2026-11-13»
Inkhaven Fight Club: Me, Machiavelli and a Dog-Beater vs Naomi Kanakia, wadapan and the Discourse»One of the many obvious resemblances between Inkhaven, the blogging retreat I am currently attending, and Fight Club is that in its initial guidance, Inkhaven advises you not to blog about Inkhaven. They say that because it’s too easy to write, too boring to read — plus a lot of other people have already done it.
But I’m a rulebreaker, man, always have been.
On the first day of Inkhaven, we were set two literary works to discuss in small groups: Machiavelli’s Letter to Francesco Vettori, and Jack London’s “To Build a Fire“. I was surprised to discover that I sympathised with both protagonists far more than the other readers here. The general view was that Machiavelli was being sneaky, and Jack London’s struggling fire-maker was a close-minded idiot.
I concede both points, but I couldn’t help feeling for both of them. I thought Machiavelli was being relatively straightforward in his letter, given the circumstances which demanded much sneakiness in order to avoid additional torture by the Medici. I bridled also when people thought he was being Machiavellian. I mean, I’m sure Rabelais was a bit Rabelaisian in real life, but surely not all the time.
Continuing my bleeding-heart journey, I thought the anonymous, doomed dog-abuser in Jack London’s story was doing the best he could under the circumstances, those circumstances being a) in the Yukon in minus seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit, and b) an unimaginative idiot who ignored everyone’s advice. Whomst among us, after all?
My out-of-step sainted kindliness cropped up again during Naomi Kanakia‘s scheduled talk on why writers should participate in Discourse. Naomi meant this term in its formal, big-D, Tumblr definition, which means rough-and-tumble blogging back-and-forths, full of denunciations and torch-and-pitchfork marshalling.
I’m afraid I became the pshawing old man in her large audience. I started by putting my hand up, and declaring that I much preferred saying “Yes, but” to actively disagreeing. I advised building on others’ works, not tearing them down. Naomi did not immediately cave to this position as she should have done, and so I ended by squeaking unappealingly in outrage as Naomi challenged everyone to stop being so afraid and go out there and smash up some deserving fools. So sort of like Fight Club, only you never stop talking about it.
I got some approving nods in my direction from the audience for this one, I think mainly from people who had believed the talk to be a training session in little-d discourse, i.e. scholarly debate, rather than how to punch people in their erroneous faces over the Internet.
But I was shocked — shocked — when afterwards and online, I met many people who were far more strongly opposed to my position than Naomi’s.
I guess that’s all you can expect from the people of the Discourse — blatantly and emotionally disagreeing with me and challenging my positions in public like cavemen, instead of just quietly steaming or ignoring me, as estimable human beings such as Machiavelli or the Yukon idiot might do.
But still! wadapan wrote up my comments, then called me unctuous! The blackguard!
I’m obviously at a bit of an impasse here, given that I’ve just been arguing against tearing people down in public. But let me “Yes, but” and build on these people’s foolish, self-destructive ideas a little here, stupid and wrong though they undoubtedly are.
In the post-discourse discourse afterwards, I had an epiphany when itihas suggested that my outraged huffs mistook some of Naomi’s statements as factual claims, when they were in fact intended to be encouragements to the audience. Naomi was trying to snap people — not me, of course — out of their paralysing fear of conflict. I pushed back, for instance, when Naomi said “a single blog post isn’t going to ruin someone’s life”, because I’ve absolutely known blog posts that have ruined people’s lives — either as a successful J’Accuse, or because of the blowback to the writer. itihas pointed out that, while Naomi’s statement is obviously not universally true, she was clearly trying to defuse the audience’s catastrophising of the consequences of posting a critique. Presuming every critical blog post you write is going to end somebody’s world is not useful, limits the spread of your ideas, and most deadly of all, stops you writing.
I felt this deep in my conflict-averse bones. Fear of consequences — to me, to others, to my loved ones, and to my reputation — has certainly stopped me writing for lo these ten years or more. Talking to others here, I found that they too had come to Inkhaven to beat back that fear, and Naomi’s talk inspired them to step back into the fray.
You see! You see how I’ve criticised Naomi’s stance, applied reasonable self-deprecation to my own views, and yet created a syncretic amalgam of both positions! Is that unctuous, or the mark of a civilised (probably overeducated and English) man?
I’m looking forward to having more non-arguments with people here, and I plan to schedule a future counterpoint talk to Naomi’s Discourse discussion, provisionally titled “How to Revile Correctly”.