14 shouldn’t be accused of not worrying about other things.
@Bluefootedbooby – 🙂
@Craig – What Meredith is describing is about not hijacking threads.
If someone posts about Newton girls soccer and you have no interest than skip it. Don’t post “how can we be talking about girl’s soccer when fill-in-the-blank That’s just straightforward hijacking of a the thread. How is that “really really dumb”?
Here’s one of the Guidelines from the Village14 Rules page
“Conversations do meander but avoid overtly hijacking a thread to a totally different topic with no connection.”
Thank you Meredith. I’ve seen this tactic used throughout social media as a mechanism to destroy discourse. It often mirrors disinformation campaigns and is used to diminish the seriousness of COVID-19, institutional racism, etc… Just like we all need to be educated about phishing scams in our online lives, we need education and tactics to deal with social media bullying and trolling tactics. Outside of ignoring the usual suspects, I don’t have better advice.
Completely understand the frustration with whataboutism and thread-hijacking, but also have become resigned to it as a feature of social media, frankly.
Meanwhile, out of curiosity, I checked up on the COVID situation at BC — the starting point for the whataboutism/thread-hijacking in question — and looks like they expanded their testing program and the positives have gone way down from that week in September. Certainly not cheerleading for BC, nor excusing its missteps, but seems a step in the right direction. I suspect that, for all schools — elementary through college — there’s going to be ebb and flow this academic year.