Memories of havens past.

[rivka]

Disclaimer: This post is probably going to piss some people off. I'm not doing it just for the fun of hosting a Sacred Cow BBQ. I welcome negative comments as well as the other kind, but if you can't stand to hear alt.callahans criticized at all, then probably you don't want to click through. Contrariwise, if you're not even slightly interested in alt.callahans or the place it used to have in my life, then probably you don't want to click through either.

I've said a lot of intemperate things about alt.callahans in my time - some of them intemperately positive, some of them intemperately negative. I was spurred by the latest alt.callahans flamewar - the latest one to spill over into my notice, outside the group - to give some thought to what exactly it was that made a.c. so... much. Here's what I've come up with, which may not be my final destination:

Alt.callahans privileges strongly and/or skillfully evoked emotion over most other types of discourse. That's not meant to be just a nicer way of saying that alt.callahans rewards drama queens, because although I think that's true, I also think it's more complicated than that. Posts which contain strong and eloquent expressions of emotion, and posts which skillfully use the third-person narrative conventions of alt.callahans to evoke strong emotions in others, receive the lion's share of positive attention, approval, and support. The rise and fall of my enthusiasm for alt.callahans pretty much parallels the extent to which I thought that was a good thing.

There are definitely good aspects to it. I did a fair amount of intense emotional expression myself, and I got a lot of validation for doing so. I was good at it. I also liked that people were encouraged to be aware of the emotional impact of "objective" arguments they were making, especially when those arguments were fundamentally callous. I liked that emotionally closed or private or frightened people had a safe place to open up, and received encouragement to do so. I still think those are good things.

But it's not always good. I noticed times in which people who skillfully evoked emotions in the group seemed to be relatively protected from challenges that their arguments were illogical, unfair, untrue, or exaggerated. People who hurt were given boundless sympathy, which was a good thing - except when it came to seem that the strong expression of hurt was all that was expected of them - not efforts to solve their problems, and not responsibility for the parts of their problems that were manifestly their own fault.

I don't think that this happened just because drama queens suck the energy out of every room they enter. In the first place, when I started spending a lot of time in other online venues I noticed that some of the same people who were very successful at garnering massive positive attention in alt.callahans would completely fail to do so in, for example, alt.poly - despite using the same tactics.

But also, I think that alt.callahans views intense emotional disclosure as a positive good, and views encouraging emotional expression as a major purpose of the newsgroup. Sometimes, quoting Spider Robinson, we'd say "we're trying to get telepathic." And often it seemed that proof that we were "getting telepathic" was how skillfully we were able to get other people swept up in our negative feelings.

Alt.callahans, as I knew it, was never a place where people would be encouraged to "put the best face on things." Sometimes that was a good thing, as when people were bottling up painful emotions they needed permission to feel and express. But other times it was not a good thing, as when negative emotions seemed to be amplified for amplification's sake. The third-person convention of a lot of the posts really encouraged that sort of thing - posts in which angry people described acts of property destruction or personal violence, or in which sad people had every synonym of "dark" and "empty" available with which to decorate their surroundings. Some people got quite skilled at it. They were soothed and reassured, but they weren't particularly encouraged to develop perspective.

I got as caught up in it as anyone else. I was a good enough descriptive and persuasive writer that I was able to inject my posts with a lot of the strongest emotions I felt. Emotions also bled from the newsgroup to me - I would have strong emotional reactions to newsgroup discussions that would leave me shaking or raging or crying in real life. For a long time, I thought that it just meant that I had made exceptionally good friends in alt.callahans - and I had. But I also began to realize that the shared experience of intense emotion seemed to be something deliberately sought after, and in some cases seemed to be the final goal rather than a first step towards a solution. That's about when I became disaffected and left.

There was a school of psychotherapeutic thought in the 70s - which, I don't think coincidentally, is when Spider Robinson was writing his stories - that encouraged emotional catharsis as The Therapeutic Answer. Primal scream therapy, that sort of thing. Echoes of it survive to the present day in parts of the self-help movement and in the "debriefing therapy" people are encouraged to go through after a trauma. The underlying philosophy of these treatments is the "hydraulic theory" of emotion - the idea that strong feelings build up and you have to drain them off to get back to normal. The problem is that if you encourage people to express more and more anger, they typically just get angrier and angrier. In most cases, we don't drain off our negative emotions by expressing them ever more intensely - we strengthen and renew them.

I think that some people are far enough to the inexpressive end of the spectrum that alt.callahans is a godsend to them, and helps them develop the ability to express themselves and seek help from others. That's an unmitigated good thing. I think that many other people are levelheaded enough not to get caught up in the maelstrom. But I think that there's a third group of people who are encouraged by alt.callahans to deal with emotions in ways that become unhealthy. And that's the main reason I left.

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying this, Rivka. You've helped coalesce some vague feelings I've had about the newsgroup for a long time, and some of the reasons why I've pulled back from it, and especially from the more dramatically emotional posts and threads.

I find that more and more my primary impulse when people go balistically dramatic is to want to slap them and tell them to grow up, get a life, stop whining. This can't be a good thing, and - along with the boring, angry political threads - it's one reason I rarely do more than skim these days.

If it weren't for a very few people I don't "see" anywhere else, I would have unsubscribed some time ago. I think it may be time for me to do that, after all.

[aiglet.livejournal.com]

Thank you for elegantly crystallizing a lot of what I think is wrong with a.c (and #c, where I spent more of my time).

Having never been someone who needed help being open about their emotions, I was always somewhat baffled at people not offering advice or opinions on what other people were expressing, or getting shot down for doing so.

It's nice to see someone explaining why that might be a good thing, and also why it might be a bad thing. Makes me feel a bit better for being confused by it and thinking it's a bad thing.

something like a paraphrase

[ororo.livejournal.com]

"after spending time at Callahan's Place, a lot of people didn't need to drink anymore."

If you think of validation as a metaphorical drink, I think that's the case with a lot of us who are okay with moving on, remembering the good times.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I stopped hanging out there awhile back, partially because I could not get into the 3rd person thing (even the posts of sinboy, whom I see in person on a very regular basis, seemed like they were fictional in 3rd person), and partially because there's only so much angst I can handle before I say, "Get a grip! You're not helping this person make things better!" I think there's a lot of enabling of sadness and stuckness, there. I love the shared happiness and shared misery idea (even though I'm not a big Spider fan) but there's a point at which real friends say, "Maybe it's time to try something different," rather than, "Yes, poor you."

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Okay, you've got me curious about what you think of, um, the periodic long, eloquent, angsty posts of ... a certain wombat. Because I see a very similar dynamic there. Do you disagree?

-J

Re:

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Depending on whom? Um . . . maybe. ;) (Probably.)

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Um, you and she have the same first initial. ;-)

-J

[thbeatnik.livejournal.com]

As always, you make me think. Thanks!

[k-crow.livejournal.com]

Alt.callahans gave me a wonderful place to explore who I was, to post about highly emotional things in my life, and to evoke emotion in others through both my prose and poetry. All in all, I would not disagree with your assessment of the place, and find it to be even-handed about the good points and the bad points. A.c is something I've moved on from, and found other ways of interacting and growing and learning. I cherish it for what it gave me then, but I don't need it now. Thank you for posting this, it is a good perspective on a valuable part of my past.

[thoughtful look]

[duane-kc.livejournal.com]

You know, I kind of wondered why I wasn't spending much time in alt.callahans any more; I think you've hit the nail on the head here.

I'm sorta glad that the people I'm most interested in reading (you, Sailor Jim, Barnstead, etc.) have moved to LJ; I can read what you have to say without my RDA of angst. [grin] Thanks.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... this makes me think about the times I've been severely depressed, and hung around alt.support.depression. I can't say that what I got from that newsgroup was unqualified support, or even qualified support; mostly, it's a lot of other depressed people being depressed at each other, with a lot of random noise and trolling. It can be a profoundly depressing place. I can't read it when I'm not depressed.

... I should probably go sleep before I try to explain that anymore. :]

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I've never read a.c., but large numbers of my friends have been regulars at one time or another.

And I am a fan of the books, and intend, at some point, to open a bar that would be something like that in reality.

And so I've been trying to pay a lot of attention to what a.c. does right, and what they do very, very wrong.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that, while strong expression of strong emotion can be cathartic for a while, after a point, it simply reinforces the emotion, instead of releasing it. This is why many religious traditions have concepts of "mourning periods" -- you get THIS long to express your emotion strongly, and then, after that, it's unseemly to still be in INTENSE mourning.

From what I've picked up -- and this is all second hand or worse -- a.c. appears to be real good at the "expressing emotions" part, and real bad at the "ending the mourning period" part.

That means that you never resolve anything, and you just build up more and more free-floating angst, until the entire Bar collapses under its weight. Repeatedly.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

This was fascinating. We've talked about this before, but now I'm especially seeing parallels to other groups I've frequented, and other people I've known or almost-known. The paragraph about particular kinds of therapy was especially enlightening. I really like the way you think about this stuff, and I wish I could quote the whole thing other places! :-)

And I'd love to be a fly on the wall at a REAL-LIFE sacred cow barbecue about alt.callahans. Can't you just see it? Everybody all "pass the pulled pork" and sitting around reminiscing about the good times and the bad. Heh.

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Jae? I don't know how to tell you this, but pulled pork doesn't come from cows. Sacred or otherwise.

But seriously, I'm glad you found it interesting. It doesn't surprise me at all that there are parallels with other groups... but you're right, probably you shouldn't quote this post in its entirety anywhere else. If I'm going to be lynched (and at this point it doesn't seem that I am, given that it seems to be just my fellow disaffected reading this post), I want it to be by people who know me. ;-)

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

When I found a.c. I was scared of expressing my opinions, of feeling and expressing anger, of letting people in to know who I am.

a.c. helped me get through that, and I will always be grateful - as well as for the wonderful people I met.

One of the ways it helped was that I got called on it when my opinions were poorly thought out, or lacking knowledge.

The thing that feels different to me now, and one of the reasons I don't go there anymore, is that when I was called out it was, mostly, with respect. People pointed out where they thought my argument was lacking and encouraged me to rethink. Then the atmosphere seemed to change, and the calling out became mean - it seemed like it was more about scoring points than being helpful.

It still feels like that - like there's less dialogue and more "look at me, I'm clever!" - which is, of course, where the whole drama queen thing comes in.

That being said, however, the people who are there now are no doubt feeling some benefit.

I used to wonder how anyone could just leave a.c. and move on - it was, after all, the most wonderful place to be. Now I know. It's a place that's there when you need it - and when you don't anymore, well, then you move on.

Re:

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

There was something about that, the desire to score points over he desire to *say something*, that influenced my decision to move on as well.

And, there was something about the fact that the ideas can be dangerous if abused, which I think ties into the 'dramatics' issue.

But I think that the thing that bothered me the most was that there was some loss in balance, or desire for balance, or something. Or, maybe it was just that it took many years for my dreams to die, and see what the place really was... just a place. One that is what it's made to be, and one I didn't have time and energy for.

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

"I joined alt.callahans for a funny reason I don't think I may have mentioned before," says Pernicious the Musquodoboit Harbour Farm Cat's faithful amanuensis and general factotum. "I was in the midst of teaching a class in Russian satire and humour, and a student made a remark along the lines of 'those who can, do; those who can't, teach' -- and so I thought I would try my hand at it. Pernicious entered the picture when I observed that making all the cutting remarks from his vantage point and all the wonderfully benevolent ones from mine had the pleasant effect of convincing most people (well, to a certain degree, that is...) that I was some sort of incarnate saint... I made it my policy to stick to the fluff threads for quite a time, but eventually I did join in to a much greater extent than I had initially imagined I might. At some point, though, perhaps because I had exhausted my narrative abilities, or perhaps because I found that somehow the mix of high wit, low pratfalls, and a certain joie de vivre in the unfettered consideration of things of the mind had either disappeared or was, at any rate, not communicating itself to me -- and that efforts on my part to rekindle them didn't really seem to have any effect -- I more or less folded up my tent and stole away into the night... but friends remain friends, and my goodness how very different my life would be now if I hadn't been there. I have discovered over the years what a needy person I am, from an emotional point of view, but I have also, thank heaven, learned to smile at least a little at the increasingly devious methods that hungry self chooses to make itself manifest.

"This is longer than I thought it would get, Rivka -- just let me add that meeting you and Misha, and having that lovely dance together in the meadow through the x-window, will always be treasured memories."

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I've never been to alt.callahans, and had never even heard of it before people at the apc10 brunch table brought it up. Since then, it's come up over and over again, so this "review" of sorts was really kind of enlightening. (I've never read the books either -- I don't even know which books I've not read, but I assume that this would click if I'd read them.) Thanks for posting it.

I see similar cycles with many "support" groups. clawfoot and I have discussed it, also. She lost her husband, and has sought out many support groups for that, but she found that they seemed to be amplifying and sustaining people's grief rather than helping them work with and through it, get past it, learn to live their lives. She related that there are some people who have been in the support groups for a decade and still haven't even begun to deal with their grief and learn to live, and it seemed to her that it was partly because they had such a grief-saturated milieu in which to immerse themselves. I've noticed that with other things. For example, I used to be a relular on alt.support.big-folks. I pop in now and then, but when I left, it was partly because I found it hard to live a normal life if I was constantly mired in this idea that society was set against me.

Perhaps this is all just a way of teaching us moderation in all things.

Re:

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

The particular books you have not read are by Spider Robinson, and all feature Callahans in the title should you wish to look for them. Personally, there are others of his that I prefer.

As to support groups - this is certainly something I've noticed in both the diabetes support group and an online OA group - people are very forgiving. There's a lot of telling people not to worry if they slip up - they are, after all, only human. I find this less than helpful for me. When I screw up I need someone to give me a big fat kick in the ass - especially when it's with food. Support along the "it's all right" line just allow me to continue kidding myself that it is, in fact, all right and to go along my merry way regardless.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I always wanted to like alt.callahans (I liked the stories) but although I gave it several tries it never seemed to work for me.

What you're saying here reminds me of something else entirely. In the early eighties, when "support groups" were beginning to flourish, a friend of mine, a nurse who had benefitted from several such, put together a support group for men with anger and violence issues. In their second meeting, one of them explained the problems he had with his wife and her infidelity, and the other men expressed their support by suggesting that there were enough of them to get up a lynch mob and go and bash the offending party. My friend decided after this that perhaps validation and support were not what angry violent people needed most...

[trinker.livejournal.com]

What you wrote sounds very right to me. I will always cherish what my time in a.c. brought to me, but it's not a place I wish to be at now. Those who are still there will argue that it's me that's changed, and not the Place (and heaven knows that I made the same argument, way back when), but it feels different to me. The hostility I perceive directed toward the "perhaps you could try something different" responses plays a large part in my disaffection.