Links: Unexpected power and influence

[sonia]

Impostor/Abuser: Power Dynamics in Publishing by Sarah Gailey, via Captain Awkward.

But the day will come when you meet someone who idolizes you. Someone who thinks you can help them realize a dream. Someone whose life was changed by your work, who cares what you think, who cares what you do.

Even if you don’t see yourself as important, you will be important to that person. They will not know or care what your impostor syndrome tells you. No matter what that small, cruel voice tells you about yourself, you will still have the power to make that person feel small or scared or unsafe.

The yoga world is riddled with anti-vaxxers and QAnon believers by Cécile Guerin. "In my day job, I monitor the spread of online disinformation and conspiracy theories. I never expected to find them at my yoga class."

Comments

[asakiyume]

I think I'm not surprised to hear that there are anti-vaxxers among yoga practitioners, because the first place I encountered anti-vaccination feelings was in the natural health/natural foods/back-to-the-land/alternative parenting world. As for the QAnon stuff ... I have no idea.

[sonia]

Yeah, that does make sense, even though I don't like it.

I have a lot of grumpy half-formed thoughts about the whole thing. Maybe I'll write a post sometime...

[asakiyume]

I'll be interested in the post if you do write it!

[adrian_turtle]

I'm not surprised, either. Every time a doctor lies to a patient (about ANYTHING), it feeds the anti-vaxx movement. The yoga world is full of people who have been lied to by medical practitioners, or who worry that they might have been; that's often part of what pushes them to yoga. And QAnon is filling up with new mothers, who are very easy marks for "doctors are lying to you," in addition to the sleep deprivation and isolation that makes anyone vulnerable to cult recruitment.

As for the QAnon stuff...I have no idea.
The QAnon stuff is so scary it's hard to think about it. There's a lot of malice in it, and deliberate white supremacy...but there are also plain old suckers who fall into it and have trouble finding their way out of the confusing tangle of "everyone who says otherwise is lying to you!" (My mom sends me batshit conspiracy theories that start from pseudo-scientific raw data, and I can't refute them in detail. I know they're wrong because their conclusions are evil, their sources are known liars, and people I trust are giving me a steady stream of anti-Q stuff. Sometimes I think it's dumb luck I have such good friends, rather than falling among evil companions.)

[asakiyume]

*nodding*

I've been thinking that it also doesn't help that some of the stuff that we say is batshit crazy in some instances just *isn't* in others. (Let me just reassure you and Sonia that I am absolutely not a QAnon person. I'm not.) For example, we laugh--or, well, the progressives I know laugh--at the idea of a child sex trafficking ring associated with a pizza parlor, but no one laughs about Jerry Epstein. What he did was real. So in that context, it makes the child sex-trafficking conspiracy idea seem less outlandish.

My default is to dismiss grandiose conspiracies of any sort because they require too many people to cooperate to keep the thing hidden, and people are just not that easy to keep in line to hide a thing. That, and the principle that the simplest explanation for something is most likely to be the correct one. Sometimes I'll be wrong, but as a heuristic for deciding what to pay attention to, it works for me.

I also think we can just refuse to entertain ideas that are based on premises that it's immoral to accept--like that categories of people are inherently wicked or less intelligent than other categories.

[sonia]

Yeah. The most effective way to lie is with slanted pieces of the truth. And they don't have to keep people quiet, they just have to make sure no one listens to them.

I'm not a QAnon person either, and at the same time there is way more terrible abuse out there than most people want to believe. That's part of the grumpiness and difficulty with talking about this. I'm glad you and adrian_turtle have some words!

[adrian_turtle]

That's a very good point about Jeffrey Epstein. There was a survey last year that claimed to have measured what percentage of people said they believed in QAnon, and what larger percentage of people said they believed specific QAnon ideas. The trouble is that it's hard to write survey questions. (And you have to ask everyone exactly the same questions, so you can't clarify when a respondent says "Of course I believe there are rich powerful group of corrupt men covering up child abuse and controlling the government. Oh, wait! Don't you mean the church?")

[sonia]

All good points. And, yes, the QAnon stuff is so scary it's hard for me to think about. Having blurry lines between good people and terrible people and people caught in the middle is the way the world is, and it's hard to deal with.

[silveradept]

The idea that someone might look up to me and think of me as someone to idolize is slightly terrifying, even if it might be true.

[sonia]

Yeah? I guess as an older sibling I grew up with the idea that it was possible, even though my sister really isn't the idolizing type.

I think a lot about age-related power and responsibilities, especially now that I'm in my fifties, and looking back on uneven relationships in my past.