I Don't "Get" This Thing!

tweet it

Twitter's a perfect example. Someone's tweeting something you don't like. Do you:

Block them
@ them to try to discuss it
Unfollow them and just stop looking at their account because really, who has the time/energy

Any time spent arguing on the internet is time wasted.

fuiud

I don't "get" this thing —> Mock it
I don't understand this this thing —> Engage with it
I don't care to understand this thing —> Ignore it

This is going to be a pretty "in character" answer but the progression of "don't understand" -> "don't get" -> "don't care to understand" or the reverse can be pretty fluid.

No one should have any one answer to this, really.

yeah (p & xp)

I think a lot of people do have a habitual *first* reaction to things, though.

(And there's a line of argument that mockery has become a habitual first reaction in the whole "default internet hater" stance, which people have often complained about the prevalence of.)

But "things" is so broad to to be meaningless though. No one's first habitual reaction to everything they don't understand is to mock, or to engage, or ignore. There's just too much stuff in the world.

I would like to be a person who engages with things I don't understand, and in a lot of cases I do, but I make pretty active choices about what I do and don't want to engage with, for time reasons if nothing else. There are things I don't understand but I would like to engage with but either don't have time or don't know where to start (certain areas of history, geopolitics, theology, theory, whatever). I would like to think I will get round to these eventually.

There I are things that I don't understand and have absolutely zero desire to because I find them viscerally offputting. There are times when it's worth ploughing through that reaction and trying to understand, or at least know about them - ie certain extreme political ideologies that impact our world. And there are others, eg rugby, where it just isn't worth doing that. In some cases (eg rugby) I'm quite happy to mock.

Mockery is different, because it depends on power structures and where you stand in relation to the thing you're mocking. I don't get rugby, or I dunno obsessive Sting fandom, I'm happy to mock it if I'm in the mood. When you start mocking things that in societal terms you're "above" - some religions, music listened to primarily by black or working class people, then it becomes bullying.

Then there are things that I understand perfectly well but feel compelled to mock (ie the current UK government's policies) because mockery shows up their innate contradictions and stupidity. Active protest helps as well, but otherwise the alternative is impotently raging. A lot of the time, mocking something *is* engaging with it.

I don't doubt that some people lean more towards one response than others, but I'd be wary of using that as an excuse to caricature people.

I don't think it's possible to have a "first habitual reaction" to everything. That's logically impossible. But there certainly are people who have a "habitual first response" to new things- there are certainly people who, upon encountering a new thing (or concept or behaviour) for the first time, will scoff and mock and go "what is this rot the young people / hipsters are doing! Red pantaloons! I never heard of such a nonsense! They look like FULES!" And though on one level, this may be a fairly natural consequence of ageing, and either encountering less and less new experiences, or becoming more jaded and ingrained in their conceptions of "what is normal" - I certainly met people who were ~already like this~ in high school.

But there's another point where it stops being about a first response to a new concept, and becomes about a habitual response to a thing or concept or person one has already dismissed as "bosh". I guess that's where this question becomes really salient, and one can characterise (though I wouldn't say caricature) people based on it. e.g. I don't get rugby either and never will but have stopped seeing any point to either engaging with it *or* mocking it, I just ignore it.

You're right, though, that mockery, like all forms of humour, is so dependent on power structures that it's one thing to mock "The Tories" or indeed to mock Ed Milliband, but when someone routinely mocks the concept of e.g. "safe spaces (for survivors of gendered violence)" then I don't think it's a stretch to draw conclusions about that mockery, or indeed the person performing that mockery.

This is kind of a riff on NV's post about conspiracy theory believers from the other day - there are points where it's worthwhile to engage and debate, and there are points where the only rational response is to say "Wow. No." and walk away.

idgi

i think i deploy mockery either in places where i'd genuinely otherwise rage and am trying to protect myself from the worst despair or in places where i think something culturally trivial is fairly ludicrous, although i'm aware that my reaction to it is also ludicrous and i'm half playing at being a reactionary middle-aged dude. and i try hard to walk away now from a lot of the latter and some of the former, because the latter don't matter and the former has become so culturally reflexive that much of its satirical power feels drained to me hello Mock the Week et al

i think there can be a gentle affectionate mockery of yourself or of difficult issues that you sympathize with but recognize their most absurd presentations, but that tone can be misread so it's difficult

there are forms of mockery which don't seem to have any aim other than to protect yourself from thinking about things that matter to other people. it's okay not to worry about what matters to other people, you can do what you damn well please tbh, and people will respond to that accordingly.

NV, it took me a while to understand that about you.

But I do think it's different to be affectionate-mocking something you are very much part of and already engaged with, and mocking something you have not experienced and never will experience.

Like, e.g. I have seen a lot of your rage-mocking of the Labour party - it's one thing to rage-mock "The Left" as a disillusioned leftie, but my repeated experience has been of people rage-mocking the Labour party or "The Left" because they were over-privileged "natural Tories" who had never met an actual member of the working class.

Like it's one thing to affectionately (or even not so affectionately) rib your own brother for his big ears, but if the school bully does it, it's time to throw your books on the ground and go after them with the red mist descending.

Really feeling it, that mocking is a kind of "protection", that's a really good and interesting point, and thank you for it. But protection from *what* is the salient question.

with the Party is where it's probably closest to anger for me and furthest from affection now, altho in person i think i'm usually sympathetic and agreeable to fellow lefties no matter how slight the leftness - i can talk tactics and pragmatism in person in a way i've lost the capacity to think publically, which is why i'm kind of sick of picking at that wound in myself and trying - unsuccessfully, let's be honest - to let it scab over.

all of it clearly personal therapy tho more than useful action, which is a worry.

and i think on the whole i can detect when all there is to an argument is a kind of cynical perma-mockery, and that stuff is shitty and pointless and best unengaged with but i find it a useful mirror to my own worst behaviours

Affection is maybe not the right word, but familiarity or "personal experience with" is closer.

It's really really hard for me to learn that ofttimes "try to engage" is really not the most constructive or helpful response, and "ignore" is a much, much better option for both peace of mind/sanity and getting along with folks. Haha obviously I've still not learned completely, and hence I'm on this thread asking yet again "what is the point of mockery?" instead of just, y'know, ignoring. Predictable, me?

Fetch me a violin, I'm going to play an etude upon "Learn To Keep Your Mouth Shut, Branwell Bell" for you now.

Sometimes I scoff, but I usually try to figure it out...

going from my own personal examples

reddit - ignore
xfactor - ignore with a sprinkle of mocking
mulled wine - ignore
christmas - engage it

where is the "I spend all of my time pedantically explaining things I *do* get to other people who don't get them" option

shows/memes/etc i ignore.

if what i'm not "getting", though, is related to being a good person, i engage. thoughtfully. and by engage, i don't mean spar.

i only mock animals and young children these days. get really bummed out when i hear people mocking others for their clothes or some perceived violation of social norms/not looking cool 24/7.

first, you Mock it
then, you Engage with it
then, you Ignore it
then, they win

mock it, scorn it, flip it, twist it, trash it, change, ignore - engage it

Engage, when I'm on my best behaviour.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

*ignores result*