Feb. 27th, 2014 10:30 pm
We're all a little bit touched
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muckefuckI'm still trying to sort out a debate I stumbled into the other day over "homophobia". It concerned a blowhard celebrity, which is bad enough. And it took place on Facebook, which is worse. I suppose YouTube is a less suitable place to attempt any sort of reasonable discussion, but not by much. I'm still not sure I understand the core of the disagreement but today another possibility occurred to me. It would certainly help to explain why we all got so worked up about what is ultimately a rather trivial matter.
Some people have summed up the difference between liberalism and conservatism as whether you think people are basically good or basically evil. Liberals, so the common wisdom goes, think most people (with the exception of some truly hopeless cases with severe untreatable disorders) would be good if given the chance. Their poor choices are the consequence of a lack of opportunity and a deficit of skills. Address these deficits and they'll be free to live up to their full natural potential. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe in the concept of Original Sin (even if the non-Christians among them aren't comfortable with that terminology). People are born subject to evil desires which, unless ring-fenced with an objective morality, will ultimately overpower them and lead society to ruin.
(I expect proponents of both philosophies are bristling at what could fairly be called an oversimplification bordering on caricature. But just wait.)
There's another split, however, which I think cuts across this divide, and that concerns the degree of control we have in this situation. In its most negative form, it manifests as theistic fatalism (on the conservative side) or social determinism (on the liberal side). More positively, it's the philosophy of self-actualisation bzw. Objectivism. The reason I think it spans the divide is because it's linked to privilege. Studies show that those who have experienced less discrimination often overestimate the degree to which they are responsible for their own achievements. On the conservative side, this is the smugness of the person born on third base who thinks they've hit a triple. On the liberal, it's the smugness of the Good Liberal who's done such an outstanding job of raising their consciousness.
So here's where I'm going with this: Just as those born with less privilege are cynical about the role ability rather than luck plays in getting ahead, they also tend to be cynical about how well people have really overcome their own prejudices. They take as a given that our society is racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, ablist, etc. and thus we, as products of this society, are steeped in these prejudices to the point where it's a lifelong struggle to overcome them. That's why they're not shocked when someone prominent is outed as having said or done horribly bigoted things in private; they assume it's generally the case and most people simply don't get caught out.
Since my homosexuality is the chief (and practically only) source of my own privilege deficit, it's here where my cynicism shows itself most plainly. I'm genuinely pleased at how much LGBTQ acceptance has advanced over the course of my lifetime; we're farther along than I ever hoped when I first came out. But as with any sweeping trend, not everyone's commitment is comparable and the latest (and often most vocal) converts are often the most superficial as well. I see this all the time in supposedly "pro-gay" humour (such as many of the images and videoclips circulated on the occasional of the Sochi Olympics) that makes use of every camp stereotype and queer trope in the playbook--the same fag jokes I grew up with, just repackaged and relabeled.
So that's why when a famous actor (or whoever) who's been outspoken in his support of same-sex marriage is revealed to have used homophobic slurs like "cocksucking faggot", I'm not especially surprised or shocked. And if some pundits call him a "homophobic bigot" on account of that, I don't have much of a problem with it. And when ordinary people (who just happen to be straight) object to this label and denounce the unfairness and inaccuracy of it (even while protesting too much that they're by no means defending his "un-PC" remarks, mind you), I find myself questioning their motives. Well, not so much questioning, as I feel I know what their ulterior purpose is: To preserve the acceptability of this sort of low-level homophobia in their own milieux. Their reaction would be much the same (in kind, although not necessarily in degree) if someone they liked had said something bigoted against people of a particular gender or race or class or what have you.
And it's bullshit. If you spent as much time combatting your imbibed homophobia (or racism or sexism or classism) as you did fighting the suggestion that you're as subject to it as the rest of us (yes, even us homos--that's why internalised homophobia is a thing), just imagine how much further along we'd be. And if those who are dedicated to fighting these biases didn't have to expend so much energy reassuring supposed allies that, yes, we know, you're one of the good ones, not like those awful bigots (in Russia or the South or Downstate--you know, wherever is far enough to be a comfortable distance away)--well, the mind just boggles.
So the next time you find yourself in the position of defending someone who's made comments even you admit are offensive, ask yourself: Why am I doing this? Do I know what concerning trolling looks like and am I willing to admit when I'm indulging in it? And the next time I'm confronted with this, hopefully I'll have a better notion of which buttons of mine are being pushed and why and make more intelligent decisions about how many spoons I'm willing to lay down.
Some people have summed up the difference between liberalism and conservatism as whether you think people are basically good or basically evil. Liberals, so the common wisdom goes, think most people (with the exception of some truly hopeless cases with severe untreatable disorders) would be good if given the chance. Their poor choices are the consequence of a lack of opportunity and a deficit of skills. Address these deficits and they'll be free to live up to their full natural potential. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe in the concept of Original Sin (even if the non-Christians among them aren't comfortable with that terminology). People are born subject to evil desires which, unless ring-fenced with an objective morality, will ultimately overpower them and lead society to ruin.
(I expect proponents of both philosophies are bristling at what could fairly be called an oversimplification bordering on caricature. But just wait.)
There's another split, however, which I think cuts across this divide, and that concerns the degree of control we have in this situation. In its most negative form, it manifests as theistic fatalism (on the conservative side) or social determinism (on the liberal side). More positively, it's the philosophy of self-actualisation bzw. Objectivism. The reason I think it spans the divide is because it's linked to privilege. Studies show that those who have experienced less discrimination often overestimate the degree to which they are responsible for their own achievements. On the conservative side, this is the smugness of the person born on third base who thinks they've hit a triple. On the liberal, it's the smugness of the Good Liberal who's done such an outstanding job of raising their consciousness.
So here's where I'm going with this: Just as those born with less privilege are cynical about the role ability rather than luck plays in getting ahead, they also tend to be cynical about how well people have really overcome their own prejudices. They take as a given that our society is racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, ablist, etc. and thus we, as products of this society, are steeped in these prejudices to the point where it's a lifelong struggle to overcome them. That's why they're not shocked when someone prominent is outed as having said or done horribly bigoted things in private; they assume it's generally the case and most people simply don't get caught out.
Since my homosexuality is the chief (and practically only) source of my own privilege deficit, it's here where my cynicism shows itself most plainly. I'm genuinely pleased at how much LGBTQ acceptance has advanced over the course of my lifetime; we're farther along than I ever hoped when I first came out. But as with any sweeping trend, not everyone's commitment is comparable and the latest (and often most vocal) converts are often the most superficial as well. I see this all the time in supposedly "pro-gay" humour (such as many of the images and videoclips circulated on the occasional of the Sochi Olympics) that makes use of every camp stereotype and queer trope in the playbook--the same fag jokes I grew up with, just repackaged and relabeled.
So that's why when a famous actor (or whoever) who's been outspoken in his support of same-sex marriage is revealed to have used homophobic slurs like "cocksucking faggot", I'm not especially surprised or shocked. And if some pundits call him a "homophobic bigot" on account of that, I don't have much of a problem with it. And when ordinary people (who just happen to be straight) object to this label and denounce the unfairness and inaccuracy of it (even while protesting too much that they're by no means defending his "un-PC" remarks, mind you), I find myself questioning their motives. Well, not so much questioning, as I feel I know what their ulterior purpose is: To preserve the acceptability of this sort of low-level homophobia in their own milieux. Their reaction would be much the same (in kind, although not necessarily in degree) if someone they liked had said something bigoted against people of a particular gender or race or class or what have you.
And it's bullshit. If you spent as much time combatting your imbibed homophobia (or racism or sexism or classism) as you did fighting the suggestion that you're as subject to it as the rest of us (yes, even us homos--that's why internalised homophobia is a thing), just imagine how much further along we'd be. And if those who are dedicated to fighting these biases didn't have to expend so much energy reassuring supposed allies that, yes, we know, you're one of the good ones, not like those awful bigots (in Russia or the South or Downstate--you know, wherever is far enough to be a comfortable distance away)--well, the mind just boggles.
So the next time you find yourself in the position of defending someone who's made comments even you admit are offensive, ask yourself: Why am I doing this? Do I know what concerning trolling looks like and am I willing to admit when I'm indulging in it? And the next time I'm confronted with this, hopefully I'll have a better notion of which buttons of mine are being pushed and why and make more intelligent decisions about how many spoons I'm willing to lay down.
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