fighting fires is a public service

This post is an addendum to my last one.

One thing I didn't tackle in my last post was how fire fighting is a public service. Firefighters don't hide what they are doing. They don't slink about in the shadows, bucket of water hidden behind their back, to quietly throw on the fire when no one is looking. That's ridiculous and not just because the fire is not going to be stopped one quiet bucket at a time.

Instead firefighters are out there, for all to see, in full gear doing their best to keep people and property safe. They aren't telling people to join in, sure. And they create lines for the public to stay behind for their safety. But in it all they are out there for us all to see. For the really big problematic fires, they'll even call in departments from around the country and world to come and help. It's a public service performed by those with a calling to be helpers.

so why does this matter?

Yesterday's post about firefighters, arsonists and victims was about, to sum it up very briefly, DARVO. DARVO is an acronym that stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. It's the playbook for making firefighters into arsonists and arsonists into firefighters (at best) or victims (at worst) and leaving those actually victimized out to dry.

A major way DARVO happens is to claim criticism or accountability is a private matter, that it should never be done in public for the public to see. That's arson they might try and get you to believe. If someone does something bad, no matter the sphere it happened in, they claim you should email that person or somehow approach in private and never address in public. If a tech CEO very publicly melts down publicly in a way that harms others? Email them. If a tech CEO offers very public support for people harming others? Email them. If you don't - if you say something in the same venue as they did - you are the new offender and it forever trumps the actual transgression. It's not arson though to deal with public issues in public; it's firefighting.

I have spent 40+ years near, adjacent, intermingled and/or deeply involved with ministries, churches, nonprofits and similar. One thing that's been painfully obvious (and I want to emphasize painfully here) is that this sort of thing is an all-too-common community grooming tactic to silence dissent and protect those with power. Have an issue? Meet with us in private they say. I saw this line play out over and over again, used against victims to keep things neat and tidy for leaders. Sometimes those leaders were behaving very badly. Sometimes they just wanted to protect others behaving very badly. In every circumstance hurting people got further hurt and the collateral damage escalated alongside of it - all to protect the fragile egos of leaders wanting what should have been dealt with in public covered up in private.

It's not just those nonprofit or faith based settings we see this either. It took the NYT going public to bring accountability to Harvey Weinstein (even though it had been tried a number of times privately). It's taking a massive, constant public pressure to hold Epstein collaborators accountable (even though co-conspirators and their friends want everything kept private).

Those examples are big. You might think not every situation needs to go that big. The problem is you sitting in a position of privilege don't get to dictate and control how big a victim feels a situation needs to be. If victims of transphobia feel called to call out the Bluesky CEO for enabling it on a platform that's fair. If you have a bit of privilege it's fair to join them in seeking accountability. Accountability is not a bad thing. It's definitely not arson. If you can't see that and would prefer to direct your empathy to people creating or trampling on victims I don't really know what to say. Don't ever call yourself a firefighter though.