the problem with the fact that we ARE the grownups is that we no longer have any grownups to call

[cimorene]

You know when you were a child or a teenager, and you had a few adults whom you were friends with, who patiently talked about the kind of stuff you were thinking with you but it was maybe more valuable because it didn’t come from your parents, and because they were trustworthy and genuinely invested in your wellbeing but offered another, outside perspective? Well, in the last 15 years I’ve let those two relationships fade, mostly because I would have had to use Facebook and it would’ve still been an uphill struggle to keep in contact through digital means with people who are definitely not digital natives. Most of the time I don’t miss their function, although I often miss them personally, since I cared about them; but every now and then something like this comes up and I just don’t have anybody to ask.

I need to ask someone for advice, but none of the people I usually ask for advice are going to be helpful, because I already know what they’ll say. My wife will say she doesn’t know, my fandom bff will err on the friendlier and more permissive side of the issue, and my parents will start answering halfway through, then eventually it will be clear that they didn’t hear what I said after all or fundamentally misunderstood what it was that I was asking. And my therapist will ask me how I feel about it and why this decision is such a big issue and what I think I should do. Which is fine, I mean, his job is to help me figure out how I feel and how to cope with that, not to give me advice about ethics.

I suppose the ideal person would be like a professor of moral philosophy - or maybe ethics would do just as well - or possibly a lawyer? - or just an enthusiastic amateur meta thinker who’s nerdy about morality and ethics I suppose - who is invested in fandom and fanfiction so I wouldn’t have to give a novel’s worth of backstory in order to even explain the question in the first place.

I can’t even really say this issue is important - well, not urgent; only important to me. It’s just been sitting on the backburner due to my not knowing what to do with it for... possibly 8 or 9 years now, so.

But also, now that I've written the first paragraph of this post and got to thinking about it, I'm also thinking I should do something about contacting the older women who were my friends when I was a teenager, or at least trying. So that kind of added another problem I'm not sure how to approach, since I won't be using facebook again...

Comments

[norah]

I did a few heartfelt handwritten thank-you letters out of the blue a few years ago and they were super well-received and led to at least one re-connection.

I feel sure we have people with ethics training in fandom! I wonder who and where they are. Want me to ask on Twitter?

[cimorene]

I was thinking we must too, but I couldn't think of any. I mean, not that everybody sets their credentials out in their bio... but anyway, possibly my question is not sufficiently complex to be actually interesting to one, even though they are likely most conversant with the issues at play... but I guess you can try. After all, if they're not prepared for potentially boring problems, they don't have to raise their hand.

[cesy]

Depending on the area of ethics, there may be plenty of people in fandom with relevant training - e.g. someone with law training or medical training will have training in some areas of ethics which may help.