This is the first in a occasional series where I shall argue against a post, blog or article, or comment thereof, that I find to be particularly unhelpful, untrue or offensive. I have indexed my comments in bold.
Taken from here.
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"Oppressed groups are the ones who define their experience of oppression and how they resist it"
Actually, nobody gets to do that (1). At least they don't without accounting for it. You certainly don't get to define yourself as part of an 'oppressed group' and then to grant yourself every freedom by virtue of that self-definition. (2) You are accountable for every claim you make and every action you take. You must justify it all. I don't care who you are. You are accountable to me. (3) However, I am likewise accountable to you. (4)
I don't want or need a free ride, so you don't get one either. (5) You are entitled as a human being to have your person respected. You owe the same obligation to every other human being. (6) You are owed nothing else. No claim you make is privileged in any way whatsoever. (7)
There is a great quote from Dostoyevsky, which is written on a plaque outside the ICRC headquarters in Geneva. It reads: -
"Everyone is responsible for everyone and to everyone for everything" (8)
This is the obligation you are owed and you OWE on equal terms to everyone else. (9)
I don't adopt a supportive role for anyone except on the basis of something concrete and verifiable. I wouldn't do a single thing for you on the hearsay of some self-defintion and what it implies. That would be to hand over responsibility for my actions, and I won't do that. Only a dishonest person would ask it of anyone.(10)
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My comments:
(1) Actually, scholars, academics and people from the oppressed groups are the only ones who get to do that. If the rest of us don't like it, we can not allow work into peer reviewed journals, but if these experiences are real I'm afraid you just have to accept it.
(2) Define every freedom. If you mean basic human rights, everyone should get that. And as for consideration of people's under-privilege, why would you not want to give people that? Would you not open a door for someone in a wheelchair?
(3) Clearly stated, and clearly untrue. The corrupt police officer, the safety inspector on the take, the MP fiddling expenses claims, war criminal claiming he's too ill to stand trial for his crimes and living out his days in comfort, the big corporation CEO knowingly avoiding or evading taxes, they're examples of people who are quite plainly NOT being held accountable for their actions. Your idea may be a good ideal, but that doesn't mean it's actually true.
(4) Really? I don't think so. You could do any number of nasty things right now and I'd probably never get to hear about it...pulling off a fly's wings...let down your neighbour's tyres...Oh wait, you wrote this comment.
(5) The causality linkage here sounds like you're kicking those beneath you on the ladder. The cruel boss passing down the pain rather than standing up for his workers.
(6) Wow thanks. The first bit of sense.
(7) Uh-oh, the bollocks is back again. A blatantly untrue statement. So, duty of care doesn't exist? And tell "nothing you say is privileged in any way" to the black woman refused a job in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics when she is equally qualified to her white male peers. Or to the poor person told to buy a new school uniform for their kids because they look scruffy. Or to the disabled person who went to a party only to find they couldn't get in because the ableist planner didn't think of adding wheelchair access to the venue. What nonsense.
(8) Hmm...Yes the communist ideal. As a lefty liberal I would support it, only it doesn't really work. Look at the governments of the old USSR, and of China, and North Korea and how they treated and still treat people. And as for Dostoyevsky, I don't know much about him but it seems he was a utopian Christian gambler, well the Christian part doesn't give me much hope.
(9) How you can just claim his doctrines are gospel is beyond me, especially ones that are demonstrably untrue. But what else could I expect from a Dostoyevsky fanboy?
(10) And here we have it. The Kyriarchy denier is revealed in all his "glory". Is it just me or could these last 3 sentences be rewritten as 1. "don't listen to people's problems", 2. "I have no confidence in my own ability to tell when I'm being duped (probably because I have no empathy)" and 3. "don't trust anyone"? Some people are just too kind, aren't they?
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