Something white folks like me from "middle class" backgrounds really need to fucking deal with is that privilege isn't just the advantages that put us a little ahead or give us a little more comfort or space or whatever.
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I am still living a lie.
I am still mentally investing in the fiction that things are mostly alright.
I am still counting hypothetical costs over real, current costs.
I am still enjoying the privilege of a "peaceful" life, where I am "graciously" allowed access to the simple necessities of survival that are withheld from others, that are taken from others by force.
Ladies, gentlemen, & other beings: there are people our society deems "non-people" & they are being exterminated.
As a queer, disabled woman I am well aware of my own marginalization. I am aware that I am very close to being designated a "non-person" too, but I have NOT experienced the dehumanization I have been speaking of in this thread.
Perhaps someday I will.
But for now...I am coming from a place of comforts I don't even recognize as comforts, because they ought not to be "comforts" at all, but basic rights.
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If we're going to insist on enacting change "incrementally", we should at least reach a fixed number of how many is too many to keep tolerating: "this many imprisoned, this many killed, this many starving, this many frozen to death on the streets, this many raped," after which it is time to demand "justice now!"
That is...unless you actually think there is no limit which could justify certain other people losing their comfort & safety.
@artemis there is a certain kind of defeatism built into incrementalism.
too much is never enough in capitalism, so there is no upper threshold for how many oppressed is too many.
by the same measure, they will say "not enough people will ever agree to abolish capitalism, and if they did then we'd have [incidental music] evil, terrible *COMMUNISM*. you don't want *that* do you??", as if we all agreed in the first place that capitalism is a good idea.
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As a queer, disabled woman I am well aware of my own marginalization. I am aware that I am very close to being designated a "non-person" too, but I have NOT experienced the dehumanization I have been speaking of in this thread.
Perhaps someday I will.
But for now...I am coming from a place of comforts I don't even recognize as comforts, because they ought not to be "comforts" at all, but basic rights.
This thread is light on "action items", because to be honest, my main "action" here is: keep looking, keep paying attention, don't let noise & distraction make you lose sight of the nightmare of oppression you are living in. That's what I'm trying to do.
Possible solutions & strategies abound. I don't necessarily have any I am focused on right at this moment, because I am looking at myself & the world & asking why I feel about it how I do & why I allow myself to be soothed & comforted.
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This thread is light on "action items", because to be honest, my main "action" here is: keep looking, keep paying attention, don't let noise & distraction make you lose sight of the nightmare of oppression you are living in. That's what I'm trying to do.
Possible solutions & strategies abound. I don't necessarily have any I am focused on right at this moment, because I am looking at myself & the world & asking why I feel about it how I do & why I allow myself to be soothed & comforted.
Even those of us who consider ourselves "awake" & "aware" still believe things that are more comfortable than they are true, sometimes.
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That probably seems really crude, to suggest keeping a body count. Maybe you think "it's not as simple as that."
Ok, then how DO you make this decision? What is your cost-benefit analysis that leads you to say "it would be far worse to stop the oppression-machine from functioning. We must gradually make adjustments"?
What concerns are you weighing there, & most importantly, is there anything at all that would ever change your mind? Or is this one of your first principles?
@artemis i think that is one of the core principles of so-called "centrism". believing that you are smarter than the average bear, and therefor all of your opinions are Correct, no matter how much bullshit they are founded on.
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If there isn't anything that would make you change your belief that incremental change is the only moral choice, how did you arrive at that belief? How do you know it's true? How will you know it is still true in the future?
If there *is* something that would change your mind, then do me a favor: pick that thing & stick to it. If that line is ever crossed, your incrementalism must be at an end, because the cost has now exceeded acceptable limits.
there is a lot of magical, terminated thinking that goes into keeping people thinking this way, and a lot of it comes from The Tragedy Of The Commons, which is a pile of white supremacist bullshit. picking one thing and sticking to it is definitely not on the menu because as soon as you start challenging incrementalists on this bullshit, they'll derail and change the subject to some other bullshit because completing that thought would mean challenging any of their unfounded assumptions.
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Even those of us who consider ourselves "awake" & "aware" still believe things that are more comfortable than they are true, sometimes.
This is my reckoning with the fact that while I choose not to be a "white liberal", that is how I have been situated in life.
I have been given a false view of the situation. I cannot see—without effort—the extent of the suffering already going on.
I am still removed from it. I still have a certain type of comfort & so do most of the people I know.
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This "comfort" is no sin, no moral failing, but it does make us susceptible to the lies of the oppressors as they minimize & disguise the blood & death on which the Empire is built.
We struggle to see with clarity, because we are still tucked away & sheltered from the worst of it.
I'm starting to get the idea that the reason the Jesus character in the Gospels always told rich people to sell everything they have & follow him is that without surrendering the things which shelter you from oppression, you will always be at risk of downplaying it, because you will not experience what others do, not really.
I'm not advocating for vows of poverty, but it sure does make some sense: as long as there is comfort, we can avoid confronting the worst truths.
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This is my reckoning with the fact that while I choose not to be a "white liberal", that is how I have been situated in life.
I have been given a false view of the situation. I cannot see—without effort—the extent of the suffering already going on.
I am still removed from it. I still have a certain type of comfort & so do most of the people I know.
This "comfort" is no sin, no moral failing, but it does make us susceptible to the lies of the oppressors as they minimize & disguise the blood & death on which the Empire is built.
We struggle to see with clarity, because we are still tucked away & sheltered from the worst of it.
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I'm going pretty hard today, but the reason I am is that this is one of those instances where *I* am definitely one of the people I am speaking to.
I feel like *I* keep getting mixed up & confused on this particular point. I feel like I keep going back to the same ways of looking that erase certain people's lives & suffering so that others will escape. I feel like there is a fantasy about "the way things are" that keeps manifesting in my mind, no matter how many times I try to dispel it.
@artemis that is one of the struggles of ending white supremacy, and why all white people are racist. as Kim Crayton has said many times, white people will always manage to defer to white supremacist mediocrity because it's what we were raised in. it is our default, and a very difficult default to escape because we've never known anything else.
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What access we are granted to the things we need is limited & gated. It is for some & not for others. It keeps us dependent on preserving existing inequality because any attempt at change will be costly.
They build this cost in on purpose. Disruption costs lives because we are not allowed our own alternatives. We are not allowed to take actions to care for each other if they violate private property laws, for instance. We are held down & kept sick & impoverished & not allowed to seek remedy.
if they dared to answer the questions "why does it cost lives? who makes it cost lives?" they would be staring at themselves in a mirror. that idea horrifies "Good People", who can never be seen believing in or doing anything Bad.
it was never on the "Good Germans" to stop nazi oppression, because it was always simplified and waved away as a government policy that politicians just couldn't get right for some mysterious reason. the same bullshit plays out in Canada and USA politics too, every fucken day.
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Even those of us who consider ourselves "awake" & "aware" still believe things that are more comfortable than they are true, sometimes.
@artemis that's why awareness is really not enough. land acknowledgements are a great example of that. we are aware that the land we stand on is stolen, but what are we doing about it?
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If today's words are a little harsher than sometimes, it's in part because "yours truly" is saying the things that she needs to hear herself.
The true extent of violence & oppression in this country, the true cost, is not compatible with how I see the world around me.
So one of the steps I've got to take as I learn what it means to resist oppression is to make myself look with open eyes, & believe & understand the things I see. We all do.
We think we've "got it". We think we understand because we can analyze the systems & point out the faults.
But how well do we comprehend it all, really when there is suffering we more or less forget? It is hidden from our eyes. It is inflicted on people we do not regard with respect. We imagine it is in some way inevitable or cannot be helped.
And as long as it goes on, all pretense of "good order" is a fucking lie.
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I'm starting to get the idea that the reason the Jesus character in the Gospels always told rich people to sell everything they have & follow him is that without surrendering the things which shelter you from oppression, you will always be at risk of downplaying it, because you will not experience what others do, not really.
I'm not advocating for vows of poverty, but it sure does make some sense: as long as there is comfort, we can avoid confronting the worst truths.
If today's words are a little harsher than sometimes, it's in part because "yours truly" is saying the things that she needs to hear herself.
The true extent of violence & oppression in this country, the true cost, is not compatible with how I see the world around me.
So one of the steps I've got to take as I learn what it means to resist oppression is to make myself look with open eyes, & believe & understand the things I see. We all do.
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@artemis I don't claim we have a solution for solving this without a "clean slate", but I also know that a "clean slate" without having built something to replace what's being wiped away will mean death for a huge number of people - disabled, those depending on ongoing medication or otherwise medically vulnerable, etc.
A lot of what looks like "incrementalism" isn't an unwillingness to shed the comfort of privilege but a knowlede that we don't know how to protect a lot of the less-privileged in "revolution".
@dalias @artemis I think that's fair to write. I was just doing some writing about the 'adjacent possible'... and when I saw this thread I wanted to point out that we generally choose our prisons and do our best to decorate them well.
Freedom itself is an illusion; agency is not. And what we're really discussing, I think, is that agency. That sovereignty of the soul.
The clean slate only works if we can shape a better version of the cage of freedom.
We deserve better. We all do.
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Whenever someone tells me too many people would get hurt if we tried to make big, immediate change, instead of trying to use the current system to slowly steer things, they list what they think the cost of change will be & who will get hurt.
I never see them weigh that against the other side of this: the people who suffer & die from things as they are.
I just want to put the moral calculus out in the open. If you make this argument, you must have determined what costs are acceptable. Tell us.
@artemis this thread is great and I have boosted it.
One thing that's coming up for me, tho, is... I'm starting to think the dichotomy between "revolutionary" and "incrementalist" is a false one.
Like, I could be accused of being an incrementalist because I believe in voting as a solution.
You may raise an eyebrow and say "but voting hasn't worked so far, has it?" And yeah. Left-wing votes are cancelled out by right-wing ones, and further swamped by a big mass of shrugging centrists. Left-wing parties fall to entryist career politicians beholden to corporate interests, and judges and upper chambers stand in the way of progressive changes.
So. Armed revolution then. But that needs an overwhelming buy-in from the populace. (That or military support, but that's a coup, and those tend not to go great.) So we need a massive consciousness raising effort to get people on-side...
But... then... maybe we could try the whole voting thing at that point?
️ Get proper leftists primaried, then vote then in.Then if you get a clear majority of leftist politicians in power, the line between "incremental change" and "revolution" becomes blurry. Tax rates can be raised overnight. UBI implemented. Utilities socialised. Police forces defunded. Upper chambers reformed. Prisons shut down. Why go gradual if you don't have to?
...at the threat of which upheaval maybe the system does rebel against the will of the people. And maybe some shots will need fired then. Just to confirm that, yes, we're fuckin serious.
It's like. Voting is, always has been, the implicit threat of force. The provable demonstration of superior numbers at the ballot rather than battlefield.
Whether the force is actual or implied, consciousness-raising is the first step. Arguing over whether voting will or will not work feels premature at this stage. Maybe we try it and have backup options too.
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I'm starting to get the idea that the reason the Jesus character in the Gospels always told rich people to sell everything they have & follow him is that without surrendering the things which shelter you from oppression, you will always be at risk of downplaying it, because you will not experience what others do, not really.
I'm not advocating for vows of poverty, but it sure does make some sense: as long as there is comfort, we can avoid confronting the worst truths.
@artemis that's a very interesting way to look at it. I, for one, am way too comfortable these days.
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We think we've "got it". We think we understand because we can analyze the systems & point out the faults.
But how well do we comprehend it all, really when there is suffering we more or less forget? It is hidden from our eyes. It is inflicted on people we do not regard with respect. We imagine it is in some way inevitable or cannot be helped.
And as long as it goes on, all pretense of "good order" is a fucking lie.
@artemis I grew up 1960ish white, & middle class. Did not understand the conflict until dropped into an integrated school and at first I gravitated to white and viewed those of color as other. But as I grew intellectually, I finally understood the conflict. Plus, I joined a union, then gained understanding of the relationship of worker with “sorry can’t afford that” management (cont) 1:2
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@artemis I grew up 1960ish white, & middle class. Did not understand the conflict until dropped into an integrated school and at first I gravitated to white and viewed those of color as other. But as I grew intellectually, I finally understood the conflict. Plus, I joined a union, then gained understanding of the relationship of worker with “sorry can’t afford that” management (cont) 1:2
@artemis 2:2 and came to understand that equality, and equal opportunity, were pretty words designed to fool us, that they exist or are an intention.
Today I think I’m a better person. I understand a system built on equality and equal opportunity, can’t tolerate racism, bigotry, or wealth gluttons. I see people as people, we’re all in this, it’s just that some of us think it’s OK to get ahead by stepping on others, instead of viewing us as a large hive that needs each other to succeed. -
If the cost of change now is too high, then I expect to see you crunching the numbers & keeping track of the data to see if the calculus ever changes.
Otherwise, I would have to think you aren't concerned about people's lives in general, just the lives of the people you choose to count.
Surely there is such a thing as too much, right? Too much cruelty, too much exploitation, too much death to justify the continuation of systems of oppression until they can be "gradually reformed"?
@artemis I can generalize this to "my ignorance is an excuse to not change my mind", aka "I don't have time to research this properly, so I'm going to let my feelings decide".
How do you even talk to someone who thinks that's acceptable. >.<
