Moral absolutes - do not want

[essayel]

I've just been reading John C Wright's FIVE POST justification of his views on love, marriage, sex and his absolute conviction that whoever else burns in hell fire it won't be him. The link is to part one BTW if anyone has the stomach to sit through it.

Now I feel slightly dirty and wholly ashamed of being a middleaged, white, married heterosexual in case people think I'm like him.

I think I'll go and draw some more cartoon strip. In the next section - for absolutely valid, in character, historically verifiable reasons - Anatolios loses his clothes! *reaches for Burne Hogarth*

ETA - actually can I just make it clear that I know very well that drawing and writing the stuff I write and draw doesn't actually make me any the less privileged in my life. I've seen LOTS of references to 'checking your privilege' lately and I'm not quite sure how to do it but I think it's something to do with being ashamed that you've had it so easy.

Comments

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Ah I got the wrong end of the stick. Whenever I've seen the term used there's been an element of shame attached to it, whether it's about age, race, sex, colour or financial situation.

I'm completely unable to follow that guys logic but he posits an incredibly harsh cold and exclusive society. I'm thankful I don't live in it.

Hope you're enjoying your holiday.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I've encountered it mainly in the context of racefail, where I was told that white guilt is actually just another of the things that gets in the way of fans of color being able to get anything changed. Conversations about race have a tendency to get derailed by the white fans talking about how guilty they feel, and wanting to be reassured that they aren't bad people - which is all rather beside the point.

My understanding of the whole 'check your privilege' thing is that there are unseen rules of society that benefit straight, white, middle class people, and that as straight, white, middle class people we're often not consciously aware of these forces. Being asked to check our privilege is being asked to stop and think about what we've said, and see that perhaps it stems from our own prejudices and societal benefits. If we were aware of them, we would realize that what we'd just said was an example of our own privilege - like the kind of blindness that can lead to an editor saying that he didn't see gender, and that was why all the authors in his anthology were male.

I think the correct thing to do at that point is to stop and think about what the person is saying and acknowledge (if appropriate) that they might well be right. Whether you feel guilty about it or not is almost incidental to the process of learning to do better in future.

It's been a great holiday so far, thanks! I've got a day at home tomorrow, and then another week away :)

[wulfila.livejournal.com]

Whether you feel guilty about it or not is almost incidental to the process of learning to do better in future

Exactly. If the whole "collective guilt" problem that is ever important in Germany because of the Nazi regime has taught me anything, it is that feeling strong personal guilt over things you had no influence over is not exactly helpful in the long run - you can learn from injustices that have been done and mistakes that have been made, but feeling personally responsible for a huge problem that you did not cause leeds nowhere. You must not perpetuate it in the sphere of your influence, of course, but taking the blame for something you are not personally to blame for is quite useless.

That said, I believe it is a common problem in such discussion that the idea of privileged people as the "bad guys" and underprivileged people as the "good guys" is transferred from the groups and the system as a whole to individual people, with disastrous conclusions. That you belong to a privileged group of people does not mean that you cannot be an all around decent person individually (and likewise, belonging to an underprivileged group of people does not make you a saint just because).

[essayel.livejournal.com]

It's a new skill to learn, isn't it. A little bit like if one moves to a new country one has to learn how to negotiate the different types of public transport system. One shouldn't feel guilty for not knowing but it would be culpable of you to make no attempt.

This is far more serious, of course, addressing deep wrongs over many centuries, but as far as I can see it works along the lines of "This is a problem I didn't know I was perpetuating. Now I know about it I can stop adding to it".

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Yes, we had British Empire Guilt when I was growing up, and I went through a lot of that, but I don't think it does any good. If anything, the guilt feels so bad that it makes you less willing to think about the problem and what, if anything, you can do to put it right. And it means that if anyone else raises the problem, your immediate reaction is "oh no, haven't I been subjected to enough misery and shame about this, when it's not my fault anyway? Why can't they shut up about it and leave me alone?!" If you didn't feel the guilt, you'd be less reluctant to talk about it or face it, or figure out what you can do to help.

And yes, any kind of us v them behaviour is likely to cause casualties all around :)

[essayel.livejournal.com]

So stop, take a breath, think about the situation and offer an unreserved apology if one is required. The point being that privilege to us is pretty much invisible and we can be deeply offensive while meaning no harm at all. A simple apology with no wriggling doesn't make amends but at least shows we're trying.

I NEED a holiday. I hope to go to Cornwall for a week in October and this time I'll go to the maritime museum. Last time I stayed outside supervising the dog.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think that's it :) And judging from some of the massive threads of wank I've seen around, it's obviously a harder thing to do than we realize.

*g* Cornwall this past week was grey and rainy, though we had wetsuits for the beach and went in the sea anyway. But judging from the crispy wiltedness of the garden, I suspect that meanwhile at home it was blazingly hot all week. It was good anyway.

I wasn't as impressed by the maritime museum as I'd thought I would be, but I can't now remember why. The Shipwreck and Heritage museum in Charlestown is very good, though, and they had two tall ships in the harbour which you could go aboard and explore.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Ooh tall ships are always worth exploring. I'm fascinated by them while being the worst possible sailor. I can get queasy reading Patrick O'Brien.

The Charlestown centre looks fantastic. We'll certainly go there.