@Elemancy The discussion has moved on since and I think few wish to sustain it. But since you specifically mention me and have put thought in your post I think it is only polite I reply. My goal on this forum is always to have a frank but honest discussion, so here is my reply. I however don't intend to revisit the discussion. If you wish to, feel free to reply by PM or perhaps a thread where we can have some respectful in depth bants about these and other issues would be useful.
@Stakhanov.....…so many posters here have tried to explain to you that intent and impact are not the same.
I have never claimed that intent and impact is the same. If you read my posts I explain in length that a comment or joke that can be subjectively hurtful does not mean it reaches the treshold of what is defined as homophobic.
I'm going to bring back my reply where I draw the distinction between something being hurtful, which I recognize Dan's replies are to some and homophobia. I do think intent is an important element in judging the context of any comment when you're trying to determine if it is homophobic. I assume with impact you mean the offense and words his words has caused. If not, you need to clarify what you mean with impact and how it is relevant to intent and homophobia.
I can understand that any joke or word can be hurtful or offensive to others. I wouldn't ever deny an individual can be impacted. Everyone has their own past and lives through their own experiences which can make even the most well intended little joke extremely hurtful. That's one reason that in interpersonal relationships I always try to be kind and polite to people. As I get to know a person better, you get better at navigating what things you can talk about and then funnily enough it is among friends where you often can get refreshingly blunt or sufficiently tactful to bring up issues you wouldn't even talk about with others. But in a public space (such as that blog) you're talking to an abstract audience and you have a right to express yourself as you are, even if that will clash with the sensibilities and sensitivities of others. I Dan's case, he states in the blog himself that he is a "sarcastic, alternative guys that is sometimes inappropriate". So yes, no doubt his replies are hurtful to some but that's fine. Nobody is forced to read his writings and everybody can cause offense (most of the times unwittingly).
Where we fundamentally disagree is in calling a subjectively hurtful or offensive joke homophobic. These are two different matters. Homophobic does mean something, and it's not equal to having caused hurt. it's defined as "irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals" (I looked up some definitions, took the Merriam-Webster one here, but they are all fairly similar). Now my question to @waveydnp and you is: what specifically in his replies is homophobic? Are you calling him out because he is homophobic or are you calling him out because he has made a comment or joke you found hurtful? Again I would like to use the terms when applicable to actual homophobes who have this irrational fear, aversion and discriminate on the basis of it. If you label a little joke as homophobic because it's hurtful to you, you are redefining the concept to something it isn't. I started by saying I would never deny your right to feel hurt of offended by a joke or comment, and I would hope you wouldn't try to deny my experience. I personally found some of Dan's jokes entertaining and refreshing. I'm not the only one. To make a comparison with mental health jokes: some people find them 'problematic' and harmful while others see in them a way to cope and help them with life and their mental health. You just can't say that a comment or joke is uniformly impacting everyone the same way. By consequence, you can't even claim a joke is objectively hurtful, let alone homophobic. At best you can argue that most or many people find something hurtful, and bring up context and history to explain why.
I feel this point is badly understood by people who feel hurt or offended by something and then claim the person causing it must be a (vile) aggressor who is homophobic, insensitive to others mental health, ableist, racist or pick your moral evil. These are real problems in our societies, and I would hope when we accuse someone of fitting that label, we draw the line in accordance with what these terms mean, taking into account context and intent, instead of cheapening it to the point where it's original weight and meaning is lost and many can't support what you put under it's umbrella.
If you’re unable to form any kind of sympathetic or empathetic link with the pages on pages of arguments countering your position ...
A bit of a strange assumption. I have always acknowledged people can feel hurt. I don't any find joy in that. Why wouldn't I be able to feel empathy for others. Because I disagree with the conclusion they draw that the blog is homophobic? I am sympathetic to the person who feels hurt by these comments, as well as with Dan's anger and frustration when he is trying to counter the presumption that he's lying about being platonic friends with Phil and I also feel sympathy for the viewers who do not support the ship or believe they are together and were glad Dan was again taking a clear position.
To quote a previous post again where I talk about the different perspectives.
Let me maybe surprise on this day of love but I agree with everything you say above the tag. Reading his posts I see someone who is clearly angry, frustrated about all the growing cohort of fans that believe they are in a romantic relationship, sometimes with a lot of passion and plenty of fanfiction and graphical fanart. You speak about the effect his crude wording and denial has on you as a viewer. That's one perspective, which I don't mean to diminish, but it is true that there are other perspectives too. That of the fan who does not believe they are together but who sees the effect the ship has on the content that's made, on what becomes popular and expected of them, on how it influences and limits what they do. More relevant perhaps is the perspective of Dan and Phil themselves. I feel that's getting overlooked here. Imagine for a moment they aren't together. (I guess this is a less romantic version of typical Phan imagine ). You see how part of your rapidly growing audience rejects your own truth. Some people don't believe you when you say the v-day video as a prank and think they've gotten intimate glance into your love life. You have since 2009 said you are not in a relationship and not gay (you are bisexual) and your genuine friendship gets misinterpreted and sexualized. I can't speak for you, but I would try to correct that perception. I would feel like people act like I'm a liar, don't care about what I think or feel and come to a bunch of wrong conclusions while they can't know the truth of it.
then at least take it from the point of view of conventional implicature, where
the tone and structure of the language Dan used back then contributes to a negative, derisive and harmful point of view.
This is an opinion I disagree with, so any conclusion that leans on this assumption I don't share. Just wanted to clarify this at the start as your further reasoning builds upon this and other assumptions and don't share.
Even if the tone he used is understandable from the perspective of defensive posturing,
to shield himself against the unwanted, overwhelming public scrutiny of an attraction/relationship/facet of himself he was only beginning to understand, navigate and accept,
That's not why I think he created the blog or gave his answers.
it still left the sour aftertaste of
conflating a same sex relationship with something shameful and taboo.
Again not how I interpret his words.
This falls in line with the way that some companies and individuals compare being fat/old/physically or mentally impaired (or anything deemed 'socially unconventional') with something undesirable when paired with language like ‘ugly’ ‘sad,’ ‘unfortunate,’ ‘unwanted’ or by using more abstract, euphemistic language that doesn’t directly state a negative but indirectly connotes it anyway. Dan's intent or words might not have been overtly homophobic according to your own definition, but the
impact of the language implied,
the resounding negatives behind his chosen mode of expression at the time which overrode all intent, ....
I agree with your on the first part of the paragraph. I'm not saying Dan expressed himself in the most positive way he could and I agree that you can 'connote' his words with a negative, but this is a long way imo from asserting they were meant to for example shame the notion of male-male relationships in general, especially considering all the other opinions we had heard of Dan around the issue of LGBT rights.
I also don't see why this ought to override intent.
... is a large part of what
contributes to the aggressive frame of mind which constitutes homophobia in the first place.
This is so vague I'm left guessing what exactly could all fit under that description. If the claim here is that the concrete phrases used constitute homophobia, I disagree. "Contributing" can be interpreted extremely broad. I'm not even sure what "An aggressive frame of mind" ought to mean and how it constitutes homophobia. I've given the dictionary definition of what I understand to be homophobic, and this is a long way off.
When it comes to any bias, theory or belief, there’s always a complex latticework of contributing factors, mostly social cues within one’s community, social network, family, etc, which makes a person lean towards one end of a spectrum versus another. In particular, whether it’s internalized homophobia or a vocalized bristling expression of unequivocal hatred, that type of belief arguably finds its beginnings in the kind of small conversational prompts which associate a given idenitity with something undesirable, framing it in the context of something comedic, shameful, or illogical. In short, it’s a foundation built on direct negative associations or euphemistic shortcuts which over time create a mental and/or physical aversion to the very idea of same sex relationships. Sometimes those types of social cues are the most impactful, the ones that aren't the publically visible bigot with a megaphone shouting slurs, but the comments of friends, family and public figures whose implied tones and actions are more suggestive in influencing what other people find acceptable or questionable
I very much agree with you in this part, but completely disagree with the interpretation you next give of Dan's words.
. In the more specific example of Dan’s old blog and some old liveshow comments, the scope of influence with his replies went beyond his intent to curtail public scrutiny into his private relationships and budding awareness of himself/his identity, etc. and devolved into what came across instead as a shuddering, lip curl of distaste towards the idea of any relationship between himself and another man. Even if the specific context was meant to deflect unwanted attention involving him and Phil or to protect himself from feeling trivialized, the end result of how he chose to phrase his replies was more far reaching and detrimental.
You called for critical reflection in one of your many replies here and we can definitely do so (though many people already have) We can critically reflect on the one side of the issue in which we understand Dan's reactionary posts from the point of view of someone young, confused, and insecure facing perceived pressure both from his audience and his own internal conflict in not having the context of experience, emotional support, comfort or maturity to deal with those pressures and then we can critically reflect on the unintended but nonetheless real, potentially harmful consequences of those off the cuff replies which later (partly? Hopefully?) provoked his own decision to delete the blog along with other videos in which past comments and
jokes he made were rendered inappropriate in the context of him finally reaching those markers of maturity, experience and understanding to learn about their negative implications and realizing the large gap between how his past self no longer reflected the mode of self-expression or frame of mind of his present self.
You do reflect from a particular point of view here.. and go quite a far way in speculating about what this all would mean for him. In this whole paragraph I feel you have somewhat poetically articulated how you wish Dan perceives his blog and has 'grown' in his thinking about it. I think the blog served a more pragmatic and focused purpose though. I think it was an attempt to counter the phan narrative, as well as other questions that kept being asked in the fandom.
And this part in particular is what I love best about Dan, this version of himself that is open to understanding; to evolving beyond opinions and beliefs he outgrew with time and better context of experience and education to willingly correct himself and others as evidenced by
that lovely liveshow clip of him genuinely laughing at that comment about the wig and then gently correcting the commenter’s statement by talking about the implications of correlating a sexuality with an accessory as if it’s something terrible or ugly, in turn stirring up a balanced conversation about the issues behind using certain negative language when speaking of individuals and groups.
It is a lovely clip I agree, serving another purpose and expressed in a radically different context than the frustration he vents on his blog. What this demonstrates is a lot more speculative in nature...
This demonstrated effort to break free from outdated and flawed conventions of past thinking suggests someone willing to learn from and allow for the introduction of multiple perspectives and contexts of experience different from his own, where statements aren’t dismissed as superfluous or reduced to baseless ad hominems and people aren’t belittled to being nothing but immature contributors to a conversation, but looked at from the more compassionate, educated angle of someone open to a true conversation.
And the truth here is that while Dan’s identity and relationships are his own to debate and define
I wholeheartedly agree. He had and trough this blog was expressing his relationship with Phil. A key point that people who think Dan and Phil are a romantic couple tend to forget, as they reject Dan and Phils own statements about the nature of their relationship. I repeat that I think it's Dan and Phil and them alone who should have the authority to define their own relationship. Phans define their relationship on their own speculations and don't believe Dan and Phil when they say they're not a romantic couple, in effect denying them the ability to define their own relationship. I think this explains a lot of the frustration and Dan's choice of words in the blog.
.., it’s also true that some of his past statements- however flippant or understandable for who and where he was at that point in time-
left the overall negative impact of carrying prejudiced undertones....
I find this statement incredibly vague. How do you assess what the "overall negative impact" is? How do you determine If and what prejudice phrases like "gays lol" or an added "haha" or a phrase like " being secretly gay for each other" or "bumming your friend" carry? Seems a hell of a lot subjective to me. I see little else than a visceral reaction to the specific idea of him being assumed to be in a romantic relationship with his friend Phil. He is well within his rights to have a strong negative feeling or even feel disgust for that. You tend to use words with a negative connotation to express negative feelings. If the claim is again that somehow, because of the subjective impact and meaning these words can have to some, it is demonstrated true that these are homophobic phrases, I strongly disagree.
The point here is not to hold the past over Dan’s head like a guillotine (or Damocles’ sword to use his favorite metaphor) and again, it’s not to dismiss how age, experience and the emotionally fraught complexities of his situation almost definitely colored the language and tone he used, it’s more so that there’s a working lesson in acknowledging the testimony of those who point out that his choice of words were divisive, hurtful and dismissive in equal measure and how important it is to put effort towards understanding
why that is even when you don’t necessarily see it at first. It's part of what helps mindfully educate people against using that same language themselves to perpetuate a harmful mindset they might otherwise be oblivious to contributing to.
I agree that empathy is important and it is wise to put effort into understanding different views or why things can be hurtful, but it does not follow that you must give priority to the testimonies or feelings of hurt to the detriment of the right of an individual (who can also be hurt) to express himself, even in a way that cause hurt or distress to some, on his own blogs which others are free (not) to read or care about.
Digging in your heels on a subject to buoy your own narrow point of view while using reductive reasoning to diminish the importance of all counter arguments and attempts to clarify doesn’t make for an intellectual high ground
This strikes me as a rather suggestive and condescending statement if it's meant to target my opinon. Do you see how I could leverage the exact same phrase and aim it at you? A narrow point of view you defend with reductive reasoning to diminish the importance of arguments? I fail to see how this was relevant to the discussion.
or critical reflection
nor does it contribute to the conversation behind how intent is not always equivalent to impact and how certain modes of expression can and does contribute to the stigma and hostility behind all acts of discrimination, whether towards groups, individuals or internalized self-hatred.
You're right that my posts don't contribute to that conversation, because this is the conversation you bring up in this post that isn't related to the arguments i put forth. My position never relied on intent let alone impact and we don't agree on the specifics of the mode of expression that Dan's words supposedly represent.
Lastly, there’s also equal importance in acknowledging that Dan learned from the past and has long since moved on to outgrow those remarks and become someone who appears more critically thoughtful of himself and others, a small detail I’d hope more people would learn from as well.