Just Asking! On “Friendly” Forms of Harassment

Abstract

Abstract Harassment is often understood to be, in its paradigm form, overtly aggressive or hostile. But harassment can also occur in a more deceptive format, and can be presented as soft, neutral, innocent, or even friendly and caring. There is something fundamentally deceptive and dishonest about this kind of harassment. The overt friendliness makes these particular forms of harassment harder to spot, and therefore potentially more likely to succeed. I focus on one such instance of friendly-presenting harassment: sealioning. I argue that, despite its ostensive friendliness, sealioning is a form of harassment that has a twofold goal: there is the political goal of forestalling action, and the epistemic goal of undermining the victim's authority. I draw on Jose Medina's understanding of culpable ignorance and the existentialist notion of bad faith to flesh out the distinction between ill-willed and good-willed sealioning, and argue that the latter, despite the good will, is also harassment. I conclude by addressing the different responsibilities of the sea lion, the victim, and the onlooker. Narrowing in on these deceptive forms of harassment, I aim to contribute to the hermeneutic justice of being able to spot and name harassment as it happens.