Ethics – Gryphon's Aerie

At Sinai – A poem about the State of Israel

I stand now at Sinai:

There is no sign of Moses or God. It is dark and cold. My people have barely escaped destruction once again.

“Here! Here is your savior! The state of Israel will bring you out of bondage. You must pledge your self to it, and it will keep you and your children safe.”

Around me, people give over their gold to be melted down. My people turn their back on Sinai. They put their faith in a construct of their own hands.

It is dark and cold. The mountain is silent.

I wrote this in November of ’23, after someone told me ‘We’re Jews, we have to support Israel’. I’ve posted it on social media a time or two since then, but I think it’s time it had a permanent home.

I wonder — and fear — what that person thinks now?

I’m Back.

I said the other day that I’d write a thing about why I gave up on ‘learning’ reading, and in fact almost all reading all together. But time I try to write ‘why’ it ends up sounding like whining. (I’m not in a healthy place right now, but then very few of us are).

So here’s the short version:

I was a shithead and turned my back on one of my core principles. I let myself be convinced that growth was ultimately impossible. That people really can’t change, and there was no point trying to educate myself or anyone else. I’d already given up the education activism I spent most of the past decade and a half on, for similar reasons. Giving up my reading was just the next shitty step in a path I didn’t consciously realize I was following. I had nothing to say, I had nothing worth saying, because I was a shit person who would never free myself of my bigotry and it didn’t matter anyway because even if I had anything to say, no one else would ever change anyway.

God it hurts typing that. Admitting that. `

That for all the stubbornness I’m so proud of, I was that willing to give up. That for all my commitment to growth, I was willing to accept stagnation.

The worst part is that on some level, I still believe it. I still don’t see the point in trying.

But I’ve got my feet under me again. I remember who I am and what I am committed to.

And there being ‘no point’ has never stopped me before.

It’s time to start growing again, start writing again, start making a difference again.

It’s time to be me again.

Where to Buy Books Other than Amazon

A few years back I had a habit of every six months or so doing a thread on Fedi about options for getting books other than Amazon. Eventually it finally occurred to me that I could write it once, put it up on website, and update as needed, rather than constantly reinventing the wheel.

Here’s the updated version for the new site.

Couple of notes before we get started:

This is geared towards US book sellers. I just don’t know much about book sellers in other countries. If you know any others please leave them in the comments.

Many folks aren’t aware that Goodreads is owned by Amazon (as, of course, is Audible, and anything with ‘Kindle’ in the branding). The focus here is ebooks, but we’ll also talk a bit about audio books, Goodreads alternatives, and anything else I can squeeze in.

Ebooks:

Authors website — some authors have a webstore where you can buy their books. Bonus: Author gets more money

Publishers website — ditto, without the bonus

Smashwords — support indie authors!

Your Local Bookstore — some indie book stores have ebook sales. (Don’t know any local book stores? Find one on Indie Bound)

Someone’s Local Bookstore — if your local book store doesn’t, you can find a list of other local book stores that do through Indiebound (downside, must use the My Must Reads app)

DriveThruFiction — lots of indie and oddball stuff

Kobo — will give a percentage to your local book store (or someone else’s local bookstore) downside: DRM-locked books can only be read in app or the Kobo e-reader, some books now readable in browser

Google books — yeah, it’s Google. But when it comes to books, google is the lesser of two evils. Many of the same problems as Kobo, but all DRM-locked books can be read in browser

Avoid

Barnes & Noble — their DRM thing won’t let you read your books if you don’t have an active credit card on file

Amazon (of course)

Pulp Books:

Your Local Bookstore

Authors website — some authors have a webstore where you can buy their books. Bonus: Author gets more money

Publishers website — ditto, without the bonus

Someone’s Local Bookstore — Book Bound will let you pick a local store to shop from

Thrift Books — great for used books of all types

Avoid

ABEBooks (It’s owned by Amazon)

Amazon (of course)

Walmart (it’s Walmart)

Audio Books

Librevox — free audio versions of books in the public domain

Libro.fm — subscription service similar to Audible, but you can download actual MP3 files

Chirp — really good sales

Avoid

Audible (owned by Amazon)

KU Alternatives

Everand — monthly subscription to thousands of ebooks, audio books, magazines, and more. BONUS! Many KU ebooks are available on Everand as audiobooks so you can leave KU and still read stuff from some of your fave authors.

Your Local Library — Go old fashioned! Paper books, ebooks, and audio books for free!

Kobo Plus

24Symbols

Goodreads Alternatives

(Yeah, Amazon owns Goodreads)

Storygraph

Bookwyrm

LibraryThing (better for institutions than individuals, but some folks make it work)

Where I Buy Books

My book buying priorities are:

I want DRM free ebooks in .epub format

I want the author to be paid as much as possible

So the first place I look is on the authors website.

Many authors have their on webstores these days. Those webstores almost always offer DRM free epub, and if I’m buying from the website I know that the ‘retailers cut’ on an sale is ALSO going to the author.

My next stop is the publishers webstore (if there is a publisher who has a webstore. Most of them don’t, but a few do.)

If neither the author nor publisher have a webstore, my next stops (in order) are:

Smashwords

Google Books

Kobo

Used bookstores for paper copies

I prefer to buy ebooks because they are cheaper and I’m less likely to lose them if my family becomes homeless again. The cheaper is not the biggest factor these days, which is why used bookstore is the last spot on the list. Authors don’t get a percentage when I buy used books, and I want them to get paid. So even though used books are cheaper than ebooks, I go for ebooks first.

I also have an Everand account and (of course) Overdrive through my library.

Community Suggestions

Stuff other folks have suggested that will be added to the main article in the next update:

Bookshop.org

Waterstones – UK

Blackwell’s – UK w/ international shipping

Better World Books – Used

eBay – Used

Pluto Press – UK

Kenny’s Bookshop — Ireland

Standard Ebooks — public domain ebooks

Project Gutenberg — public domain ebooks

Alibris — US and UK with international shipping

How can relationships successfully deal with the issue of grudging consent?

Note: This is based on an answer I wrote on Quora a number of years ago. The original question was from a monogamous person grudgingly agreeing to a polyamorous relationship, but my response resonated with people in a variety of circumstances. It was one of my popular Quora answers, as well as one of the most personally meaningful.

I’m going to take a stab at this. On the one hand, I agree with many folks who say that grudging consent is not consent. On the other hand, I am in a relationship where resentment and grudgingly dealing with shit is a regular part of our day. Not because of polyamory but because of disability. So I have a slightly different perspective on relationships that include resentment and grudging going-along-with than most people.

So, some background. My partner was not disabled when we entered a relationship together. They were working, had some ongoing health problems. While we had the normal ups and downs, we did okay.

They became disabled over a year, gradually getting worse, then suddenly getting worse, getting better for a little while then getting worse again. We’ve worked hard to keep our relationship going, but it’s been a struggle. I can’t leave them alone with the baby, which means I NEVER go anywhere without the baby. Half the time they can’t wash their own hair, so I need to wash their hair for them. And there are only so many times a day you can be asked to interrupt what you are doing to get someone else a drink before it starts to grate on you.

We’ve been together for about 7 years now. Their health has varied a great deal over that period: including one hospitalization, numerous ER trips, and brief periods when they’ve been able to put their cane away, watch the kid while I worked a night job, or help with the housework.

I love them, I am happy to be in a relationship with them, and I resent the hell out of their disability and the demands it makes of me every fucking day.

Obviously, every relationship is different. As I always say: take what is useful, ignore what is not.

Every day you choose. This is the most important thing of all relationships—every day you choose to be in that relationship. You didn’t say “yes” once, and that was the end of it. Every day you either choose “I’m in this relationship and I’m going to make it work,” or you choose “I can’t/won’t/don’t want to make this work anymore.” Sometimes you need to say “I’m in this relationship, but I need to take care of myself today, so I’m going to step back and will get back in the harness of making this relationship work tomorrow.” That’s okay. But every day you choose. If everyone involved in a relationship says every day, “I’m going to make this relationship work,” the relationship can last through just about anything.

If the relationship stops being healthy for you, it’s time to choose to stop making it work. Don’t force a relationship to work at the expense of your own health and well-being.

Focus on the good things. Living with and taking care of a disabled partner is its own kind of hell. Especially when you don’t have a diagnosis and have no idea if your partner is suffering from a chronic condition or if they are dying and you don’t even know it. You can’t think about it too much, or you will drive yourself crazy. Similarly, a mono partner in mono/poly can’t focus on dates and fears that their poly partner will “find someone better” or other negatives of mono/poly. Focus on the good in your relationship. (Etc for other kinds of relationships.)
(They make me laugh. No one ever made me laugh like this before. They understand me, my depression, my anxiety, my PTSD, and they accept all of it. And they try. Always, they try to do better and be better. Some days, I’m afraid they’ll break themself trying but better, so much better, that they try than that they give up.)

Find ways to adapt. How does disability (poly) change your relationship? How can you change your routines and expectations to work with, rather than against, those changes?

Trust. I need to trust that my partner is doing everything he can. That when they tell me they can’t get to the kitchen to get themself a glass of water, they really are in that much pain. That when they say they can’t wash their hair, they really can’t reach their arms over their head. A mono partner needs to trust that when their poly partner says, “I love you and I won’t leave you,” they mean it. That a poly partner who says “Having sex with someone else doesn’t change how I feel about you,” is telling the truth. The mono partner may not understand how their poly partner can feel this way, but they need to trust that it is true. (Etc for other kinds of relationships.)

I never consented to life with disability. I live with my partner’s disability grudgingly, resentfully, and sometimes painfully. But I love my partner, we are good together, and to be with them I put up with their disability. We talk about it. I cry on their shoulder about how I resent it and how much it demands of me, and they don’t blame me or get defensive because they understand. Sometimes they cry on my shoulder about how they hate hurting me, how they feel like I should leave them and be with someone better because I deserve more. And I hold them and tell them I love them, and being with them is worth all this and more.

I can’t tell you how to turn grudging consent into acceptance. I’m still trying to find the trick to that myself. But I hope this helps.

Just remember, every day you choose. And if there is often something to be celebrated in choosing to continue a difficult relationship, there is no shame in deciding that you can’t anymore. We can only give so much without harming ourselves, after all.

Personal update: I wrote this answer over 8 years ago, and a lot has happened since then. I mentioned in this answer that we didn’t have a diagnosis and so didn’t know if my partner was dealing with a chronic condition or something life-threatening. It turned out to be a whole constellation of different problems: some chronic, some treatable. One of the treatable ones was life-threatening, but since it was treatable, that’s not a concern anymore (thank god!) They are still disabled, and so am I now, but we are still choosing each other every day.

bell hooks and Being a Respectful Eavesdropper

My biggest personal takeaway from bell hooks’ Outlaw Culture (and I emphasize /personal/ takeaway — I’ve got a LOT of political takeaways I’m still processing) is the idea of being an invited ‘eavesdropper’. I’ve long felt, reading work by hooks and Davis and other womanist thinkers, a bit uncomfortable. It was clear they weren’t speaking to me. That I, as a white person, am not part of the audience they address. It felt like I was intruding, actually. Like I didn’t belong here.

So it was almost as if hooks /was/ speaking to me — or at least, my concerns — when she said in Outlaw Culture that she is writing for a black audience, and views white people who read who her work as eavesdroppers. Welcome ones, but eavesdroppers. (I believe this was in chapter three, during the interview with Marie-France Alderman. Unfortunately, audiobooks are difficult to cite and nearly impossible to look up a reference in.)

For the first time, I have permission to enter and engage with hooks’ work, and perhaps the work of other black writers addressing black audiences.

But what does it mean to be an invited eavesdropper?

What Is an Eavesdropper?

An invited eavesdropper is a very odd thing. Because eavesdropping, in its basic conception, is a violation. When hooks first referred to white readers as ‘eavesdroppers’ I had one moment of ‘Yes! That is what I’ve been feeling like’ and a second moment of ‘Oh… that’s not good, is it?’

hooks put that second thought to rest quickly enough. Probably intentionally, given her awareness of the many white people who did and do read her work. But that idea of violation still needs to be addressed. Or — not violation, but what is being violated:

Privacy.

An eavesdropper is someone who violates /privacy/, and who takes away the safety privacy creates, from the people eavesdropped on.

In saying that white readers are eavesdroppers, hooks is laying a firm boundary — we (white people) do not belong here. She chooses to allow us, but we do not belong. And our presence is a hindrance to the safety and security of the conversation she and other black people are trying to have.

This may sound strange to white people who only know hooks as someone who has written on racism and sexism. We are used to being the audience when it comes to racism. After all, we’re the ones who /are/ racist, right?

But that’s not what hooks is about. hooks isn’t talking about white people being racist. She takes living in a white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist society as a given (and always the three are linked for her). hooks is talking about how racism affects black families, how black people can respond to racism, the intersection of internalized (black) racism and sexism, the way black men are harmed by sexism.

Conversations that — I’ll agree with hooks — we (white people) don’t belong in. Those are intra-community conversations, /not/ inter-community. The difference is important and far too often neglected.

Still, hooks welcomes us — as eavesdroppers.

Can I Be a Respectful Eavesdropper?

I have a lot of thoughts here, but I’m having trouble finding words for them. The heading captures the main idea pretty well — if I am going to be eavesdropping on conversations not meant for me, even with invitation, how can I do it respectfully?

I don’t have a complete answer, but I’ve figured a few things out.

1) Recognize lack of context —

Because I am not hooks’ intended audience, I am missing context. Her audience is a community she is part of and she addresses her audience — other Black Americans — assuming certain knowledge, cultural context, and history that I don’t have and probably never will have.

I need to recognize this lack of context and the way it will make it harder for me to understand some of what hooks says. It will be easier for me to misunderstand or accidentally ascribe incorrect interpretations. I need to do more work to understand than the folks hooks is speaking to, and if I don’t or can’t do that work, then I need to accept that I may never understand.

2) Don’t insert myself between hooks and her audience

I have no business telling Black folks what hooks says, means, intends, etc. If they care, they can listen themselves, if they don’t care it’s not my business. If someone /asks/, that’s one thing, I can answer to the best of my ability, acknowledge where I recognize a lack of understanding, and direct them to where in hooks’ work I learned something. But it is sure as hell not my place to be going around ‘educating’ Black folks about hooks (or any other Black thinkers).

2a) What about educating other white folks?

Good question. I’m of two minds. On the one hand, educating other white folks about racism (and sexism and all the other stuff hooks talks about) is a major way we can help fight back against white supremacy. On the other hand, there’s that whole ‘lack of context’ thing and the risk of sharing wrong or misleading answers

Obviously, I’ve decided I’m okay discussing some of hooks’ work and my reaction to it, but you’ll notice I’m talking about how I engage with/respond to hooks work in one area that affects/addresses me.

I’m figuring this shit out.

3) Intra- vs inter-community

Any engagement I have with hooks work is by definition inter-community, when hooks was writing intra (within) her own community. I’ve mentioned this before. There are times and places that intra-community discussions must and should move into inter-community forums. And there are times they shouldn’t. I can assume, given hooks’ acceptance of ‘eavesdroppers’ that she anticipates and accepts her own work will end up as part of inter-community conversations.

But I think understanding the way intra- and inter-community conversations differ and the harm that can be done by carelessly dragging intra-community discussions inter-community — /especially/ the harm that can be done by an outsider doing that dragging — needs to happen before an eavesdropper has any business /responding/ to hooks writing.

Engage with it personally? Sure. Share reactions to it? Usually. Respond to it? ie, critique it? Nope. I’m nowhere near a place I can do that respectfully. And neither are the vast majority of white folks.

What Is Harm?

I was drafting a ‘Teshuva procedure’ (the traditional Jewish version of a ‘restorative justice process’) for my synagogue when I ran into a small problem. How could I define the situations the procedure was designed to address and the types it wasn’t. Easy to say ‘harm and harassment,’ but what is harm?

For all the discourse around harm reduction, restorative justice, etc., I realized that I’ve never seen anyone talking about this important question. What is harm?

How do we define it?

Many people in leftist spaces have defaulted to an ‘I know it when I see it’ view of harm. Which anyone familiar with history knows won’t work as a practical definition. It inevitably ends up as a silencing and oppression tactic. After all, if I know harm when I see it and I don’t recognize harm being done to people I see as ‘other’… at best, I don’t have power over them, and they will need to argue for recognition of the harm they have experienced. At worst, I have do power over them and can silence them directly.

Another popular approach (not just in leftist spaces) is to self-define harm. If someone says they are harmed, then they are harmed. This sounds like a fine system — until someone says that your existence makes them uncomfortable and you are harming them by existing. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem like a very workable definition.

Other discussions are happening now, discussions that talk around the question ‘what is harm.’ This discussion on Tumblr, for instance, talks about the problems with equating ‘uncomfortable’ with ‘harm’. If you stare out of the corner of your eye, you can see the fuzzy edges of other definitions taking form.

But as an autistic person, I have been burned by these kinds of fuzzy, not-defined-but-understood social weirdnesses before. I really dislike this way of defining a thing.

I want to see actual discourse. What is harm? What does it mean when we say someone or some group has been harmed? Is all harm the same?

What Is Harm?

We’ll never going to come up with a perfect definition of ‘harm.’ Language is not only ever-evolving but inherently imprecise. That doesn’t mean we can’t try for a good-enough definition.

No one person will be able to come up with a good-enough definition on their own. We need to see lots of discussion and debate to reach a comprehensive, widely applicable definition.

(Let me acknowledge here that I’m sure these discussions have been happening in scholarly circles. But those discussions and definitions haven’t filtered out into mainstream use, which is where they are needed.)

But I’ll put in my two bits and see if anyone wants to riff off them:

‘Harm’ is action that interferes with or prevents full access to personal autonomy or public spaces.

If someone breaks my leg, then both my personal autonomy (ability to choose where to go and when, financial autonomy [paying for medical bills], etc) and my access to many public spaces are restricted. If the TSA takes away someone’s mobility device, their personal autonomy (ability to choose where to go and when etc) and access to public spaces are restricted. Both of these are harm – even if my leg will heal and the mobility device will (hopefully) be returned.
Harm must be an action (including speech actions). It cannot be thought, idea, or intention. However, intention to harm can be an ethical violation in and of itself, even if no harm is caused.
Harm can be accidental or even done without awareness of causing harm.
Any entity can cause harm – who takes the action is not part of the definition and should not be.
Preventing access to other people’s private spaces (without other consequences) is not harm. I do not harm you by blocking you from my blog or not letting you in my home.
Harm is not always unethical. A dentist pulling my tooth is harming me (pain bad enough to interfere with daily life, restrictions on eating, potential long-term dental issues). But if my tooth is damaged enough then the harm of pulling it may be necessary to protect my long-term health. If someone attacks me and I punch them to defend myself, I have harmed them. But they would not have been harmed if they had not acted with intent to harm me first.
Harm can be consented to. I can consent to having my tooth pulled, to ‘extreme’ sports, to kink without safe words, etc. This consent (like all consent) can be withdrawn.

What do you think?

How would you modify this definition?

Or what alternative definition would you propose?

This definition fails to address some harm beyond the individual level. What about ‘harm to the environment’ or ‘harm to the community’? Or broad-scale harms like cultural appropriation. I have no idea how to fix this, do you?