I feel like liberals are always trying to make conservatives understand that the world and the actions in it are not black and white. If one has done something racist, that doesn’t make them a bad person, it makes them a normal person. We all do bad things. We all do sexist things. That’s not what’s at issue.<\/p>\n
White people struggle against the charge of racism because they feel it switches the on-and-off in them, from “good” to “bad.” Since self cannot be perceived as bad, we shout, “No! No! It must not be true! I’m a good person, so I have not been racist!” When, of course, we should be able to look and say, “Oh, I fucked up. I will change. I will fix this.”<\/p>\n
There’s a personality disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder in which sufferers have a great deal of difficulty understanding ambiguity. They tend to view themselves and others as either entirely good or entirely bad, a switch that will flip with great regularity. On a good day, they are all good. On a bad one, they are the worst person who ever lived. If you give them something they like, you’re an angel; if you speak a harsh word, you’re an evil person conspiring against them.<\/p>\n
I tend to drive some of our legalistic commenters here crazy (sorry, Sailorman) because I don’t believe the world has boundaries that can be clearly described between good and bad. We all, along with our every action, inhabit ambiguity. Every good thing we do has bad unintended consequences. Every bad thing we do has good unintended consequences. We’re all shaded. We’re all compromised. No one’s clean or pure. No one’s evil or tarnished beyond recognition.<\/p>\n
This is not a profound thought, expressed in the abstract, and yet I see it abandoned with great regularity when we move into concrete examples. I’ve seen it over and over and over again, and I find it so frustrating in liberal circles. We should know better. I wish we did. But we’re so ready for conflict, to make sharp decisions, to slice things and people into black and white until, as Ampersand says, we construct people “as only their worst moments.”<\/p>\n
There’s this drive toward perfectionism in the activist soul, toward making perfect the enemy of good.<\/p>\n
It’s so, amazingly damaging. On the personal level, yes — I could talk about bloggers who I can’t stand to read, but who I nevertheless respect, but I don’t really want to bring individuals into it.<\/p>\n
But more on the systemic level. We cut off our own feet. If we can’t acknowledge we’re all trapped in racist and sexist systems, systems which compromise our most purely intended actions, systems that prescribe our choices and make us choose between lesser evils… what can we fight? What’s the point? How are we different than ascetics with whips to use on ourselves and others for the greater good of purgation?<\/p>\n
We can’t purge our souls.<\/p>\n
When it comes to racism, we understand that it’s not the intent that matters, it’s the effect. It’s not apportioning blame that’s relevant, it’s creating solutions. So why are we stuck in circles, trying to define THAT person as evil for THIS compromised act and making that declaration of good or evil a single, solid, reified thing? Why do we, as a collective, exhibit some features of Borderline Personality Disorder?<\/p>\n
I don’t think the human brain is set up very well to perceive shades of grey, which is too bad, because concepts with borders around them like black and white are only our own constructions for understanding the world, and they are badly insufficient tools.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Given the context of recent blogosphere battles, I want to say that I realize some may read this post as being about Amanda and\/or Amanda’s critics. It isn’t intended to be. I understand that there’s a great deal of history there which involves more than black and white decision making. This post was written in reaction to a different conversation.<\/p>\n
I also don’t mean to say there should be no critique of anyone. Critique is important — it’s vital that it be passionate and vehement and present, for otherwise nothing would change. I mean only to question a particular kind of critique, that variety of righteous condemnation which seems to be about making sense of the world by casting it with angels and devils instead of struggling players.<\/p>\n
Feminist, anti-racist comments only.<\/strong> (If I bold this and put it at the end, will people pay attention? –post-mod queue Mandolin.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I feel like liberals are always trying to make conservatives understand that the world and the actions in it are not black and white. If one has done something racist, that doesn’t make them a bad person, it makes them … Continue reading