Thanks for the post and vulnerability! I wanted to add one piece.
I’m speaking from my own experience here. For me, a difference between a “correct” and “incorrect” reaction to a misconduct is a person whose emotions and needs you focus on. Long story short—under no circumstances, when you are speaking to a victim you should be the most important person in the room. If, for whatever reason, you cannot do that (and it’s totally ok to feel that way), I’d suggest stepping out from the conversation.
Some people may want to give away control and ask others to react—absolutely, you should then react. But because they need it and it’s right for them, not because you want to.
So, listening to a person who reports misconduct, the actions you take and the words you say should not be about your shock and stress, your values, your need for action, your need for justice, your relationship with anybody or something similar. I’m not saying “don’t have those” or “don’t set boundaries”. Obviously, you are going to have those, and if for whatever reason the situation crosses your boundary, step out of it. For me personally, angry, aggressive reactions, when I feel I totally loose control on what happens next are as problematic, as disbelief. And—here, it is very personal—disbelief is sometimes easier, as at least I know why I feel violated.
In my opinion, after a situation when somebody crosses your boundaries, you may need empowerment (again, you may need it, I’m not speaking for everybody). So taking your agency from you is bad, doesn’t matter what form it takes. For me, each time I healed from sexual abuse or misconduct, was the moment when I felt in a position of power over my perpetrator. And some of my abusers were actually quite powerful people for me at the time, not only physically, but also when it comes to a position in the society. It may be personal, but I feel it’s important to mention that some people may feel that way as well. If I feel that I’m in a place where—when I speak up—people may start trying to forcefully take care of me, I won’t speak up. Which is not ideal.
(That being said, if the majority of victims decide they want a system which reacts for them, please set up such a system, I’m just not going to use it)
It is similar case as patriarchy, you know? The core of patriarchy is a man trying to decide what is good for a woman. The solution is listen to her. Forced protection without respect is only slightly better than ignoring.
Liv
Other people. I feel that certain perspectives on the forum are expressed very strongly, and with little consideration towards other points of view. One of them is “if you are in a position of power you should be considerate towards those who are not as they may feel pressured by you” which I agree with. But the same person sometimes also very strongly expresses some other view, regarding, i.e. dating, full of “shoulds” and often strongly rooted in the US norms and culture (in my perspective). I simply find it ironic.
Sorry, it will be not a very kind comment and a bit of a rant—upper American class on this forum keeps saying “if you are in a position of power you should be very considerate of others and their boundaries, and give them space, because sometimes they may feel pressured to agree with you and find it hard to speak up”. Yeah, exactly.
Yup. Not to mention that EA community is based also in the countries other than the US, which, I feel, is often forgotten about.
Yes, I also usually prefer texts with more pronounced structure. It’s just a kind note, so maybe you can take it into consideration in the future :)
Would you agree with the statement:
”EA made an attempt to attract as many students and young people as possible, and therefore neglected older groups. As a result, the movement to a huge extent:
a) has a too small proportion of emotionally mature people, which makes it more turbulent, and, as a result, less effective;
b) makes it not very attractive to mid-career and mature people, who—even if impressed by young prodigies, don’t regard them as their thought partners (due to lack of life experience);
c) puts too much pressure on young people, as they are sometimes put into leadership positions which they are emotionally not ready for”
.For the record, I don’t know if I agree with this statement. But I’m curious what do you guys think.
I think the model is a good idea, but would work only for those, who run workshops occasionally/outside their usual dating circle, otherwise people would be incentivized not to do so. Plus, it shouldn’t be treated as a “golden solution for all of the issues”, rather used with a fair amount of consideration for everybody involved.
A bit of side topic here, but thank you very much Jeff for writing this post and making an effort to understand everyone, structure this discussion and come to some agreement/conclusions. I see a lot of value in it. Plus, it was very comforting for me personally, as some previous talks left me quite upset.
Looks great, thanks! Could you please recommend the one which is particularly interesting/a good place to start? :)
Yes, I’d agree. It wasn’t a very well thought-through example. If we remove a “special guest” part, would it make the whole comment more solid and understandable?
Yes. I’d agree with that. Strong push for organizations, competitions, grant-makers and events to have norms addressing certain set of issues (i.e. we could have a “must address list”). Norms should be adjustable to a group character and stuff like the country’s culture. Plus some gentle community norms (it’s not ok for an event organizer/special guest to hit on first-timers). Plus empathetic helpline and even resource center for those, who ended up being in an ambiguous situation with regard to those norms, or have trouble setting them due to i.e. pre-existent interpersonal dynamics or even personal traits. So they are encouraged to be mindful, address problems, acknowledge mistakes and seek best solutions instead of being ashamed and try to sweep things under the rug. Would you agree? :)
I didn’t take your comment personally :). I think it will be very hard for many EA people to find meaningful relationship outside the crowd for many various reasons, pretty unusual worldview being one of them. As for meaningful relationships who don’t violate the norms—sure. They will do it also . But who people fall in love or desire with is not guided by “community norms” but biology ect. Yeah, we can control ourselves—but to the certain extent. So too strict or unskillfully placed norms don’t solve the issue but end up in shame, frustration and lying. Which does everything but contributes to mental health and effectiveness. So I am pro loose norms and constant work on emotional maturity, communication and systemic, flexible and adjustable intervention systems.
Ok, I have a question, which is a bit crucial in this whole discussion. I know it may be unpleasant to see it being asked, but I think sbd should do so, doesn’t matter if the answer seems obvious for some. Are we trying to solve an actual problem here and how sure are we about it? For example, do we have an actual evidence, such as hard data (but may be other), or a very strong understanding that consent or relationship norms in the EA are problematic? How possible is it that we all just reacted emotionally and randomly focussed on this issue? Maybe consent norms are ok but we have a problem with a group of people who cannot healthily implement them. Or something similar. I’m sure there’s some issue, but I think it’s important to define it well.
Hm, I understand now. I, however think that things like meaningful relationships are not a matter of personal enjoyment but mental health. So for me the price of what you call “the norms which diminish fun” would be much higher and may actually minimize community’s impact in the long term. We already have the issue with burnouts.
Just wanted to clarify, I don’t think that the resistance to the stricter norms is only about “wanting to have more fun”. I agree with your comment. Yet, I think you are missing at least couple of important aspects of the situation.
Yeah, totally agreed that it’s not that clear and easy. My comment was meant to be a starting point. I purposefully kept it pretty short and focused on one, easy conclusion, as the whole issue is super complex, I don’t have it well-thought through and I’m probably missing a lot of information and context.
I think however, that the whole discussion is over-focused on sex and polyamory, and not focused enough on other interpersonal connotations which for sure happen in a community like that (friendships? living together? Ex-partners?).
I think I found the crux.
I treat EA as a community. And by “community” I mean “a group of friends who have common interests”. In the same time, I treat some parts of EA as “companies”. “Companies” have hierarchy, structure, money and very obvious power dynamics. I separate the two.
I’m not willing to be a part of community, which treats conscious and consensual behavior of adult people as their business (as stated under the other post). In the same time, I’d be more than happy to work for a company which has such norms. I actually prefer it this way, as long as they are reasonable and not i.e. sexist, polyphobic and so on.
I think a tricky part is, EA is quite complex with this regard. I don’t think the same rules should apply to interest groups, grant-makers, companies. I think a power dynamic between grant-maker and grantee is quite different from the one which applies to university EA group leader and group’s member. I believe, that the community should function as a group of friends, and companies/interest groups should create their own, internal rules. But maybe it won’t work for the EA. Happy to update here, I, however, want to mention that for a lot of people EA is their whole life and the main social group. I would be very careful while setting the general norms.
(When it comes to “EA celebrities”, I think it’s a separate discussion, so I’m not mentioning them here as I would like to focus on community/workplace differences and definitions first. )
Something which I think is sometimes lost in community building discussions is that the stakes we’re playing for are extremely high. My motivation to join EA was primarily because I saw major problems in the world, and people that were extremely dedicated to solving them. We are playing for the future, for the survival of the human race.
Yeah, thanks for this post. I got a bit invested in some of the recent discussions here. Then I looked on my “EA to do list” (which is long, has very little to do with the recent situation, and certainly nothing to do with sh*tstorming on the forum) and I realized I lost focus.
So I don’t know if we are going to split or not, I’m leaving it to community builders, it’s not my focus area. Yes or no, my “to do list” stays the same.
Also, just so you know, I am going to discuss under this post today, but after that I am making a major break from discussion on the forum for some mental health :). So I may not answer to your comments.
Is it your first article like that? And did you write it solo? I’m not into global health, but overall it looks super impressive.