nemorathwald | Entries tagged with conflict

At this week's board meeting of my hackerspace, we finally were able to take a vote on the ventilation safety dispute between the baby boomer craft show ladies in Jewelry and the Gen-Z craft show ladies in Ceramics, who had been engaged in an escalating cycle of passive-aggressive backstabbing for weeks. None of which they engaged in when I was personally present, so they tended to call me in to mediate. They drew up a new floor plan map and it resolved very well.

At the Board meeting, suddenly a dark horse! The glass kiln, homeless and championless, suddenly had enthusiasts who were emotionally invested???????? One of them, Lauren, volunteered to champion it but agreed we could proceed with the overall kiln ventilation vote and deal with it afterward. Others of them tried to complicate matters of kiln ventilation. As always, the meeting threatened to bog down in the dreaded BOREDOM. This went on for a long time. I insisted on tabling it until after resolving the actual concrete actionable measure on the actual agenda.

After the Board finally voted on that proposal, the following is not exactly what I said to conclude the Board meeting, and finalize weeks of hard work from jewelry and ceramics. It's not exactly what I said, but it didn't need to be said. Something about the moment was very ceremonial.

...unless there are any further plot twists, such as a Pirate curse placed on the jewelry zone's gold,

then by the power vested in gathering in this building, the place that all of this is about,

and the power vested in the bylaws, so it is written, and the standing rules, so it is written,

and the power vested in me as President,

and the power vested in our norms, which are more like guidelines really,

then we have an accord,

and I declare the baby-boomer/Gen-Z dispute of 2023 is ... RESOLVED!

Next order of business! Before we vote. Lauren [------]. Two questions for you. First. Do you agree to be symbolically connected to all saints which may or may not be associated with glass and/or glass-working, if any? Do you agree to champion the homeless glass kiln, secure in the trust that others here will provide for it by sacrificing from their floor plan? Who on the board votes to designate Lauren as the symbolic representative of all working and sciences of substances that are glass? of its fusing? and of its slumping? Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously.

Lauren, please take this cowbell. I want you to be the one to ring it. This exact cowbell has been rung to close every meeting since this organization was founded in 2009. It is a symbol. When we offer to ring it, what that means is that those who do not yet feel heard, speak now, or agree to feel heard next time. And when it rings what it means is, may there be a next time! To there being a next time!

We live in cities you never see on screen

not very pretty but we sure know how to run things

living in ruins of a palace within my dreams

and you know we're on each other's team

-Lorde, "Team"

The book "Non Violent Communication" describes going through three phases. The first is a phase of dependency and people-pleasing. Basically having weak boundaries.

So you enter the second phase, which is autonomous inflexibility. Up until that point you were a people-pleaser, so you got very little practice at figuring out the when and where and why to have boundaries. So now everything's just a boundary. You decide in isolation what that will look like, without communication, and declare it unilaterally. There's not much relating.

To be clear: if that's what you want to do, then do it. You're just not relating. And that's fine; you don't always want to relate to everyone, or at all times.

The inflexible phase feels insecure. Sometimes the act of asking another person what they want, feels threatening. Hearing them out, feels threatening like a surrender, like a violation.

This phase is a step up from people-pleasing, so be kind to yourself. Relating needs to take a back seat, while one weans one's self off of people-pleasing. The inflexible person is busy training themselves to not buckle to shame and fear.

As you gain practice at figuring out the when and where and why to choose your boundaries and compromises, you gradually enter the third phase. You go from dependence, to independence, to inter-dependence. It's oriented toward your own goals for compassion toward those who you have chosen. Not oriented around shame or fear. Oriented around your own goals for connection, and seeking out where that might overlap with another person's goals for connection.

Here's how that works. What you are doing is two negotiations. One is between your desires and the other person's desires. The other negotiation is between two drives within you, the drive for connection and the drive for autonomy.

I like to take this negotiation literally. I make deals with myself. The "characters" (my conflicting tendencies) are sitting at a negotiating table. I know they like each other, because I'm my own friend and I get along with myself. Sometimes I make mistakes, so I'm not quick to trust just one character and always distrust all the other characters. I roll my eyes at myself when one character gets on a tear, but come on man, this is your loved one you're talking about here, this is your SELF.

One character NEVER wants to go camping; he wants to spend that time recording podcasts. Another really wants to be close to the people who invited me to go camping, and has problems with procrastinating my podcasts. And you know what? I need both of them. So I make up a dialog where they are asking things from each other and striking deals, and hash out a compromise that works for all of them.

I occasionally hear "you can't ever change people's minds". Here's a video in which they do.

It's 6AM. The failure of the first attempt at SMOFcamp has occupied my mind of late. It could be said to have competed for attention with the larger event in which it was embedded. However, there was at least one discussion that did take place at SMOFcamp. It was a wide-ranging series of petty grievances, criticisms, and plans to avenge grudges. I tried to turn it toward constructive suggestions, to no avail. That conversation has caused me to question one of the premises of SMOFcamp: that fandom hurts from lack of grassroots participation in its own direction, and would benefit from more.

Fandom might be better off with the current cold war of passive-aggressive sniping on the internet between cliques who don't talk to each other, than it would be with fandom's own equivalent of a town-hall meeting shouting match. Accomodations for allergies. For children. For handicaps. For reparations of each other's long-dead ancestors. For keeping an art show that nobody wants to staff or attend any more. Grudges over geek social fallacies. The impotent mewling of social-anxiety-sufferers, that the strong personalities get their way on concoms, by increasing the stress level until the shrinking violets resign. Threats over sound systems that are too loud for fifteen minutes playing music you don't like in a room that you could have just left. Whining over not getting free food when you want it.

The ones who I see getting things done, are willing to form coalitions of convenience with fans who they can barely tolerate sometimes. It requires that you humble yourself before someone else and let them have their way in exchange for their blood, sweat and tears. Effectiveness requires you to shut your feelings-hole for a year at a time and suck it up. That is the level of cool-headed, pragmatic leadership we need, not these useless emotional whiners. I am no longer sure whether cool new projects and innovative solutions would be born in a welcoming, populist environment like Open Spaces. It does for other communities, and I have enjoyed Open Spaces tremendously, but there are no guarantees of success with it.

I wonder, if a hundred of the most outspoken fans all gathered at SMOFcamp and discussed the topic "the future of fandom", would we all leave with such a bad taste in our mouths that there are no more cons? For the first time, I wonder if stonewalling the community is all that's keeping the community together.

I still want to try it and see.

Is there a lull in flamewars, or am I just not on the right forums anymore? Summer time, and the living is easy. So I choose now to post this. There's very little point in pointing out essays like this to anyone who is currently hunkered down in a fortress of defensiveness. They'd just feel you're making up rules to impose; and will promptly ask who died and made you king.

There is a new essay by Mark Rosenfelder on The Zompist, "On Arguing." Even if you're conflict-averse, you will see arguing in your life. If it turns ugly, "On Arguing" will help you judge the appropriate levels of social consequences to mete out for what you had to sit through.

Sample: "It’s the exaggeration and the malice that distinguish a real straw man from an honest misunderstanding."

Another useful essay on this topic is "How to Disagree" by Paul Graham.

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C.I.T.O.K.A.T.E.

Criticism Is The Only Known Antidote To Error

Entries tagged with conflict

An Ethnographic Example Of Ritual Ceremony

Boundaries VS Connections, People Pleasing VS Inflexibility

When Did You Choose?

SMOFcamp Post-Mortem

New Essay on The Zompist: 'On Arguing'

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March 2025

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