One of the nastiest things that you can do against evil is to show it why it is wrong, and sometimes that means showing why its goals will not work. In the fight to deal with racism, sexism, and homophobia, too many of those in the fight forget that those forces rely on the fight we have with The Other. Part of human nature is that we fear those that are different than us, that are obviously what we are not. Although it served our forebears well, we need to discard that part of our humanity
The fight against inequality has borne some ugly fruit and we need to cull it. Those that fight against racism tend to fight not as a coherent group but as gangs divided along racial lines. Native Americans point to their betrayal by the United States government as if they were the only ones ever betrayed by treaty. Blacks act as if they were the only ones to experience the lash of slavery. Some Jews forget that they are hardly the first nor last to experience genocide. And so on and so forth.
Feminists forget that the oppressed too often become the oppressors. This is apparent far too obviously when they hew to the image of woman as innocent. Women are just as capable of villainy as men, yet disclaim the rogues of the gender; if you can be a hero, you can also be the villain. Some feminists need to realize that if one person is oppressed then we all are, and that if we are to have any chance of dealing with oppression then we must fight together as equals, not as men and women but as persons. To exclude men from the fight for equality is to encourage the same inquality, just from another direction; by limiting the fight to just women, or even with men in a secondary role, is to admit that equality is impossible and the fight is already lost. I'd prefer it be won, personally.
And I'm not even going to get into the issues of the differently gendered and the atheist, as it just starts getting complicated. We just need to stop looking at differences as if they mattered and start celebrating that there are so many ways of looking at the world. I would much rather we fight as brothers and sisters, willing to defend our own views no matter but putting that aside when our siblings are attacked. We need to remember that when you fight monsters you must hold on to the most positive parts of your humanity lest you yourself become one of the monsters yourself.
The fight against inequality has borne some ugly fruit and we need to cull it. Those that fight against racism tend to fight not as a coherent group but as gangs divided along racial lines. Native Americans point to their betrayal by the United States government as if they were the only ones ever betrayed by treaty. Blacks act as if they were the only ones to experience the lash of slavery. Some Jews forget that they are hardly the first nor last to experience genocide. And so on and so forth.
Feminists forget that the oppressed too often become the oppressors. This is apparent far too obviously when they hew to the image of woman as innocent. Women are just as capable of villainy as men, yet disclaim the rogues of the gender; if you can be a hero, you can also be the villain. Some feminists need to realize that if one person is oppressed then we all are, and that if we are to have any chance of dealing with oppression then we must fight together as equals, not as men and women but as persons. To exclude men from the fight for equality is to encourage the same inquality, just from another direction; by limiting the fight to just women, or even with men in a secondary role, is to admit that equality is impossible and the fight is already lost. I'd prefer it be won, personally.
And I'm not even going to get into the issues of the differently gendered and the atheist, as it just starts getting complicated. We just need to stop looking at differences as if they mattered and start celebrating that there are so many ways of looking at the world. I would much rather we fight as brothers and sisters, willing to defend our own views no matter but putting that aside when our siblings are attacked. We need to remember that when you fight monsters you must hold on to the most positive parts of your humanity lest you yourself become one of the monsters yourself.
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