Purity spirals

[RoyalCorgi]

This is a brilliant piece by Gavin Haynes, tied to a radio programme, about the concept of "purity spirals" - the idea that's taken hold in certain groups that you have to continually demonstrate your ethical credentials. The example he gives is anti-racism in the knitting world, but obviously it can apply equally trans activism. Anyone who isn't 100% pure is regarded as morally beyond the pale. He makes historical analogies with Maoism, amongst other things. Fascinating - and spot on.

unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/

I think talking about this, looking at the whole phenomenon of virtue signalling and one-upmanship and witch-hunting, is really important and needs to keep happening, so I really applaud Gavin Haynes for focusing on it and writing about it too.

We literally need to catch onto ourselves. I don't want to turn this into a trans thread but this is also important in that arena - the virtue signalling and fear of ostracism have so much to answer for.

It's all so fascinating isn't it. I'm never sure where cultural appropriation ends and representation starts.

That writer who portrayed Latin culture in her novel is being told its not her story to tell and she shouldn't make money off a disadvantaged community.

But if she'd written it all from her own perspective and included only white characters, she'd be failing at representation.

I absolutely loved Salma Hayek promoting the book gushingly without having read it, then apologising and condemning the book, without having read it.

This is where we are.

This is fascinating.

I see this in transactivist circles. There's a call to support transpeople from abuse, discrimination and hardship, all of which is laudable and (sadly) necessary. We're now in a situation where questioning a transperson or even using language that 'may' upset them is called transphobia. And if a transperson steps out of line (e.g. Blaire White) they are deemed to be a traitor.

It's interesting that people can be surprised that crafting communities can be political.

Is it because they are perceived to be female centric and thus "gentle"

I bring it up because I recently saw an exhibition which covered early 20th century worker's rights movements (amongst other things).

I was surprised to see samples of embroidery and knitting. Then I learnt about the messages that the women were conveying through this work and the activism they engaged with.

I was somewhat ashamed that I had always been uninterested in "women's" crafts and their history. I don't know if there is anyone here who is knowledgeable about this area but I'd love to read a thread on it.

Sorry, don't want to derail as I feel I've already inadvertently done that this morning.

dolorsit you could read a whole book on it!
www.amazon.co.uk/Womens-Work-First-Years-Society/dp/0393313484?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

It doesn't cover modern craftivism, but the history, and pre-history are fascinating.

Is it because they are perceived to be female centric and thus "gentle

I think for me it's because I don't tend to think that it would normally inherently center a lot of politically fraught subjects.

I used to hook rugs with a hooking group on a weekly basis. It was a pretty involved group, rural, many of the women had known each other their whole lives but they were very welcoming to newcomers, a variety of backgrounds. We'd also take car trips together a few times a year. Age range about 30 to 90.

Occasionally there would be some political talk, local or higher level, but if it looked like it was going to be really controversial it would be left aside. But we talked about our families, local events, funny stories, and a lot about wool, hooking workshops, etc.

I guess maybe the difference is we all were really in a room together, and knew people were kind and would always put themselves out for you, even if their politics were screwy or they were grumpy?

I am curious to know what is it specifically about knitting which has attracted this bizarre internecine zealotry?

You might be surprised how much knitting has been picked up by young people with fragile mental health who are looking for a space in which to find support.

I think it's the online aspect. I don't think a lot of the people involved know each other well in real life though they've maybe met at wool festivals.

I wouldn't accuse Janice at my knit and natter of being a horrible person or a racist or whatever the latest accusation is because I know her but maybe if the target of your ire is just a little icon on a screen it's easier to forget they're a real person.

The new novel American Dirt, highly praised when first released, has fallen prey to this.
Lionel Shriver was cancelled by the Woke also, for criticising cultural appropriation. Apparently Youth fiction in particular is on a hair trigger around purity politics.

Trans right activists are surely an obvious example of purity politics? I think it's one reason GC voices find it hard to be heard. In fact before I peaked I shut down any tentative questioning of things like many genders etc.

Thanks for all the links. It's so facinating.

Trans right activists are surely an obvious example of purity politics

Yes. I've been dipping in and out of this thread all day thinking about it a lot but had no time to contribute. Trans activism seems like an obvious and no small example of this.

I am gender critical. I still don't think it's controversial or newsworthy to say "hey... can we just think things through properly before we allow self-id in women's spaces...?" ... but I'm shut down in an aggressive way amongst "friends". I'm sure I could probably lose maybe 40-60% of my Facebook friends overnight if I "came out". I recognise the purity spiral and spiral of silence in this.

The other every day example of a spiral of silence I can think of is right wing views. I think... I'm fairly left, and it could just be ther eco chamber of social media, but I see very rarely one of my right leaning friends will politely disagree and is jumped on - it's no wonder they don't speak up much - and then all us us lefties are surprised by election results.

The knitting world example absolutely bows my mind, and is so sad.

It's very worrying if there is no known way out of it.

I think it's the online aspect. I don't think a lot of the people involved know each other well in real life

Yes, the examples I have "personally" witnessed have all been online.

Good point about the age of the people attracted to knitting and crafting. It’s not what people think.

And clearly a lot of young people are not only vulnerable but also (maybe unwittingly) end up destabilising the groups they are in. Think of families torn apart by the needs of one young member for any number of reasons (eating disorders, mental health, gender id). It ends up destabilising a whole circle of people all of whom are trying to look after the ‘vulnerable’ one but in the end they all become vulnerable too. There’s plenty of scope for manipulation in some of these scenarios too - where the vulnerable one suddenly has all the power.

It's an excellent article, and a good term for what happens. Thanks also to whoever posted the wiki link on spirals of silence, vocal minority & silent majority. That was an interesting and insightful read too - more for larger scale or whole society I think, whereas the purity spiral seems to take place in quite tight social milleurs. The online context must be important as others have said - but the historical comparisons given were interesting.

On this forum - it's not quite the same but I recognise some elements. There is a variety of political opinions in the general sense, but I think I have seen the variety of views being voiced on gender identity and self id getting narrower over the 2 (I think!?) years that I've been reading here. Opinions which don't hold completely to the line are not attacked or told they are heinous (as it sounds like happens on knitting forums), but they are sometimes drowned out by many v robust & direct replies of the dominant opinion. Which isn't able to draw out an actual discussion. I don't mean those from 'the other side' who come especially to poke us and make fun, but those contrarian views within a broader gc or feminist perspective.

It's different here but I think the article has some things to watch for.

I take your point Manderleyagain.

The last thing we want to do is to mirror in any way the authoritarian tendencies of the woke and of progressive righteousness.

That's a fab article, thanks for sharing. The whole woke thing - veganism especially - has reminded me for a long time of the Puritans c1650, at the peak of rushing around smashing up images in churches and banning Christmas and refusing to listen to anyone who disagreed (indeed, arresting them etc).

We are living in a time when voicing divergent opinions can be difficult, not to say risky. It's as if we've forgotten that open debate (along with scientific enquiry) is how you slowly sift the good stuff out from the chaff. In addition, a lot of what passes for reporting or educated opinion is extremely partisan, with facts being deliberately ignored or even denied if they don't suit the position of the author. It's dangerous.

It is a terrible thing to see people become addicted to taking umbrage, like a drug they get high on.

Probably I should have said 'militant veganism', to be precise...

I am disappoint! I thought knockers was a perfectly sex neutral term since the only variation is the location of the wobblers.

everyone using a pineapple in their handle (fandom in joke apparently) was racist cos one of the characters is black & pineapples meant they were supporting slavery or something (no me either!)

In the 1950's it was a common racist term for native Hawaiians pressed into slavery on the white owned plantations.

*Novina
*
Thanks for the book recommendation, it looks really interesting!

opinions which don't hold completely to the line are not attacked or told they are heinous (as it sounds like happens on knitting forums), but they are sometimes drowned out by many v robust & direct replies of the dominant opinion

I think it's worse than that, unfortunately. There is a tendency among some people here to misrepresent (strawman) "views which don't completely hold to the line", and to then weaponise that misrepresentation to say or imply that the poster is malicious/sexist/not a feminist/immoral/a bad person/etc and (sometimes) that they should not be posting here. And often other posters will join in, reacting to the misrepresentation, rather than to the original post.

I don't regard that as robust debate, I see it as bullying and fundamentally dishonest. One of the things I like about Mumsnet is that you don't get as much of this kind of thing as you do on male-dominated forums - but it does happen here, and it tends to be the same group of people. Very occasionally someone will say "I don't think that's what X was saying", but you can see that the intervener is trying very hard to be tactful in order not to get jumped on themselves.

It's got to the point now that there is (to my eye) two discernible "types" of threads - ones where this kind of thing happens a lot, and one where it doesn't - and the posters on the two types very rarely overlap much. Needless to say, I prefer the sort of threads where it doesn't!

Is a purity spiral essentially the Four Yorkshiremen sketch de nos jours?

Is a purity spiral essentially the Four Yorkshiremen sketch de nos jours?

Very like.

I'm a long-term sewer and knitter, and I stay the hell away from most online craft communities, because they are very, very weird. Essentially things fall into two extremes. On the one hand, you get your common and garden old right-wing Americans who fret about sewing modest garments and have Bible quotes in their forum signatures. On the other, the wokest of the woke.

I wonder if this radio show will touch on the case of Kate Davies, a Scottish knitting pattern designer. Davies is not only a very talented designer, she is also a former academic who had to leave her old career when she had a stroke at a very young age. Subsequently, she's done a lot to raise awareness of disabilities. She also has strong feminist credentials. Nevertheless, she was cancelled last year for the crime of not speaking up for ethnic minority knitters. To be clear, she didn't actually say or do anything offensive - she just didn't say or do anything especially woke, either.

In the world of knitting in particular, there's a lot of attempts to shoehorn American issues into a European framework. So for example the word of the day is "BIPOC" (Black/Indigenous/People of Colour), which is more inclusive than POC or other terms. People are forever being cancelled for not including enough BIPOC in their knitting, even if they come from Northern or Eastern European countries, with a strong knitting heritage and very few non-white people.

Sewing has its own dramas, too. There is, I find, a lot of crossover between the Fat Pride movement and other woke issues, and Fat Pride is enormous in the online sewing world. A lot of "big name" sewers have their pronouns (always she/her, funnily enough) in their Instagram profiles. Pattern companies have been cancelled for cultural appropriation; any pattern with the word "kimono" in the name will generally be targeted for white supremacy, for example. There's one collaborative sewing blog called "The Sewcialists", which focuses very heavily on identity politics, and once published an essay that was called something like "My Crafting is Intersectional". They did an interview recently with a big name sewing blogger who is black. It was a very uncomfortable read. She spoke about sewing, but the interviewer kept pushing her to talk about Trump and racism, to the point that she ended up crying:

^Interviewee: I’m sorry. This has nothing to do with sewing.

B: It has everything to do with it. Politics are intertwined with everything. You are part of sewing, and you face this, therefore it IS part of sewing.^

All in all, there's not a lot of space out there for people who just want to, you know, make stuff...

God meuca it sounds horrendous. How is a white knitter meant to “include enough BIPOC” in their knitting? Genuine question - I really want to know what that means!