“You don’t understand me.”
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As an aside to The Evolution of Activism pt. 1, on some of the problems I see in the current activist and social academic discourse, I’m going to talk a bit more on narcissism, mixing the personal and political, and subjectivity.
There are quite a few activists out there, of pretty much all races and orientations and colors, who basically resort to the “privilege” argument whenever it suits them. This can be the “race card,” the “sex card,” the “gay card,” whatever. Essentially, when you make a point which goes against something they’re saying, and when it hits them deep down (regardless of the legitimacy of the point you made), they’re going to say, “ah ah, you don’t understand your privilege.”
Now, the “privilege” point itself is a legitimate one, but it’s generally misused. There’s no doubt that people should be aware of their privilege, whether it’s race, sex, sexual orientation, gender, physical ability. etc., but that should ONLY serve to CONTEXTUALIZE and SENSITIZE the discussion, not END it like some trump card. Once all parties to a discussion are appropriately sensitized, rational discourse MUST still proceed, and the “underprivileged” parties must be prepared to admit that their positions cannot solely be justified by the “privilege” argument when their opponents are aware of that privilege, and they must be able to concede that their own experiences and feelings may not necessarily be “reasonable” or support rational debate.
Unfortunately, this type of “trump-privilege” argument is rampant in current activist and social academic circles. It’s not an exaggeration to say that these positions ultimately come down to, “You don’t know me,” “You can’t judge me,” “You can’t understand me,” “You have it so much better than me.”
But somehow, that same person is allowed to know, judge, understand everyone else. This is what they do EVERY TIME they call out someone as “SEXIST,” or “RACIST,” or “HOMOPHOBIC.” They put their own “anti-elitist,” “anti-hierarchical,” “equality” position ABOVE those of their opponents.
This is called being “elitist,” being “hierarchical,” being “unequal.” This is a FUNDAMENTAL CONTRADICTION in their thinking, and it UNDERMINES any position they take. There is no way to avoid being elitist, or hierarchical, or unequal in any moral position, but at least being aware of this, and being able to understand the moral and social sources of inequality would enable us to make sane, rational, and compassionate decisions on the best way to be “unequal.”
Say we look at this “privilege” argument. This position fundamentally “mixes” or “combines” the personal and political. As soon as I say, “You can’t possibly understand what I’m saying from your privileged position,” you destroy any possible personal/political distinction. YET, some of these same people wish to SOMEHOW separate their personal and political lives when their personal choices come under scrutiny and undermine their political positions. A great example of this is the IR Debate.
“Your life makes it impossible for you to understand me, but my life is not up for discussion, and anyway my life is irrelevant to what I can say and do and understand.”
Basically, these people ONLY want the personal and the political to be separate when it’s CONVENIENT for them.
This is the aspect of the “diversity movement” that is SO alienating, not just to white men, not just to white people, but to anyone who wants to have a clear-headed discussion but can only find self-centered perma-victims.
This is intense narcissism, this is what activism and social studies currently encourages, and this, along with the correlating hyper-fragmentation of interest groups (race, sex, sexual-orientation, disability, class, age, etc.) is what has crippled social activism today from the inside, and destroyed its credibility in the eyes of a large segment of the population.
What was supposed to be noble, and sensitive, and compassionate, comes across now as repetitive adolescent whining, and many people don’t want to hear it anymore.
And now a brief response to a couple comments Xian posted to my piece, Evolution of Activism pt. 1, which is kind of related to what I’ve discussed above.
Disclaimer: I’m not going to pull any punches here. I do believe in empathetic response and the finesse of the communication also being important alongside the content. However, in this case, I don’t think there’s anyway to sugar-coat the response and still be honest.
I agree with you. Tone is just as important as content. And being “soft” is sometimes the uncompassionate thing, because people sometimes need to be woken up with a kick in the ass.
I’m sorry, I can’t commend this piece. Are there knee-jerk reactionaries and those who are shadowboxing? Absolutely. This piece doesn’t address that problem except to state emphatically how much smarter you are than both that group and anyone else who happens to disagree with you.
Did you notice the “pt. 1″?
Doesn’t this merely speak to your own privilege and circumstance? What experience do you have with non-privilege activism and activist groups? What does it mean that you are acquainted with the extreme instances of injustice on a daily basis faced by the vast majority of students of color, at least in the United States’ educational system?
I think you’re taking what I’m saying a bit out of context. I’m not talking about people or groups who work daily with rape victims or de facto slave labor or underprivileged ghetto kids. No one’s denying that these are serious problems, and that we need people working on these problems. I should probably clarify and say that I’m talking about where the “discourse” is: we’re at a point now where pretty much everyone sees violence, poverty, and “explicit” racism as a problem. The “job” of advocates is “done” with regard to getting society to recognize these types of evils (particularly since the young generations now have been so sensitized to everything), and in this sense, the discussion of these easily-recognized ills is no longer at the forefront of the discourse; the discourse has now shifted to “substantive” or “structural” issues which are harder to recognize and address, becoming a breeding ground for self-centeredness.
I just don’t see how a piece on activism can start with the labeling of anyone in the movement who disagrees with you as “unreasonable” and “self-centered”. I called you on it at the time, and you backed off and here you go again–back on the escalator. That sounds and smells like self-absorbedness to me.
I don’t think I did that; I described a particular type of thinking as unreasonable and self-centered, one that I have seen all over the place in schools and online. I’m also not sure when you “called” me on it and when I “backed off.” I don’t recall “backing off” of anything, unless you mean I just didn’t respond, and that’s generally for one or two reasons: 1) I feel I’ve said everything I need to, and 2) I didn’t have the time.
(I also generally don’t believe in having long, drawn-out discussions which reveal very little new knowledge in later responses, because I think they’re symptomatic of the self-centeredness and moral/intellectual paralysis I’ve been discussing.)
None of us are perfect activists, and I say that as a 24/7 activist, happily immersed in the beautiful struggle with little time for identity politics. I share your same frustration with activist who pose and preen and do little to improve the state of anyone’s condition. But any sort of progress for our community has to root in a genuine care for other human beings. I’m sorry, but I don’t see it in this post. “Stop being pathological” is not an empathetic response to people giving concrete examples of sexism and smacks of the “you whiny minorities have too much time on your hands” response. You are replicating exactly what you claim to be critiquing–the playing of identity games to frolic with your own ego.
Well, Xian, I could say that the tone and approach of your post mirrors the tone and approach of mine. Now why did you choose to write yours the way you did? Chances are, it’s the same reason I chose to write mine the way I did.
And again, I think we’re talking about very different things. Of course I believe in having empathetic responses, teaching people about problems in society, giving examples, and offering solutions, but I’m not talking about that; I’m talking about where the general discourse is now, what people consider activism to be, and the many psycho-social problems which plague it.
Liz and I don’t have time to go to films. We have chosen two of the most challenging profession in the history of humankind and then sought out the most extreme, least compensated areas of our fields to practice after a long process of research and strategic thought. However, out of love for ourselves and our community, we chose to drop the $20 and more importantly, the couple of hours to support H and K and gave the film a good review. Then that was ignored and you told informed us that our opinions were wrong and that any critique we might have for the film on an identity path is rooted in psychosis.
“Two of the most challenging professions in the history of humankind”? You don’t think there’s a bit of narcissism in the tone and content of this paragraph? Is your self-sacrifice relevant to a discussion of the legitimacy of the accusation of sexism in Harold and Kumar? What if I had gone through great self-sacrifice to take the time and energy to go to the movie and give the opinion I gave? Would that make my position any more legitimate?
And I didn’t say your opinions were “wrong,” because they can’t be wrong, and your feelings are your feelings, but I am saying that we have to step back and try to determine what’s “reasonable.” And I don’t feel that it was reasonable to call H&K “sexist” in any meaningful way. There’s a Supreme Court of Canada case that was just released on a guy who sued a bottled water company for finding 1.5 flies in a bottle: he apparently broke down, couldn’t work, and the trial judge awarded him hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Ontario Court of Appeal reversed the judgment, and the Supreme Court agreed: they used a standard of “reasonableness.” The plaintiff’s opinions and feelings were what they were; we can’t call them “wrong” because “right” and “wrong” don’t apply to opinions and feelings, but we CAN apply a standard of what is reasonable.
And from what I’ve seen, a lot of activists these days have thrown “reasonable” out the window.
There was never any implication that there was anything wrong with seeing the movie or liking it. It was simply a thoughtful discussion of the merits of the film until you chose to vilify any discussion of the gender imaging of the film.
I think “vilify” is a strong word; I simply gave my opinion that anyone who was made really uncomfortable by the gender depictions, or who felt “isolated” in their horror, should get a clue. Of course, you imply that my opinion here is not legitimate, but expressing yours is; I, personally, don’t find discussions which include nigh-irrelevant social critiques to be particularly “thoughtful.”
It’s like people in academics who seriously apply extended Marxist and feminist critiques to something like The Lord of the Rings: for god’s sake, shut the fuck up.
And don’t forget, in the context of the way you use the word, we all play the “vilification” game: as soon as you throw out a comment that something is “sexist” or “racist” you vilify. This in itself is fine; we should all just remember and own up to it.
As I read this, I’m worried. I’m not sure there’s any way to make this anything other than an inflammatory response. I’m really trying. I love you, and I have the deepest respect for what you’ve built with this site and I demand at the least that you take that at face value because I’m 100% sincere in my admiration for your work.
Thank you, and don’t worry, inflammatory is ok. Besides, this is just pt. 1.
The initial question was merely an honest question about the utility and future impact of the site. If the response was, “It’s not my vision” and didn’t surface as a long treatise attacking any and all existing activism that many are giving their lives to ensure that it is indeed the antithesis to the problems you discuss, I would acknowledge the righteousness of your viewpoint.
Perhaps I should have clarified earlier what I was talking about, but I was going to go into “types” of activism in pt. 2, using a simple Maslow hierarchy as a guide, discussing more “fundamental” vs. more “significant” problems.
However, to merely pretend that engaged, non-privileged class movements have existed and continue to exist to reject the point is naturally going to get a “WTF are you talking about–go explore a bit more!” response. I’m sorry if it is as uncomfortable for you to read as it is for me to write know that it is necessary and also painful.
Again, I don’t think I made the point you thought I made.
As to the greater issue, I’ll reserve judgment. You still owe us a beautiful integrative piece on what activism is. I look forward to reading it.
Well, hopefully pt. 2 will begin to satisfy what I “owe.”
As I reread the original post, I see that I may be mis characterizing the section on H and K. I believe that you are merely saying that “to feel isolated” and perceive sexism is what you are critiquing, not to perceive sexism at all.
There’s still several sections where you use language that is more to the “any perception is wrong in regards to that movie” as more of a pronouncement of judgment than a submission of your opinion. But that’s fine.
I don’t think I ever really say or imply that any opinion that doesn’t agree with mine is wrong, but I do think there are more and less reasonable opinions.
The general points still stand and the response–after all, “It’s all in your head” is never a constructive response–if you’ve ever had a doctor tell any family member that, you know full well that, while it very well may be true, it also means it’s time to find a new doctor.
Yes, this type of doctor would be called a psychiatrist.
Finally, please dont take a lack of response to anything more you write as “backing off.” Being an administrator of the site, and working in a fairly challenging profession myself, I simply don’t have the time or energy to respond to everything I’d like to.
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Xian
8:23 pm | May 23, 2008as soon as you throw out a comment that something is “sexist” or “racist” you vilify.
Before responding, I thought I’d just point out that I don’t agree with this. The acknowledgment of evidence of sexism is merely that. It is like acknowledging that you have a flat tire or that the sun is up. It involves more complex tools, but I’m not making a value judgment. The sun being up is bad if you are a vampire, and good if you are about to go into night madness. Sexism is not evil, it is merely something that often has negative effects both to the actor and the society they act upon.
Everything else, up to the personal examples, I agree with entirely. I still ask what the function is. I also ask why we continue to use such overgeneralizing language. I was not using “privileged” to shut you down, but to point out that overgeneralization just demonstrates that you need to experience different activist movements.
So yes, saying “You are privileged and couldn’t understand” is fallicious and hopeless.
However, that does not preclude one from meaningfully pointing out how privilege has led to ignorance. I’m not arguing that privilege is preventing people from understanding the beauty of whiny identity politics; I’m arguing that privilege is preventing you from seeing that most activism takes place outside of elite circles and have little of such influence in them.
So if you are not running into good activism, you need to touch better activist movements rather than complaining about activism in general.
See below:
This is intense narcissism, this is what activism and social studies currently encourages, and this, along with the correlating hyper-fragmentation of interest groups (race, sex, sexual-orientation, disability, class, age, etc.) is what has crippled social activism today from the inside, and destroyed its credibility in the eyes of a large segment of the population.
This is not what activism encourages. This is what whiny fake activism promoted by those more interested in appearing thoughtful and liberalish than actual social change. It sucks, but if people are really being turned away from actual community improvement by it, they need to stop looking at the shiny lights and ask themselves what they really care about.
What was supposed to be noble, and sensitive, and compassionate, comes across now as repetitive adolescent whining, and many people don’t want to hear it anymore.
My adolescents don’t whine, and so people should listen to them instead.
I don’t think I did that; I described a particular type of thinking as unreasonable and self-centered, one that I have seen all over the place in schools and online. I’m also not sure when you “called” me on it and when I “backed off.” I don’t recall “backing off” of anything, unless you mean I just didn’t respond, and that’s generally for one or two reasons: 1) I feel I’ve said everything I need to, and 2) I didn’t have the time.
Backed off was not meant as a insult, merely a respectful recollection–I thought we had had this discussion before. I don’t have time to look it up, but I’m happy to back-off either way. I could certainly be misremembering and it’s not really a key point. I apologize sincerely.
I’m talking about where the general discourse is now, what people consider activism to be, and the many psycho-social problems which plague it.
Fake activists and non-activists consider activism to be this. I don’t see many of them and the ones I do see I try to avoid. I don’t think these problems plague activism nor do they affect it much. I think anything broken by fake activists would be quickly fixed if people simply ignored them and worked to improve their communities in an empathetic way.
I think “vilify” is a strong word; I simply gave my opinion that anyone who was made really uncomfortable by the gender depictions, or who felt “isolated” in their horror, should get a clue.
Well, literally it’s a might bit strong, but as I said above, I clearly was making no judgment and was encouraging people to see the film. But to tell people to get a clue because they identified what they thought to be sexism doesn’t seem to be empathetic or discussion starting. That being said, uncomfortable or isolated in horror don’t really describe my state. Obviously, it didn’t hamper my overall enjoyment of the film.
Two of the most challenging professions in the history of humankind”? You don’t think there’s a bit of narcissism in the tone and content of this paragraph? Is your self-sacrifice relevant to a discussion of the legitimacy of the accusation of sexism in Harold and Kumar? What if I had gone through great self-sacrifice to take the time and energy to go to the movie and give the opinion I gave? Would that make my position any more legitimate?
No, that wasn’t the point. I’m sorry–I should have thought how that could be received. I was merely pointing out that we are about as pro-the idea of H & K as a couple could possibly be. The tone of the paragraph was merely to emphasize that it wasn’t like we go to 100 movies a year and were stumbling on to some horrible sexist flick.
It was to demonstrate that we did something we don’t normally get a chance to do (go see a movie) because of how much we believe in the project.
As to the “two of the most challenging professions” it was tongue-in-cheek kidding on the square. I hope it came across as narcissistic as that was certainly the intent. It’s the same way my top student and I greet each other in the hall with an over-emphasized “OF THE YEAR!” to mock our own potential hubris over winning the district wide service learning awards this year. (The most competitive awards known to mankind…is little Milo)
Well, hopefully pt. 2 will begin to satisfy what I “owe.”
Great! Look forward to seeing it!
jaehwan
2:48 am | May 24, 2008D,
Love the article.
Xian,
Love the response.
I haven’t seen H&K, so again I come half-prepared. I would like to comment on the paragraph below:
Xian wrote:
I agree with your definition when you use the term “sexist,” Xian, but I think Dialectic was referring to the way in which most other self-described Asian American activists use the term. The world is full of “fake activists” or “misguided activists” who use the term exactly as D describes. They’ll use the term “sexist” or “racist” as a way of vilifying the other speaker–not even vilifying just the comment–and trying to win the argument through a thinly veiled ad-hominem attack.
I think it’s one of the biggest problems in Asian American activism is this anti-intellectual ad-hominem approach to debate. D is right. Look at those typical self-described “Asian American feminists.” Have you ever tried to talk to any of them? If you have, most likely the first thing that comes out of their mouths when you say anything of substance is “you’re sexist.” They normally don’t use the term as you describe above; usually they use it as a means of ending a conversation, as D describes. “You’re sexist” means “your opinion doesn’t matter because it’s all about me.” That’s narcissism. Logic goes out the window, and you wind up with no progress.
So while I agree you use the term as you described, I’d say that most other people use it in the way that D describes.
Xian
10:26 am | May 24, 2008And I’d say it’s irrelevant whether most do. Our goal is not to identify fake, insincere activists. How is that going to help? Are they going to say, “Yep, you got me, let’s do real activist now!” No, they are merely going to respond with more insincerity and vitriol.
I have the same complaint with Jenn. I don’t understand who she is supposed to be writing for. Anyone who needs to hear her message won’t be interested in listening to that message, especially the way she packages it.
The man who is the head of the service learning initiative in Chicago says that you teach other teachers who are interested so the movement grows slowly, and then when you are wildly successful, you will be modeling for the skeptics and the movement will grow exponentially.
So I’m really not too interested in the fake activists on any side of the ledger. Their masturbatory self-congratulations are not really part of the equation at all, and the only net negative they have is the dispersion effect they carry with them.
Which is working on us as we spend most of our time discussing them.
It’s the same way in true activist organizations–if they really want to be inviting to sincere minority folks of all kinds, they cannot be predominantly ethnic majority.
That then creates the dynamic that occasionally (or frequently) you’ll have an aversive bigoted majority person who wanders into the folks and calls you racism for now bowing down to their superior knowledge and position which of course exist only in the mind of the beholder.
Tough shit. They aren’t going to help anyway–give them one solid, sincere, loving chance, and then toss them out on their ass.
Thanks to the leadership here, we tend to do this much better these days at the 44s. A few of us will go all empathetic and give them a chance–they hang themselves with their own rope, and then everyone tears them to shreds.
That’s fine, but the much of the rest of the time we seem to spend debating each other esoterically.
We still progress ideologically more than many other online arenas, but that’s not enough IMHO.
jaehwan
12:59 pm | May 24, 2008I’d argue that the terminology that everyone uses is relevant. We’re all speaking the same language, and if “sexist” and “racist” is a value judgment for 99.999% of the people who use it, it’s impractical to just ignore their existence. It’s like gogol’s use of the term “oriental.”
So you can use it, but for the sake of understanding, you’ll have to define it every time you do. That’s why I rarely use the term “racist;” I just usually say whatever it is “differentiates between races.” “Racist” has a value judgment.
I think we need to define what a “fake activist” is. I think a lot of times, people aren’t “fake” as in being intentionally bad people; they’re just misguided. Natalise, for example, is a good example of a fake feminist. But in her defense, I don’t think she’s being malicious. Why else would she make the video? I think she’s just misguided by the same Kingstonian narcissism that D describes.
You brought up Jenn, and I think Jenn is a another great example. Per AsianBGirl/Ramona’s request, I called her and spoke with her on Thursday. I think Jenn’s a great person. I really like her, I respect the effort she puts into her activism, and I regret that she took my comments personally. I like James too. I think he’d be a great guy to have a drink with. He’d also be a great guy to see drunk.
However–and again I hope Jenn doesn’t take this personally because I really do like her–her problem is not the packaging; it’s the message. Whenever you bring up anything with Jenn that has to do with Asian gender–whether we’re talking men OR women–she responds with the “privileged” or “sexist” argument that D describes above. You’ve been on the tail end of this, as have I. It’s not the packaging that’s wrong. It’s the message. It’s based on a lack of respect for logic and the predominance of narcissism.
It’s a Catch-22. Jenn says, “I want Asian men to talk about sexism,” which is fine, but the minute an Asian man opens his mouth to express a real opinion, the “AA feminist” response is “You’re sexist and privileged and wrong because you’re sexist and privileged.” Logic doesn’t matter.
Again, I need to stress that I don’t think she’s being malicious, and I do appreciate her effort. But the more traction her “movement” gains, the harder it will be for Asian Americans to progress.
I think, Xian, that we need to take a businessman’s approach rather than a teacher’s approach. (And I know we come from different fields.) We need marshal the people who do not follow the Kingstonian approach, and we have to encourage them to lead. Acknowledge the Kingstonians, and definitely engage them, but let the them follow later. Trying to convert the “misguided” feminists is a dead end. In their mindset, your opinions matter less because you’re an Asian male with an independent position. They’ll acknowledge you if you agree with everything they say, but why bother?
As you’ve mentioned many times, we have to win. Trying to lead people who won’t listen no matter what, I believe, is a step in the wrong direction. Why beat ourselves up in converting stubborn Kingstonians when we can spend that time finding people who take a more interdependent approach?
Xian
1:40 pm | May 24, 2008That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. I don’t know that it’s a teacher’s or a business approach. I’d argue that it’s an urban teacher’s approach where you support those interested in promoting their own and others’ learning in a respectful, loving environment and leaving the door open for the rest.
However, remember what we are suggesting here–”trying to convert the misguided is a dead end”, being complicit is self-defeating.
Being snide and disparaging is worse than a dead-end–it won’t matter a lick to those who are “misguided”, but it will definitely give thoughtful open-minded fence sitters a reason to ignore us as well and group us in the “misguided” section, perhaps correctly.
Finally, I do think it’s important to draw a distinction between someone who is “misguided” due to real personal experiences, but at least partially open-minded to new ideas and with noble goals and someone who is in the discussion for the sake of self-indulgence.
Both are problematic, but the second is a pathologically insincere saboteur who needs to be removed immediately. The other needs to be supported, and offered alternatives in a non-condescending fashion that validates their experiences, but incites them to grow.
Let’s be real, in mainstream America, individuals are individuals, but there are a lot more folks with privilege in the latter group than minority folks working out their baggage….
jaehwan
7:27 pm | May 24, 2008Think of it this way. We’re teaching the honors section. There’s a remedial section–or maybe I should say truant section–which caters to the kids who don’t want to study. This truant section definitely needs to exist, but so does the honors section.
I don’t think anyone here is being snide and disparaging. If I say that Kingtonian feminism is bad, it’s because I think that Kingstonian feminism is bad, the same way I think that global warming is bad. If I say Kingstonian feminism’s main issue is their ability to fuck white men, it’s because every incarnation of the movement has been exactly about that. (As Jade points out in her new post, it’s always about sex.) I’m not trying to be rude or disrespectful; I’m just pointing out something that I think others should notice. I think it was maogirl or nightshade who first pointed this out this “protest to fuck the white man” routine, and I’m returning the favor to others who wonder why Kingstonism has been such a remarkable failure. I think sometimes we need to draw the line by saying, “This is what and why I think this is the best course of action, and this is what I don’t like, and I’ll tell you why.”
I agree with you, but the latter example is extremely rare. Really, how many of these Kingstonians are purposely in it for the sake of self-indulgence? Sure, there’s Margaret Cho, and then there’s that chick from 8Asians, but they really are rare. All Kingstonians are all self-indulgent, but most of them want to be effective activists, they just don’t know how, and their prejudices against Asian men effectively kill their ability to engage in meaningful dialogue.
That’s why I say that we need to leave the door open, but let them know where we stand. They’ll respect you for telling them the truth.
Actually, Xian, let me ask–are we in agreement? It seems that we are…I just think it’s a difference in personal style, right?
Xian
8:53 pm | May 24, 2008Yes, I think we are in full agreement, the only reason I’m making a distinction though is that like I was arguing with my dear friend James about, Asian Americans should not be judged in a vacuum.
We can complain about how bad ignorance in the Asian American community, but fact remains that you could only come up with two that fit the worst case scenario. We get some majority fuck who comes in and personifies that relatively frequently. I can’t swing a dead cat around without hitting some insincere middle school debate warrior standing on his “my mommy says my opinion is special” soap box when I venture into the academic community.
So I’d like to take a more positive approach on everything–after all, we seem to have no more dysfunction than most artificial communities–We have Chao and Malkin and that dude who made the case for torture, but that’s not bad for a whole community.