Listen to the people at the bottom of the pile

[alias_sqbr]

Something I realised I left out of Various axioms of my anti-(racism sexism etc) (this extended conversation is definitely making me express a bunch of interconnected ideas I hadn't properly articulated before :))

EDIT: This is not a self evident truth, it's an axiom of the way I think. This does not mean it's right, but you'll have to work pretty hard to convince me otherwise :) (But one of my other axioms is question everything)

As I said there, if there is a society wide inequality which puts one group in a position of less power with regards to another, then the group with more power cannot be trusted to judge how best to fix that inequality. No matter how good their intentions(*).

Feminism and the fight against sexism needs to be mostly run by women.

Anti-racism needs to be mostly run by POC.

The left needs significant input from the poor and lower class. (Unfortunately once you have the power to change things you generally aren't lower class any more so this gets a bit catch 22ish)

etc.

And if you're in the more powerful group then you cannot rely on the opinions of other people in the same group.
If you're white, and the only people who agree with your opinions on race are white, and most POC think differently? Then no matter how well educated and well meaning you are, and how many other educated well meaning white people agree, you are probably wrong. And the only way to be less wrong is to go out and listen to what actual POC are saying. If you don't know what POC think you should probably go find out.

Also elected or otherwise acknowledged spokespeople have more weight than some random person from the less powerful group who happens to agree with you.

This can get complicated of course since none of these groups is a monolith and there's always varying opinions. Feminism especially contains many radically different opinions, plus of course there's all the women who don't feel represented by any of them. So there's no way to get The Single Opinion of the less powerful group, but that doesn't mean you can't make a concerted effort to get the general idea, and be open to their POV.

EDIT: This post is a rather simplistic description of a complicated issue, read the comments for a more nuanced view. Most importantly, I didn't add that yes, the less privileged group also needs to listen to the more privileged group, and in the end the best approach is usually a strong dialogue and carefully worked out compromise. But power dynamics being what they are, the chances of any compromise being too far in the less privileged groups favour is pretty small...

(*)Come to think of it, I don't think there even needs to be an inequality: it is impossible for one group of people to fully understand the experience and needs of another different group, and so it is vitally important that there is as much consultation and equal representation as possible in the decision making process and avenues of power. (Thus, democracy) But when there is a power imbalance this effect is magnified.

Comments

[gyges-ring.livejournal.com]

I know I disagree with you in general terms about what precisely constitutes an -ism, but I'm really...uncomfortable about this axiom (not in the "this disturbs my power" way, more in the "there is no way this will end well" way). I think that it's either a truism (in asmuch as you can never be sure of another person's intentions in any form), in which case it cuts both ways and isn't confined to the powerful groups (or groups at all), or else it's very...epistemically unsound.

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, I think we have incompatible views on the nature of..stuff which go well beyond the specifics of -isms. Something I didn't make at all clear in this post(*) is that I do wonder how much of this feeling "logical" comes from my semi socialist upbringing and the fact that much of the social justice movement also has a socialist background. That's definitely where my understanding of the nature and responsibilities of power comes from. (Which is ironic, since this post was partly inspired by an annoying guy ranting about how anyone who focusses on race is an elitist classist (and racist))

If you can explain why you think it's flawed in words of one syllable so I can understand your argument I would be interested, since I don't like the idea of of having mental blindspots.

(*)About half an hour after writing it I thwapped myself for forgetting I was still in "Emotionally unstable tactless stressed, the internet is for lurking" mode

I'm still feeling this out in my head, but...

[gyges-ring.livejournal.com]

In a broad sense, I think that the issue of being just unable to understand the perspectives of other people has a long history in Western philosophy, and is very convincing because of that. Cartesian dualism, and all that jazz. It has well defined Issues, that don't really get a lot of talking space outside of Philosophy of Mind. Not the least of which is language. I'll assume that you're onboard with talking about -isms as a dialogue, but I think it's worth nothing that the Private Language argument, if successful, does seem to more than suggest that have things in a dialogue that are only understood by one party (in this case a group), and completely alien to the other, is fundamentally bizarre. [This probably needs a lot better spelling out. Particularly because I think there may also be issues with the use of the term 'intentions' if it's implied that you may not understand other people that well. If you grant the existence of private experiences, then it's really an open question of "and how do you know what their intentions are?"]

The other side-point is that I have real personal doubts about people's understanding of their own experiences. While it seems stange to have an "well, actually, that's not what you're feeling" attitude, I'm pretty certain that a lot of the time other people can and do have better ideas of my experiences and mental state than I do. So I'm at best ambivalent about the inability of other people to judge what is best for me, and this extends outwards into a general ambivalence about the capacity of one group to judge what is best for another.

The other aspect I'm uncomfortable with, I think, is the idea of blindspots, because I think I've argued this on your journal before, but I think that either privilege doesn't or can't work like that, and still retain it's function as in power discussions. A simple exemplar would be, for instance, formal education as a white privilege. I think that's a good example of what a privilege could be. And I also think that anyone who argues that education is something that intrinsically makes other people less comprehensible is horribly wrong.* In a looser sense, it becomes even stranger, because if you take privilege (as I think it's used, not defined) and the above axiom, I think you end up in a situation where the only people with understanding have no power to act (and so can't), and the only people with power to act have no understanding (and so can't). While it can be hedged to some degree, I think that the ideas ultimately compel the conclusion that nothing will ever change, except by historical accident.

*On a side-note to this one, I remember reading an article a while ago about how fantastic it is that rich people have currently stopped caring about the suffering of victims of various illnesses, and are instead starting to set up foundations that aim at getting value for money in treating diseases, and consequently are potentially improving the lives of vastly more people. I've always though of it as an interesting class thing where the standard complaint is that the rich don't understand value and how they live in a different world, whereas if it's actually quantified in some way apart from passionate moral indignation, it may actually turn out in some cases that the people who understand best how money works are the people who have the mentality given by 'privilege' of dealing with Really Large amounts of it.

Re: I'm still feeling this out in my head, but...

[alias_sqbr]

things in a dialogue that are only understood by one party (in this case a group), and completely alien to the other

In a looser sense, it becomes even stranger, because if you take privilege (as I think it's used, not defined) and the above axiom, I think you end up in a situation where the only people with understanding have no power to act (and so can't), and the only people with power to act have no understanding (and so can't).

Yes, I wrote the post a bit too black-and-white, when the real situation is more complicated. See my discussion with strangedave below.

ataxi brought up some counterarguments to your arguments (in a comment to me, which was an interesting choice :))

On the whole: My understanding of history and my own life has shown me multiple examples of the ways in which people in a position of power either deliberately or inadvertently use that power to support their own position and belittle or undermine the desires and experiences of those beneath them. Even when they/we are making an effort to fix the problem the decisions we make are oversimplified and flawed in a very particular way.

If your experience and reading etc has not given you that impression I'm not really placed to argue against you (though I'm sure you could find someone who could) and I think we are viewing the world in very different ways. It may be impossible for us to convince each other of much though we can still poke holes in each other arguments where they're inconsistent or disagree with those facts/interpretations we do agree on.

That said: as several commenters have pointed out, the fact that people in power make particular sorts of mistakes of judgement doesn't stop those with less power from making different sorts of mistakes in judgement, such as those made form a lack of education/experience with power etc. So dialogue/compromise may end up with a better (albeit still flawed) result than just giving power to the powerless in a simplistic way.

And I also think that anyone who argues that education is something that intrinsically makes other people less comprehensible is horribly wrong

I have actually noticed a tendency in well educated people (myself included) to have trouble relating to less educated people in certain ways. I certainly have trouble understanding how anyone can not understand ideas about racism which I found pretty incomprehensible a few years ago. Also there's the tendency to assume that everyone had the same opportunities of education and so that level of knowledge is directly correlated to level of intelligence.

Which is not to say that education is bad! And on the whole it can give a better understanding of other people on average. But like everything it has it's downsides and they need to be acknowledged and where possible adjusted for.

[gyges-ring.livejournal.com]

The problem with education I’ve always had is that I have trouble relating well to educated people. Or educated people of certain varieties. I get less educated pretty well, because I can understand pretty why people wouldn’t or couldn’t learn a lot of things. (I, for instance, am woefully under-educated in electrical engineering, and will never be a carpenter). Education is (or can be) hard. But it’s when I run up against people with similar backgrounds to me that it gets strange, because then I let my assumptions run free, and I think things like “well, I know I’m a fairly ignorant person, but this is an argument about race, between people with an intellectual background that is similar to, or better than mine. So of course they’ve read DuBois, and they own Gilroy, and they’ve can quote Said, and they’re familiar with that article in Race Traitor, and they’ve been inspired by Roy’s speeches, and they get the Marxist critique of Garcia. And then they’ve gone further. Because, I mean, it’s an argument about race between educated people.” And it trips me up really badly, because they’re not really valid assumptions to make, because well educated can mean completely different things, even within the same general field, and so I get caught out by my understanding of people I superficially think of as relevantly like me.

[alias_sqbr]

I think things like “well, I know I’m a fairly ignorant person, but this is an argument about race, between people with an intellectual background that is similar to, or better than mine. So of course they’ve read DuBois, and they own Gilroy...

Really? I hadn't noticed that at ALL.

:D

But yes, I do the same thing with maths/science (well, not quite as much, I would say, but sometimes). Come to think of it, I also do it with the humanities, since I don't have any formal training but am moderately well educated in some areas (and quite ignorant in others) I'm still constantly surprised at how little Cam knows about Shakespeare and the Bible etc since he wasn't brought up on that stuff.

[oliverm.livejournal.com]

While I acknowledge the general point, I think your implication that inequality needs to be fixed solely or dominantly by the group that is suffering discrimination is not always ideal. While it is obviously important to understand their concerns (and I concede the point that it is practically impossible for someone not in that position to genuinely understand), this scenario can quickly lead to the kind of situation in Zimbabwe (yes that is an extreme case, and there are a variety of causes).

Of course being white, male, straight, agnostic, middle class and university educated I fully acknowledge that I don't "get it" with discrimination (the closest I have to otherness is vegetarianism, which is far from the same thing). Having said that I do try to engage others' viewpoints, and the fact that I have many friends that are female, PoC, GLBT, atheist or very religious means I figure I'm not completely on the wrong track.

[alias_sqbr]

I'm inclined to think that Zimbabwe is more an example of a single bad leader ruining a country after getting himself so ensconced it's difficult for good people to oust him. Which is a related issue I guess but not the same thing.

But a better example of your point is South Africa, for a start afaict elections aren't rigged like the ones in Zimbabwe so it's not unreasonable to see the leaders as representing the people's wishes.

And this sort of mess is an example of where my axiom breaks down. Because there are situations where it is not helpful to just let a group have complete autonomy all at once (or in some cases ever). I really don't feel I know enough to be comfortable saying What Went Wrong with South Africa (though obviously it has a lot to do with apartheid and colonialism etc) but as strangedave points out below in general when one group has a monopoly on power this means they also have a monopoly on experience and training with dealing with power, and often on education etc.

This does not mean we should throw our hands in the air and say "Well, its unfair but I guess they should keep the power" (and I'm sure you don't think that!) But it does mean that giving power to the less powerful has to be approached in a more careful mutual-dialogue way than just giving them the reins and hoping for the best.

Another group that occurred to me after writing were the mentally disabled, children etc. They're not really in a position to completely decide their own fate, but are just as prone to being ignored/misunderstood as anyone else. So the only option ends up being a flawed compromise between autonomy and being controlled :/

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

I think it's fairly clear that involvement from all sides is necessary. Everyone has an interest to maintain, and if the group with more power feels that a movement goes against their best interest, they will act to oppose it - and they have the power to do so. If the powerful group is brought onside, they can use their power to enact change.

However, I do agree that the path of change must be determined by those in the less powerful group. A powerful group taking control will certainly run off the rails.

[alias_sqbr]

Agreed.

[aphephobia.livejournal.com]

Hello, here via a friend.

What I'm seeing more of, and what pisses me off, more than the idea of privileged groups trying to run the movement to stop the privilege, is people from privileged groups getting their noses out of joint when someone from the non-privileged group points out that something is sexist/racist/offensive.

PARTICULARLY if they're all, "I'm in support of diversity/human rights" and then you point out that something they enjoy as a result of their privilege is trampling on someone else's rights, and suddenly it's not the not-privileged, it's the straight white educated men going, "You're meeean/being unfair/too PC//too stupid to understand that this isn't offensive."

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, yes. As well as being willing to take a backseat, acknowledging yourself as part of the problem is a hugely important aspect of being an ally and something that a LOT of "allies" really haven't taken on board.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Ayayay ... I'm becoming increasingly cynical vis-a-vis these issues day by day. Your general point is well taken, I guess. Some big questions do arise in my mind.

If you're going to discuss how best to organise political movements, what are your criteria for evaluating them? Presumably, how successful they would be in achieving their goals.

But if they could be set up almost well enough to almost guarantee they would succeed, wouldn't merely setting them up be tantamount to achieving those goals? So shouldn't we be discussing how best to set up the movement that sets up these likely-to-succeed movements ... and then oh shit recursion?

(Or more boldly, isn't it possible that as a non-POC, your public theorising about how to set up an antiracist movement is actually "running" antiracism in and of itself, even if your conclusion is that POC should run the movement? Does that mean your conclusion can't be trusted?)

Likewise if there is to be a power structure within a political movement aimed at altering the power structure without that same movement, how would one go about ensuring the justice of that internal power structure that perhaps is not inclined to rigorously subject itself to its own critiques? (Zimbabwe?)

Regardless of where you draw the line there seems to be a need for some verifiable, trustable entity deemed "external" to the "system" to draw it. And I'm not sure that entity exists. In fact, given the variation in individual experiences, all group-based politics are approximate by definition, and if as you suggest there is no perfect communication of experience, even of closely shared experience, it strikes me that Plato's Revolutionary Committee is made of fail.

Relatedly I have to quibble with gyges_ring above when he says:

"In a looser sense, it becomes even stranger, because if you take privilege (as I think it's used, not defined) and the above axiom, I think you end up in a situation where the only people with understanding have no power to act (and so can't), and the only people with power to act have no understanding (and so can't)."

Let's leave aside one rather obvious criticism of this line of thought, that almost all types of formal education don't remotely equip the student for political action, and another, that it is obvious that there are very important things one learns (or equally does not learn) outside the scope of formal education.

We seem to be alive at a very bad time as far as trusting the predictive ability of any sort of formal education is concerned. Certainly we are currently suffering from the signal failures of the most highly educated political strategists, economists, military people and sociologists to predict outcomes in war, the market and society, and meanwhile in the sciences we are more than ever aware of the essential intractability, incomputability, even of those problems we can model -- such as the weather -- let alone those we can't!

Not that I'm against "asking the experts". But at least as far as the social issues are concerned -- the racism, the sexism et al. -- maybe the best thing to do is not to formulate a top-down theory of how to "fix" the "problem"* (which is really a whole heap of local problems anyway) based on vague data about the general case, but to cobble together a local response to the local problems about which you have much more specific data, based on your own ideas.

(I realise this comment is all very "OMG there is no absolute truth nor any means of formulating a true proposition!" and "we're awash in a sea of impenetrable information!" but I hope it's not entirely jejeune. I am totally unconvinced that there are any political changes that do not, as gyges_ring suggests, in some sense occur as mere historical accident, or at least as the machine of humanity grinds on chaotically.)

* which, incidentally, remains very ill-defined throughout this discussion, not that I want to get into the old chestnuts about what "inequality" really means and when we might consider it to have been "fixed".

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

*jejune

It's almost as if "cobble together a local response to the local problems about which you have much more specific data, based on your own ideas" describes what you, alias_sqbr are actually doing -- or at least it seems pretty similar. Are you sure you need your dearest-held principles to have a more universal applicability than to your LJ flist?

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that sounded incredibly patronising. I did not mean to suggest that your political views will never make it beyond LJ (that'd be me, these days). What I mean to say is: if one's politics have a certain sphere of influence, does any aspect of them dealing with things outside that sphere of influence actually matter?

[alias_sqbr]

I have a feeling I'm not quite getting your point but I'll make a stab at responding to what I am getting and hopefully not be too far off.

Or more boldly, isn't it possible that as a non-POC, your public theorising about how to set up an antiracist movement is actually "running" antiracism in and of itself, even if your conclusion is that POC should run the movement? Does that mean your conclusion can't be trusted?

Yes. Of course there are two options here: I'm right, or I'm wrong, and thus can be trusted as much as anyone else :D But certainly I would hope anyone reading this who agrees with me would then go see what actual POC are saying (and while I've found several who think racism is less of a big deal than I do etc, afaict they still all thought their opinions on race were more significant than mine)

Also I think axiom was too strong a word: good general rule only to be ignored under extreme circumstances is better. Any decision involving people is going to be messy and flawed whatever ideas the decision is based on.

And yes, as several people have pointed out, there are many examples of organised groups of people on the bottom end of a power dichomotmy going Very Bad. Then again, I quite deliberately didn't say, for example, that anti-racism should ONLY be run by POC, just that it should be mainly run by them, and I think there are situations where outsiders do have to step in. But it should be done very very carefully and with as much consultation and dialogue as possible. strangedave said some worthwhile things on the subject downthread.

As to whether or not anyone can ever effect broad scale social change, or if we should just work on our local pockets where we have most control and understanding: I like to think we can. And if we can't it doesn't hurt to try. I agree that working on a local scale is often the most effective option. It is, afaict, the main thing POC say to do in the few cases anyone asks :)

Something I haven't made clear is that the two most significant driving factors in me writing about racism etc on my blog are (a) getting it straight in my head to help me deal with this stuff in "real life" better and (b) Encouraging discussion and understanding in my "local community" ie fandom (both Perth fandom and internet fandom) So yes, it is what I'm doing.

if one's politics have a certain sphere of influence, does any aspect of them dealing with things outside that sphere of influence actually matter?

Given how varied my flist is (a good quarter of them are american I would say) and the variety of situations in which I find myself (perth fandom, work, international fandom, voting on national and international issues, etc) I need a fairly flexible framework.

But there's a reason that when gyges_ring brought up Europe in another thread I tried to change the subject: while it might be useful to have a decent understanding of european racism it's not something I need very urgently, and since very few europeans read my blog it's not something my posts are designed to specifically deal with. I don't much point in angsting about whether or not my ideas apply very well there as long as I'm willing to admit ignorance when it comes up rather than applying them rigidly.

But that said: I am at heart still a pure mathematician. I like my axioms to apply universally, it's more elegant :D

[alias_sqbr]

I would hope anyone reading this who agrees with me would then go see what actual POC are saying (and while I've found several who think racism is less of a big deal than I do etc, afaict they still all thought their opinions on race were more significant than mine)

nb in case anyone else comes across this, for the sake of full transparency here is a POC who thinks white people's opinions are just as worth listening to as their own. I thought about disagreeing but decided the logical paradox was too much for me :)

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I take what you are saying completely. It is very easy for privilege to distort information about the disempowered, and the only way to overcome that problem is to directly listen to those who lack it.

But the more powerful group is the one with the power. And the issue works both ways -- it is often difficult for those who lack privilege to see the issue from the point of view of the privilieged.

If you're white, and the only people who agree with your opinions on race are white, and most POC think differently? Then no matter how well educated and well meaning you are, and how many other educated well meaning white people agree, you are probably wrong.

But if you are in a group with little access to power, and the only people who agree with you are in the disempowered group? Then no matter how well educated and well meaning you are, you have a lack of power, and what you think probably won't actually matter, because the people who believe it are disempowered.

I take your point -- listen to the people who are at the pointy end of the problem, not the concerned bystanders.

Unfortunately, in practice, it can easily lead to problems. If you alienate most of the people with power from your movement by telling them they cannot be trusted, it is a disaster. And if you cut out of the dialogue those people who are from the empowered group, but have actually already spent a lot of time consulting and learning, you make things harder for yourself for no reason -- especially as those people who have a significant understanding of the perspective of both the empowered and disempowered groups are only able to provide significant insights not available to those who only see half the picture. The disempowered are uniquely equipped to understand the perceived problem, but they are not uniquely equipped to find the best solutions.

In particular, those who are familiar with obtaining and wielding power are in the best position to know how it is most effectively used, often much more so than those unfamiliar with obtaining and wielding power. In a modern social democracy, obtaining and wielding power is a very complex activity.

So, sure, people in power need to consult with the disempowered group, and consult regularly and widely and with an open mind if they are to do the right thing. But it is easy to overstate or overapply this rule and cause disaster for a movement. You have to always remember that the issue works both ways, and the privileged also have insights the non-privileged lack, and dialogue is always better than a one way conversation.

[alias_sqbr]

You know I was just thinking I'd been a bit simplistic and needed to say something about the need for compromise, and there you are you've said it for me :)

I mean unfortunately when a group is for some reason ill equipped to decide their own fate what happens is that everyone's approaches are flawed and there needs to be a lot of discussion and compromise. I remember worrying about this deeply as a child since I knew I didn't understand the world as well as adults, but also felt our voices were dismissed.

And people who have power/money/education do have knowledge which those who do not, do not. So yes, it does get complicated.

This post was written from/to the POV of the privileged group but I agree about your points on the need for people within less privileged groups to dialogue and compromise (not everyone does of course, but personally I've never been a big fan of the really radical "knock it all down and build it from scratch" approach to politics etc)

dialogue is always better than a one way conversation

In short: Yes.