I still remember that one day in 8th grade when my 1st-hour class teacher (and mind you, that was Algebra!) posted this quote on the smart board: "no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."
Thank you Lidija for this powerful post . The deflecting of responsibility and participation as humans of this world in “doing something “ causes me the most angst . Head in the sand responses to obvious horror and genocide baffle and confound me . There are so
Many of us - and apathy is not ok . The fairy tale propaganda continues to leech into our worlds - and the “me first” attitudes prevail in our Western comfort wombs. So much appreciation and gratitude for artists and writers like yourself who shift the narrative and speak up for what matters !!
Right? I feel I am surrounded by what I would like to think are ‘good people’, but most of them seem to range from complete denial (‘no no no, the West has moral values, we would never be attacking someone for no reason!!’) to weird bothsideism (‘Well yeah this is too much, but what can you do? There are terrorists there!’) to sad but helpless (‘oh it’s HORRIBLE!! But what can I do?’). It’s really dispiriting.
It’s been especially jarring since Harris took the nomination, how many people went from ‘hey Democrats! You’re out of line!’ To ‘wow Cool Aunt and Nice Dad!! Yay let’s make politics joyful again!!!’ and literally shushing people who still criticize.
Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." I think he wasn’t far oglff the mark.
I'm glad you keep pushing this. What is happening to Palestinians is endlessly horrifying. Israel was born of terrorism and has, for its entire existence, been a terrorist state. All the world knows it except for the US and its vassals.
Thanks Lidija for raising brutally honest and necessary questions and taking ACTION, i.e. writing thoughtfully and clearly to fuel this nuanced discussion which I resonate so much with, especially when think back in my decades of frustrating rights advocacy work.
Thank you Sharon! That means a lot coming from someone who has invested her life into this very fight!!
I think part of my understanding that you just have to do something comes from my history of growing up in a country where things were getting so abysmal that protest was literally a question of survival. It’s harder in countries where the threats people face aren’t so viscerally existential. They think they can lie low and everything will just blow over without them. But it won’t. The bad stuff never stops unless we literally demand it. They don’t draw the line - we do. They will always keep pushing against it.
I think that's one of the biggest problems here in the US; the majority of people have never had to confront the reality of both how precarious our privilege is, and what it costs the rest of the world for us to maintain that systemic dillusion.
Wow. This is perfect. This has been my train of thought for a while as well, but you articulated it so much more clearly than what's been rattling in my brain.
And this is the most perfect of all: "There is a huge danger in building a mystical, glorified image of ‘your true self’ in your head that is fundamentally untouched by the reality of your daily behavior."
One thought I have regarding your beginning, in which you talk about the voices of marginalized people: I agree 100%. That being said, what I have seen in my years as a social justice activist is that we (as a culture) tend to perceive privilege and oppression as a binary, and as a dichotomy, to the degree that the concept of intersectionality tends to really confuse most people, beyond the elementary math of adding up how many marginalized groups each person belongs to. But the majority of us are marginalized in one way or another. And almost all of us who are marginalized in one or more ways are also privileged in one or more ways. It's really important, in terms of deciding for ourselves where and how we have an ethical obligation to act, is to acknowledge our places of privilege as much as our places of marginalization. It's a tricky thing, many times to sort out when we have privilege we could leverage in service of liberatory change, and when we are actually serving the greater good more effectively by stepping back, maybe even resting, and trust others to do the work of the moment. This is really difficult more often than not, and it can be confusing and exhausting. But it's necessary because, as the saying goes, none of us are liberated until we all are.
For sure. People find it weirdly hard to admit to privilege. It always strikes me how much privilege we carry by being white and fluent in English, so basically western-passing, even though we come from the crappiest corner of Europe and are immigrants. But no one will ever shout ‘go home!!’ at me in passing, because I look like I might be from here.
I am thinking a lot these days about activism and how many things we try to do and how much they actually achieve, and are there other things we should rather focus on. It feels like a lot of activism is the rah-rah kind where nothing really changes at the end, but also social change is hard so maybe that’s just how it has to go… I do find though that a lot of people have an image of themselves as really great people without ever asking themselves whether that has to be backed up by some sort of actual behavior.
It reminds me a little of ‘nice guys’, who believe they should be getting women’s attention just because they’re ‘nice’ and don’t behave like jerks, in their opinion. But when asked ok but what do you actually bring to the relationship? Like what are your qualities? They basically don’t understand the question. Like, ‘not a jerk’ is not a personality. ‘Not outright evil’ is not a personality. Doesn’t kick puppies’ isn’t a good person. These things should be the baseline, we should all be building upon them.
Totally. Like I won’t say intention doesn’t count for anything. But it certainly doesn’t count for more than the actual impact of your actions. And especially if it’s repeated over and over. ‘I didn’t know!!’ You made it your MISSION not to know.
I still remember that one day in 8th grade when my 1st-hour class teacher (and mind you, that was Algebra!) posted this quote on the smart board: "no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."
This is such a great way to illustrate this point!
Thank you Lidija for this powerful post . The deflecting of responsibility and participation as humans of this world in “doing something “ causes me the most angst . Head in the sand responses to obvious horror and genocide baffle and confound me . There are so
Many of us - and apathy is not ok . The fairy tale propaganda continues to leech into our worlds - and the “me first” attitudes prevail in our Western comfort wombs. So much appreciation and gratitude for artists and writers like yourself who shift the narrative and speak up for what matters !!
Right? I feel I am surrounded by what I would like to think are ‘good people’, but most of them seem to range from complete denial (‘no no no, the West has moral values, we would never be attacking someone for no reason!!’) to weird bothsideism (‘Well yeah this is too much, but what can you do? There are terrorists there!’) to sad but helpless (‘oh it’s HORRIBLE!! But what can I do?’). It’s really dispiriting.
It’s been especially jarring since Harris took the nomination, how many people went from ‘hey Democrats! You’re out of line!’ To ‘wow Cool Aunt and Nice Dad!! Yay let’s make politics joyful again!!!’ and literally shushing people who still criticize.
Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." I think he wasn’t far oglff the mark.
I'm glad you keep pushing this. What is happening to Palestinians is endlessly horrifying. Israel was born of terrorism and has, for its entire existence, been a terrorist state. All the world knows it except for the US and its vassals.
Oh the US recognizes it alright. Game recognizes game.
They know it, but they don't "recognize" it. My poor choice of words.
Exactly!
Thanks Lidija for raising brutally honest and necessary questions and taking ACTION, i.e. writing thoughtfully and clearly to fuel this nuanced discussion which I resonate so much with, especially when think back in my decades of frustrating rights advocacy work.
Thank you Sharon! That means a lot coming from someone who has invested her life into this very fight!!
I think part of my understanding that you just have to do something comes from my history of growing up in a country where things were getting so abysmal that protest was literally a question of survival. It’s harder in countries where the threats people face aren’t so viscerally existential. They think they can lie low and everything will just blow over without them. But it won’t. The bad stuff never stops unless we literally demand it. They don’t draw the line - we do. They will always keep pushing against it.
I think that's one of the biggest problems here in the US; the majority of people have never had to confront the reality of both how precarious our privilege is, and what it costs the rest of the world for us to maintain that systemic dillusion.
Yep. There’s the hopeful feeling that if we lay low enough, the Bad Shit will forever keep happening to Someone Else.
Wow. This is perfect. This has been my train of thought for a while as well, but you articulated it so much more clearly than what's been rattling in my brain.
And this is the most perfect of all: "There is a huge danger in building a mystical, glorified image of ‘your true self’ in your head that is fundamentally untouched by the reality of your daily behavior."
One thought I have regarding your beginning, in which you talk about the voices of marginalized people: I agree 100%. That being said, what I have seen in my years as a social justice activist is that we (as a culture) tend to perceive privilege and oppression as a binary, and as a dichotomy, to the degree that the concept of intersectionality tends to really confuse most people, beyond the elementary math of adding up how many marginalized groups each person belongs to. But the majority of us are marginalized in one way or another. And almost all of us who are marginalized in one or more ways are also privileged in one or more ways. It's really important, in terms of deciding for ourselves where and how we have an ethical obligation to act, is to acknowledge our places of privilege as much as our places of marginalization. It's a tricky thing, many times to sort out when we have privilege we could leverage in service of liberatory change, and when we are actually serving the greater good more effectively by stepping back, maybe even resting, and trust others to do the work of the moment. This is really difficult more often than not, and it can be confusing and exhausting. But it's necessary because, as the saying goes, none of us are liberated until we all are.
For sure. People find it weirdly hard to admit to privilege. It always strikes me how much privilege we carry by being white and fluent in English, so basically western-passing, even though we come from the crappiest corner of Europe and are immigrants. But no one will ever shout ‘go home!!’ at me in passing, because I look like I might be from here.
I am thinking a lot these days about activism and how many things we try to do and how much they actually achieve, and are there other things we should rather focus on. It feels like a lot of activism is the rah-rah kind where nothing really changes at the end, but also social change is hard so maybe that’s just how it has to go… I do find though that a lot of people have an image of themselves as really great people without ever asking themselves whether that has to be backed up by some sort of actual behavior.
It reminds me a little of ‘nice guys’, who believe they should be getting women’s attention just because they’re ‘nice’ and don’t behave like jerks, in their opinion. But when asked ok but what do you actually bring to the relationship? Like what are your qualities? They basically don’t understand the question. Like, ‘not a jerk’ is not a personality. ‘Not outright evil’ is not a personality. Doesn’t kick puppies’ isn’t a good person. These things should be the baseline, we should all be building upon them.
Yes! I get so tired of the "but I meant well"/"I'm always nice" qualifier as a defense for holding oneself accountable.
Totally. Like I won’t say intention doesn’t count for anything. But it certainly doesn’t count for more than the actual impact of your actions. And especially if it’s repeated over and over. ‘I didn’t know!!’ You made it your MISSION not to know.