gillpolack @ 2013-08-21T08:16:00
Yesterday I took time out to see Elysium. There were things that I liked about it and things I didn't, but I'm all discussed out. I'm mostly discussed out because of the roles of women in the film and because of some of the judgements made about culture and advantage in the film. It's like a giant political poster. I would have liked something a bit more nuanced, I think, but it's an action film and so my feeling is mostly wishfulness. Mostly. There's one side of my feeling that is anger at our current zeitgeist.
I wrote a long, long explanation of some tweets I got yesterday. They were antisemitic and I found myself explaining why.
It's better to look bullies in the face, but sometimes it's not possible to do this. I used to talk very publicly and directly about these issues. I stopped because, when I was trying to explain my PTSD to those who asked, some assumed that any attack on me or on people I knew were my fault, because I was Jewish.
Every time I think about it, I go into rant mode and have to pull myself up, because in our current world, we're laying that kind of blame far more easily than we have. Nevertheless, lack of physical safety is not something I want to experience again. I'm conflicted.
In this one instance, the bullies have won (temporarily).
They've won because of the reactions of some people who should know better, not just the "it's your fault" mob, but the occasional person who thinks it's a good idea to play mindgames or get involved in a theoretical argument about these things. And it's the fault of a public language that is accusatory and of anyone who doesn't question the group mentality.
It's not enough to question the insults hurled at people we know (Zionists, in this particular instance- I do happen to know some Zionists and they have nothing in common with the people mentioned in that tweet) but we also need to question those hurled at people who we think are not like us. Recently I've seen a vast number of tweets hurled at whites and at feminists, because apparently it's OK to hate as long as one hates from a position of suffering.
This hate blinds us to the suffering of others, but it also makes me very unhappy. How can I open a dialogue with people who hate me for the colour of my skin, for being a feminist, for my religion, for my fiends' politics, for being an SF fan, for being an historian? I have done this by mostly ignoring the hate (because it doesn't start with these people - the labels are the product of very complex history) and looking through to the person hurling those accusations and finding out who they are and what they're like. Most of them are very wonderful human beings who are doing good work. Their goodness is obscured by this accusatory, nasty environment.
I wonder if it's a product of the need to be brief? On a texting and twitter culture. I think that's a factor. It's not the whole thing, however. I'm hitting the visible iceberg, but there's a vast and complex remainder of that iceberg just out of sight.
This is not a good time and place to be different. So many people are scared, even if they have no need to be. Some of them are defending Castle Privilege with all the insults in their vocabulary.
I think the quick spillover into long screeds on my blog is due to a new factor in my life. In all our lives. Elysium picked up on it. It's easier to react in an extreme fashion right now. It's easier to hate. It's easier to love. It's easier to forget that the person standing opposite us is just like us: a human being.
It always has been far easier to assign something nasty to a group, when, really, it's the individual you should be hating. The tweet demonstrated that Rupert Murdoch may well be a bigot, but it also demonstrated that the writer of the tweet is undoubtedly one. I find this impossibly sad. I have spent so much of my life unravelling hate, and now we get a simple change of times and it's starting at the very beginning.
I can't help my friends deal with the bigotry against them if I'm drowning in bigotry against me. These attitudes don't grow in isolation. We need to tackle them together.
I wrote a long, long explanation of some tweets I got yesterday. They were antisemitic and I found myself explaining why.
It's better to look bullies in the face, but sometimes it's not possible to do this. I used to talk very publicly and directly about these issues. I stopped because, when I was trying to explain my PTSD to those who asked, some assumed that any attack on me or on people I knew were my fault, because I was Jewish.
Every time I think about it, I go into rant mode and have to pull myself up, because in our current world, we're laying that kind of blame far more easily than we have. Nevertheless, lack of physical safety is not something I want to experience again. I'm conflicted.
In this one instance, the bullies have won (temporarily).
They've won because of the reactions of some people who should know better, not just the "it's your fault" mob, but the occasional person who thinks it's a good idea to play mindgames or get involved in a theoretical argument about these things. And it's the fault of a public language that is accusatory and of anyone who doesn't question the group mentality.
It's not enough to question the insults hurled at people we know (Zionists, in this particular instance- I do happen to know some Zionists and they have nothing in common with the people mentioned in that tweet) but we also need to question those hurled at people who we think are not like us. Recently I've seen a vast number of tweets hurled at whites and at feminists, because apparently it's OK to hate as long as one hates from a position of suffering.
This hate blinds us to the suffering of others, but it also makes me very unhappy. How can I open a dialogue with people who hate me for the colour of my skin, for being a feminist, for my religion, for my fiends' politics, for being an SF fan, for being an historian? I have done this by mostly ignoring the hate (because it doesn't start with these people - the labels are the product of very complex history) and looking through to the person hurling those accusations and finding out who they are and what they're like. Most of them are very wonderful human beings who are doing good work. Their goodness is obscured by this accusatory, nasty environment.
I wonder if it's a product of the need to be brief? On a texting and twitter culture. I think that's a factor. It's not the whole thing, however. I'm hitting the visible iceberg, but there's a vast and complex remainder of that iceberg just out of sight.
This is not a good time and place to be different. So many people are scared, even if they have no need to be. Some of them are defending Castle Privilege with all the insults in their vocabulary.
I think the quick spillover into long screeds on my blog is due to a new factor in my life. In all our lives. Elysium picked up on it. It's easier to react in an extreme fashion right now. It's easier to hate. It's easier to love. It's easier to forget that the person standing opposite us is just like us: a human being.
It always has been far easier to assign something nasty to a group, when, really, it's the individual you should be hating. The tweet demonstrated that Rupert Murdoch may well be a bigot, but it also demonstrated that the writer of the tweet is undoubtedly one. I find this impossibly sad. I have spent so much of my life unravelling hate, and now we get a simple change of times and it's starting at the very beginning.
I can't help my friends deal with the bigotry against them if I'm drowning in bigotry against me. These attitudes don't grow in isolation. We need to tackle them together.
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