I Am, Regrettably, Declining To Debate You: Here’s Why.

You are a stranger who’s shown up in my comments, desiring a debate on the topic I just opined upon. “I am a logical human,” you tell me. “Swayed only by facts! So marshal your best facts, and you can convince me I’m wrong!”

While a kind offer, dear sir, I’m afraid I shan’t. And here’s the reasons why:

1) You’re Presuming It’s Worth My Time To Convince You.
I don’t know you. And maybe the same arguments I could use to convince you would be the same arguments that bring Ted Cruz to his knees, weeping, realizing that everything he thought is wrong.

But probably not.

And honestly, saying I need to convince you attaches a kind of importance to yourself, doesn’t it? Like you’re the gold standard, and if I convince you then vast riches will follow. Unfortunately, a lot of white cisdudes carry this attitude – “I am the only person truly worth debating, and unless you engage me – me personally then your argument is worthless.”

Dude, you’re just some schmuck on the Internet. Same as me. Maybe if you had a Joe Rogan-sized audience or something I might think “Well, here’s a valuable investment,” but is worth taking an hour out of my busy day to try to win you over?

Especially when I don’t know you. I mean, you say you’re logical, but every flat-Earther-and-lizard-rulers claims that. Based on past experience – because I’ve debated thousands of folks before – there’s like an 80% chance that anyone who comes saying “You must win me over!” is so thoroughly in the other camp that there’s no possible reconciliation.

And 80% is generous.

So yeah, you’ve started out by inflating your own self-importance. But to me, you’re an investment – If I spend my time engaging with this person, is that expenditure going to pay off?

Already, based on assumptions? Probably not. That’s not a ding on you, or anyone who does choose to invest, but I’ve got books to write, a podcast to produce, and partners I could be texting.

You’re kind of a distraction.

2) Engaging You In Public May Lend Your Stupid Argument My Credence.
Someone comes to you and says, “Milk is actually just chalk urine. Because chalk is alive, and it pees milk.”

Do you:
a) Spend hours refuting this argument, or:
b) Have a laugh and move on?

Probably b. Because some arguments are so patently false that it’s easy to walk past ’em.

Ah, but what if the person is from the Chalk Is Alive movement, a group that’s posted hundreds of books and webpages refuting the idea that milk comes from – of all creatures – cows? Why, here’s a hundred links pointing to prominent celebrities confusing cows and bulls, obviously nobody would make that mistake if cows were real, SEE THE COWSPIRACY

Should you engage then?

I’d argue not, for three very important reasons:
a) No matter how much you argue, milk comes from cows. (Or, okay, mammals.)
b) A person this deep in the bag isn’t gonna be convinced they’re wrong.
c) Giving air time to this jamook’s views in your comment thread by treating this ludicrous proposition like it’s worth debating convinces some aspect of your audience that there’s a legitimate debate to be had, thus encouraging people to join the Chalk Urine movement.

I’ve discussed this before in my essay A Reminder: You Don’t Have To Propagate Right-Wing Talking Points… but there’s this weird idea that “the marketplace of ideas” will somehow expunge all untruths, when the actual truth is that the Internet has allowed for perhaps the greatest expansion of free speech in the history of humanity, where anyone can have a platform that rivals the greatest of newspapers…

And what we’ve gotten is one of the greatest swirls of mis- and disinformation ever, peppered with the same old depressingly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

If “free speech” was the solution, it would be solved.

It ain’t. Therefore, giving your skewed views time or credence by debate may be just rallying newbies to the cause.

Is that the case with all viewpoints? Of course not. Some concerns are legitimate. Some folks are worth engaging with, because they do have actual concerns that can be assuaged with data. But that brings me to point #3….

3) Data Isn’t Neutral.
The people who cram twenty links into a five-paragraph comment believe they’re the easiest to convince – but in my (anecdotal) experience, every time these folks are not so much “using the data to derive their opinion” but “justifying their emotions by seeking out correlation.”

We can get into a link war, where I muster fifty links from my well-placed sources and you muster fifty-one links from your bullshit ones, and at the end of the day, well….

We get back to “Is this a good use of my time?”

Because the problem is that it’s hard to tell good bullshit from actual sources these days. I believe firmly in wearing masks, but I’ve had some anti-maskers post reputable links from what looked like good sites and actual data, until physician friends of mine explained to me why those studies were bad.

Fact is, if you have an opinion – any opinion – you can find a thousand links to back it up, even if it’s terrible. And if you’re looking to have your opinion changed, I don’t think data’s the way that it happens for most people.

I think most people devise their gut first and then find data to support it.

And again, I don’t know you. Maybe you’re a special snowflake. But let’s get to point #4….

4) Will This Be A Debate?
I define a “debate” as “a place where both participants have a chance of having their minds changed.” I take care to delineate where I can have a debate (economic policies, effective methods of policing, best Pixar movie) and where I can’t (who gets to use the bathroom, whether cops should measure threats based on how scared they are, best Star Wars movie).

(A New Hope. I have classic Star Wars tattoos. You’re not gonna convince me otherwise, but you be happy in your fandom.)

But to too many others, “debate” means “we clash to show off who’s smartest,” and fuck that. I want the truth when I debate. And I’m smart enough and good enough with words to know how to deflect people away from your weak logic, how to put a shine on turdy ideas, how to structure a story so you’re sympathizing with the people I need you to.

That’s fine technique for winning an audience over, but… I actually want the truth, not to win.

Again, I don’t know you. Maybe you think the same way? But probably not. Especially not if you’re basically flinging the glove down to demand a duel.

So you’re not the person I’m debating. And I’m sorry. I know you thought it was important to talk to you personally. But in the end, you’re an investment, and I’m the banker saying I don’t see a profit here.

There’s people who are probably willing, though. Maybe you can find someone! Or maybe you can educate yourself.

If you were ever willing to admit you might be wrong in the first place. But there’s a good chance I’m not because I’ve sifted through enough evidence that I’m reasonably certain that milk comes from cows, which, again, is a good reason for me to decline.

Sorry. It’s not me, it’s you.

I’ve Started A New Podcast! And A New Newsletter! And… Oh, Please, Just Check It Out.

So as part of my 2021 New Year’s Resolutions, I decided I would get good at art that I sucked at. And what have I wanted to do for years?

I’ve wanted to podcast. About books I loved. More specifically, about extracting the writing techniques that made those books so damn lovable.

Now, I wrote at length today in my new Substack newsletter about my terror of being bad at art in public, in an essay I called “The Dreadful Necessity Of Imperfection.” And if you feel like looking at that essay, well, it’s there.

The post today here is that the podcast I have is called “…And We Will Plunder Their Prose,” which is 12 minutes of me detailing why Stephen Graham Jones’ “The Only Good Indians” is such an effective horror novel. And I’ll be posting a new episode every two weeks; I already have three more in the hopper, waiting to go.

So. If you like what I do and want to follow me elsewhere, I’ve got three new things for you to check out!

• That aforementioned podcast “…And We Will Plunder Their Prose.”
• My new newsletter “Plant Seeds In The Ashes,” where I’ll be discussing the challenges of renewing my artistic love after seriously burning out in 2020.
• My Photograph A Day project, where I take a daily picture chronicling my life in an attempt to learn how to be visual.

If you feel like giving feedback on anything (or specifically the podcast), I welcome it – but don’t do it here. I’m still a little tender, so comments with feedback will be deleted. Instead, email me at theferrett@theferrett.com with what you think I could have done better, and I’ll read ’em when I’m in Big Strong Critique-Man Artist headspace… which is not now.

Today, I’m just vowing to start sucking more in public – taking more chances, putting art that’s as good as I can make it into the world, knowing that I have so much to learn. But to quote Jake in the wisest thing Adventure Time ever said, “Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”

And also, my favorite thing Ira Glass ever said:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

Anyway.

I have new art.

Take a look if you want.

How Many Coping Mechanisms Have YOU Built During The Pandemic?

“I had another breakdown,” I say, shamefaced.

My therapist, as always, keeps her face neutral. “Okay. What’s bothering you about that?”

“The ‘another’ part.”

“So you feel like you should have only had the one.”

“I feel like I should be stronger. That I should be resilient enough to cope without having shrieking meltdown days.”

“You are strong,” she says. “Really, really strong. But you get that this is a pandemic, right?”

I stammer for a bit. “Sure, but that can’t – “

“I’ve watched you,” she says, her tone low and reassuring. “You got thrown into a situation where the people you loved were in danger of dying, where you couldn’t hug your friends and partners, where all the ways you blew off steam were forbidden to you.

“And you did it,” she continues. “You developed new coping mechanisms. They weren’t perfect replacements, because you were being asked to suffer under a lot of changes, but… you managed.”

“Okay, but then – “

“But then the world changed more – which wasn’t unusual. You had your mother get sick and your daughter move in with you; I had to find a new apartment in the middle of a raging epidemic. Life didn’t stop happening in the middle of all this change, dumping more pressure down upon you. You had coping mechanisms you’d patched into place with little more than duct tape, a couple of spare parts, and pure determination – and then something else went wrong.”

“Okay, but – “

“Then the stress of elections and insurrections, and the winter where you couldn’t even see your buddies outside because it was too cold, and that transition from ‘it’s been a while since I’ve hugged the people I love’ to ‘it’s coming up on a year and there’s no clear end in sight,’ and you know what?”

“What?”

“You’ve developed a new coping mechanism every two or three months, minimum. You’ve done fabulous. But this pandemic is asking a lot of you, and you’ve been slapdashing repair after repair to make up for a broken world, and it’s time to realize that you crashing from time to time is not a weakness but a sign that nobody – especially you – was engineered to live in a plague.”

It’s then that I realize: I’m hyperventilating. “But some people are coping well – “

“Some people – a lot of people – are coping by going into denial, which is only making it worse. They’re not coping well, they’re coping by distributing their risk among other innocent people. You’re looking your risks square in the face and being compassionate in terms of what you’re willing to give up to avoid endangering other people – and, yes, that empathy comes with a cost.

“You had a bad weekend. I’m not minimizing that. But part of why you had a bad weekend stems from being responsible in the face of immense personal cost, and you’ve been rebuilding yourself repeatedly as your country keeps ignoring the risks, and rather than thinking of yourself as weak I might suggest it’s time to think of yourself as someone who is repeatedly rebuilding their coping mechanisms so rapidly that it’d be more unusual if you didn’t have a couple of bad weekends along the way.”

I sit in silence for a long time.

Then: “Thank you.”

Her: “I’ve been telling people that a lot recently.”

(As usual with me reconstructing therapy sessions, this isn’t the exact conversation, it’s been restructured for dramatic clarity, but the takeaway is pretty much the same.)

Would You Help Me Decorate My Board Of Happiness™?

So my wife has been doing The Artist’s Way, and as a part of it she’d decorated her office with all sorts of shinies – affirmational banners, art she’s done, all sorts of rah-rah, atta-girl stuff.

I don’t have a space like that in our house. I work in the living room, on our couch, and it didn’t feel right to pollute the collective living space with my weird-ass trinkets. But after some thought, I grabbed a corner of the kitchen counter, where I tick off all my to-do lists, and made it pretty:

But the problem is, I don’t have any trinkets! I used to have a collection of enamel pins, but I always forgot to bring them to conventions, and because my wife kept paring down our possessions I eventually culled a lot of them.

So: Would you like to contribute to my Board Of Happiness?

If you have any enamel pins/buttons/stickers whatever you either have hanging around or would care to send to me specifically to give me A Joy ™ when I saw it on my board (which I intend to redecorate weekly), then hit me up at theferrett@theferrett.com and I’ll send you my address.

A caveat: the board is 12×16″, and I don’t want anything that can’t fit in a manila envelope because this should be a trivial matter. (So no stuffies, medallions, etc etc. Personal letters? If you do that, sure.)

But basically, I’m looking for stuff from people who wish to bring me some form of joy as I sit in my Corner of Happiness ™ and look at the shinies that kind folk have sent to me from afar. If that sounds good to you, hit me up and I’ll get back to you later this evening.

In any case, thanks for being awesome!

Why I Hate “True Poly”

“What those people are doing,” sniffs the commentor, “Is not a true polyamory. You shouldn’t dignify their behavior with the name of our hallowed institution! Why, they’re swingers at best! Or cheaters!”

Don’t get me wrong; I share in their sniffination. Part of the reason my wife and I came out as polyamorous was because there were so, so many dysfunctional relationships waving the poly banner proudly – selfish one-penis polycules, New Relationship Energy junkies, hostage situations where a monogamous partner is forced into polyamory because they can’t bear the thought of their partner leaving.

We saw folks rightfully going, “God, if that’s polyamory I don’t want to have anything to do with it,” and decided to go public in part as counter-programming.

(And our specific dysfunctions probably inspire other people to come out in order to disavow us! It’s the CIRCLE of life….)

But if I’m so down on many common forms of dysfunctional polyamory, why am I not in favor of claiming a “true” polyamory?

Two reasons:
1) The definition never actually works in the wild, and:
2) When it does work, it serves to exclude and alienate valid lifestyles

Let’s break that down. Quick. Who claims to be truly polyamorous?

Answer: Pretty much everyone who practices poly.

If people hewed to consistently labelling themselves, I might be in favor of “true poly” as a concept. But nobody sidles up to you at a party to say, “My wife and I are poly – well, not really poly, we kind of use new partners as playtoys until we decide they’re too troublesome and then we cast them aside, we’re actually only sweet so long as you’re useful to us, wanna fuck?”

Fact is, the only pragmatic definition of true poly is for people to claim they’re it. Everybody’s loving. Everybody’s caring. Everybody’s a beautiful family, until they’re not.

(If it helps, say that in the voice of Dr. Gregory House, MD.)

And they’re not even necessarily lying! This is what “true poly” is to them. Sure, there are conscious abusers – but most genuinely believe what they’re selling.

What’s lacking is not honesty, but insight.

(I do not exclude myself.)

So since hardly anyone will ever self-define themselves (and their relationships) as “fake poly,” “true poly” is not useful as a label. It’s like everything claiming to be gluten-free – if there’s no FDA standards mandating what that means, then anyone can slap a label on some harmful material in an attempt to sell you something toxic.

(Also, TIL that [the FDA did adopt gluten-free labelling requirements in 2013][https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/gluten-free-labeling-foods]. Ah, how quickly you fall behind on news when you stop dating your one partner who had terrible gluten issues!)

So basically, “true poly” doesn’t work when you’re trying to find an actual relationship to love in. So what’s it actually good for?

Well, it’s good for defining who’s doing polyamory right, right? That’s great. That’s….

Usually used to mean “What we think is awesome” and not actually “Whether the people inside the polyamory are in a stable form of happiness.”

I’ve been told, personally, on many occasions that what I have isn’t “true poly” because my partners (in non-pandemic times) only got to see me once every few months. I’ve been told I’m not “true poly” because I don’t talk on the phone with them. I’ve been told I’m not “true poly” because I found other partners when I was already dating enough people, how dare you?

I’ve watched friends get told they’re not “true poly” because they’re in a 24/7 power exchange relationship, or because they didn’t want their partner to live with them, or because they had clear boundaries the other person didn’t agree with.

The problem with people self-identifying as “true poly” is that nearly everyone thinks they’re Doing Poly Right; the problem with people externally applying labels for “True Poly” is that their definitions of a functional poly relationship are narrow, narrow, narrow.

Look. I have a whole (erratic) series on what I call “Perilous Poly Patterns,” wherein I discuss common issues that lead to dissatisfied partners. But the only reason I call them “Perilous” is because people routinely wind up unhappy in those relationships. If you’re in a one-penis polyamory where that dude’s dick is legit the only one you desire? Great! That’s true poly. If you’re a hierarchical couple and the people you date are satisfied, legitimately satisfied, with what they’re getting? Hey, welcome to the club.

And again, the people labelling other folk as “true poly”? Almost to a person, they feel qualified sorting folks’ relationships into the True Poly Bucket (TM) because they live the True Poly. You’ll rarely hear “Well, my partners are fucked nine ways to Sunday, but those people are True Poly.”

Look. I’ll go defining something as “Good Polyamory” or perhaps, more properly, “Satisfying Polyamory” – but I don’t define that by some external standard, but by a mixture of whether they’re currently satisfied and my subjective judgment as the odds as whether they’ll be satisfied in the future. (Which is why I’m uncomfortable with declaring my maaaybe-educated guess as a True Poly.)

But the whole point of polyamory is that it’s flexible enough to suit a variety of human beings, most of which have vastly different needs and wants than you do, and spending time determining which relationships are the Gold Standard of Polyamory seems awfully like trying to elevate yourself.

There’s best practices, sure. There’s common and helpful methodologies. But “True”?

Doesn’t work in the ways people want ’em to, and as such, the true is false.

Why It’s Hard To Expect Clear Communication In Beginning Polyamory (Or Beginning Anything, Really)

“Relationships are all about communication,” the saying goes – as if you just talk through things enough, you’ll be fine.

But there is a hidden “gotcha” in that: clear communication requires clear concepts. Communicating something you don’t actually understand all that well leads to garbled discussions – like when you’re trying to get a bartender to make your favorite drink when you don’t remember the name or what’s exactly in it, and you’re flailing “You know! With the bourbon! And that flavor!”

(For the record, the world’s perfect drink is the currently-on-pandemic-hiatus Velvet Tango Room’s Bourbon Daisy, a drink with a fifteen-second aftertaste that mutates on the tongue, and yet I digress.)

Now, that’s not to say the bartender might not eventually stumble onto the fact that you want a bourbon daisy – the genius part of communication is that it’s two-way, and sometimes a knowledgeable partner can intuit the part that you’re not saying.

But when you’re starting out? When you have literally the least knowledge that you’ll ever have about what you like and expect in open relationships?

Communication gets rough.

And though the idea of communicating what you need sounds really good, often starter polyamory is mucked up with a lot of things you didn’t actually know you needed until you get there – you don’t know how to be reassured in your insecurity, you don’t know what your partner is supposed to do when they go out on a date with someone else, you may not even know why you’re upset.

Now, constantly communicating can ameliorate some of that damage. If you discover that your partner needs to give you a night-night call before they go to bed at someone else’s house, informing them of that revelation as soon as is conveniently possible is A Good Thing.

But what I find beginning poly folks often do is to expect that communication will clear a path for them – whereas a new relationship is like walking across a strange room in complete darkness, barking your shins on a new piece of furniture every few steps.

A clear, constant communication won’t prevent you banging from your shin. It’ll let your partner know hey there’s a chair here, which is better than nothing, but you’ve still got a bloodied toe and an ouchie to Band-Aid.

And starter poly folk often feel weirdly betrayed by that hurt – We’re open! We discuss things all the time! This shouldn’t happen! – and alas, I’m here to tell you that it’s part of the process.

There will be communication, but it likely won’t be clear. You’ve got some work to put in, exploring the boundaries of your own comfort, discovering what helps you feel safe, learning the surprising intimacies you didn’t even know you had until you see your partner doing those with someone else and feeling that sting of Wait, wasn’t expecting that.

It’s fine. Constant communication should be expected.

Clear communication takes self-knowledge, which takes practice and time, and I promise you that you can mostly get there. But you have to realize that often, communication is what wraps the bandage around the bleeding wound and stops the infection, not what prevents the wound in the first place.