Very Fine People Quotes

“People who want to end polarization by listening to both sides say they are doing so because they recognize the debate is a complex one, but listening to only two sides is kids’ stuff. It’s a product of shallow understanding and an immature spirit. Truly open-minded people don’t have time for that. Open-minded people are listening to too many other sides, and aren’t interested in leaving any of those sides out. Open-minded people understand that learning to accommodate all the sides isn’t weak, but strong; not closed, but open. Which is why—if you want unity—you mustn’t treat everyone working together toward the goal of a just and equitable world as an equal “side” to the people who are being active intentional obstacles to that goal. This is what makes people who accept “both sides” framing in the name of “unity” so toxic.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“but it has to be admitted that we have collectively proved ourselves to be even worse—more gleeful in ignorance and cruelty, more toxic in intent, more destructive in action, far more willing to construct vast moats of unawareness between ourselves and the inconveniences of caring about other human beings—than even the most jaded newly awakened fool would have dared believe.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Yes, and what do we mean when we say “we’ve rarely been so polarized,” anyway? What if instead we introduced new ideas? What if instead we said “It’s been a long time since awareness of the reality of injustice has been made so unavoidably present to otherwise comfortable people?” What if instead we said “It’s been a long time since so many people have become so violently resentful of the moral demands of justice?”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Here’s a new idea: There are not two sides, but many. Here’s a new idea: We don’t need to listen to both sides, because we are the sides, multitudinous in number, and we are listening to each other already. Here’s a new idea: The people who refuse to repent of their blamelessness don’t get to be one whole side in a binary. They aren’t allowed to force us all into one side, and then wait for us to beg them for our permission to exist. Both sides? We are the sides. We are the sides. We are the sides.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Think of this respectable modern idea of fighting against polarization on both sides. You know, that great narrative formulation of our modern age: Both sides. The two sides. The only two sides you have to consider. Please, name the two sides. We might use the standard way of looking at “both sides,” which is to frame it around whether or not somebody agrees or disagrees with a proposition. Take gay marriage. You agree with gay marriage. I disagree with it. We are both sides, though neither of us is gay. We might point out that this framing allows two people who are unaffected by a topic to discuss the topic in a way that erases the person directly affected by the harmful proposition—actually takes them completely outside of it, by postulating two sides, and not including the person affected as either of those two sides. We might point out how this advantages a person who wants to keep the harmful proposition in circulation forever. We might therefore postulate that a better way of framing “both sides” would be to view the two sides along lines of “those who are affected” and “those who aren’t affected.” You agree with gay marriage, I disagree, but neither of us have our humanity up for debate. We are one side. And then there are gay people, for whom marriage is a case of being a part of society or being shunned from it. The other side. I think that’s a better framing, for sure. We should use that framing, if only to understand the ways our thinking has been warped by modern “both sides” narratives, and stop treating real toxic ideas that really harm real people as if they are bloodless abstractions that merit debate.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“there are a lot of people who will look at all these events, and their first question isn’t “Oh my God, there is significant danger here to marginalized people! How do we stand with those who are threatened by this rising tide of fascist hate and violence, to surround and protect our friends and neighbors, our siblings and parents, our neighbors all around the world?” The first question asked—really the only question asked, usually—is “Oh my God, there is significant danger here that we would paint these aggressors with too broad a brush, and cast them as irredeemably bad by exposing the things they support and recognizing that they believe the things they say they believe! How do we appeal to their better angels, and establish a path for redemption?”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“all of this is done in service of avoiding repair; all done in service of a worldview that decides every day to enforce a system in which people do not matter if they don’t make profit for others, in which others will never matter simply because of who they are; a world in which repair is seen as theft, in which those who are deemed unworthy are punished for the crime of not mattering, in which those who are punished are blamed for their punishment, and made to pay as much of the higher burden of brokenness as possible, so that a constantly shrinking elect can enjoy the profits.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“I don’t know of any explanatory Christian dogmas that don’t either negotiate away or appropriate Judaism to some degree, and frankly I’m not very comfortable with those dogmas anymore, simply because I am not comfortable at all with any urge to negotiate Judaism away or appropriate it. Even if I wasn’t a Christian, it would seem to me to traffic in antisemitism, but as somebody who claims to follow a Jewish rabbi, negotiating away that rabbi’s religion seems bizarre.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“It wasn’t the Holy Roman Empire yet, because it hadn’t yet made itself Holy, which is something it accomplished by making itself the power center of a religion dedicated to the Jewish rabbi they had murdered, and by revering him without ceasing in any way to be the thing that had killed him, which, again, was a dominant economic and military superpower. This strikes me as a pretty good example of blameless supremacy, come to think of it. Huh.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Surrender is what happens when we agree that only those who work full-time jobs and meet certain qualifying metrics deserve support and care and aid—acquiescing to the supremacist notion that for most people the right to live is connected inexorably to the act of earning it.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Surrender happens when we agree that repair should only be attempted if it generates a profit rather than a cost—which incentivizes supremacists to make sure that any attempt at repair is as costly as possible, and that all brokenness becomes as profitable as possible.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Solidarity is less interested in decreasing polarization, and more interested in where it sets its poles. Solidarity is only interested in a unity that unifies against supremacy and oppression, not one that seeks to unify with it. Solidarity demonstrates to blameless supremacy that its oppression with be met not with appeasement, but with determined opposition. Solidarity teaches those harmed by blameless supremacy that their allies will not abandon them when the cost grows high, which allows them to hopefully trust them as allies rather than rightfully suspect them as enablers.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“We think that the children of supremacists should be well-educated and, if they come to school hungry, should be given food to eat, without having to earn it, or prove that they deserve it for any reason other than the simple fact of their hunger. In solidarity we will, even as we despise a supremacist’s bigotry and the vile lies around which they have organized their lives, not withhold from them the shared, invisible, foundational, generative, automatic, inextricable value that our human system naturally provides them, because we recognize that they are humans, and we recognize that they are art, even if they fail to recognize it themselves. If we enter solidarity, we will recognize the deeper unity of our shared humanity, will recognize that even supremacists are us too, in ways that supremacists, acting from what they call love, cannot ever bring themselves to recognize in others.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“We think that the children of supremacists should be well-educated and, if they come to school hungry, should be given food to eat, without having to earn it, or prove that they deserve it for any reason other than the simple fact of their hunger. In solidarity we will, even as we despise a supremacist’s bigotry and the vile lies around which they have organized their lives, not withhold from them the shared, invisible, foundational, generative, automatic, inextricable value that our human system naturally provides them, because we recognize that they are humans, and we recognize that they are art, even if they fail to recognize it themselves.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“If we enter solidarity, we will not disinherit supremacists of their universal birthright—which is a claim to justice—simply because we know the human spirit they follow to be evil and their beliefs to be malignant and twisted. If a supremacist gets cancer, we will see they are treated without having to worry about cost, just like anyone else. If a supremacist struggles to make ends meet, we will see them with a roof over their heads, enough food in their belly, clean water to drink, and health care that is free at point of delivery. In solidarity we will see that a supremacist’s labor will not be exploited, and ensure that even a supremacist should be able to determine what happens to their bodies, and should not have to worry about how they will live once their bodies become too old to earn money through work. If a supremacist’s evil beliefs lead them to harm others, we in solidarity will see that their physical safety is a chief priority in their apprehension, that their trial is fair, and that their sentence is carried out without violence or retribution or cruelty or exploitation.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“But the accommodation is the supremacy, and our reconciliation with oppressors is the accommodation that makes oppression successful. You’ll know our repentance has been sabotaged, because you’ll find that even very fine people who seem to agree with progressive motion toward repair begin to accept blameless supremacy’s framing: that the way to achieve justice is to run from it, apologize for it, ask for change around the margins of the picture without ever changing the picture itself, without ever thinking to move the frame to allow the entire painting to be viewed.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“And yes, we’re willing to fight about that with some others among us—not because we see ourselves as separate from them, but because we know that even though we’re fighting them, we realize that they are actually us, too . . . and we demand better from ourselves.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“We are still very likely to treat gay or bi or trans or nonbinary, Black or brown, Muslim or Jewish or Sikh or Hindu, or undocumented, or disabled, ill, neuroatypical, impoverished, or unhoused people, and many others, too, as if their lives and dignity don’t exist, or at least don’t matter enough to fight about. But more and more of us are unwilling to do that to them. We are insisting that they are actually our friends and neighbors and parents and siblings—everyone is, because the planet is the neighborhood, and always has been—and that their lives have the same value as ours, and they deserve protection from those of us who would mistreat them as if they were not us, too.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“We are still very likely to treat gay or bi or trans or nonbinary, Black or brown, Muslim or Jewish or Sikh or Hindu, or undocumented, or disabled, ill, neuroatypical, impoverished, or unhoused people, and many others, too, as if their lives and dignity don’t exist, or at least don’t matter enough to fight about. But more and more of us are unwilling to do that to them.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“So, where do you set your poles? Are you opposed only to fights? Or are you actually interested in what people are fighting for? Do you see each fight as an increase in polarization? If so, be honest with yourself about the assumptions you’re aligning with, about who in your world-view is allowed to be we and us and ourselves, and who isn’t.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“many people, who resent the inconvenience of that fight, or who have no stomach for it, experience this strife as polarization. They experience it as being treated as a them for the first time. Even though nobody is trying to disenfranchise them or take away their bodily autonomy or risk their health and welfare, increasingly people are simply no longer willing to date them or debate them or prioritize their comfort above the survival of others.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Yes, and what do we mean when we say “we’ve rarely been so polarized,” anyway? What if instead we introduced new ideas? What if instead we said “It’s been a long time since awareness of the reality of injustice has been made so unavoidably present to otherwise comfortable people?” What if instead we said “It’s been a long time since so many people have become so violently resentful of the moral demands of justice?” Let me suggest something that might seem counterintuitive to many of us, who are used to comfort: At this time of increased strife, we have rarely been less polarized as a country. Am I saying we’re not polarized? Far from it. I’m saying we’re misunderstanding what polarization even is.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“if I were a gay teacher at my elementary school in the eighties, I might have experienced that time as extremely polarizing. There were things that couldn’t be said back then, too. It’s just they were different things than slurs. In those days you couldn’t say things like “actually, I’m gay’” or else you’d be carrying the ball. You’d become “the queer,” and if you wanted to know what that meant for you, you only had to watch the boys playing at recess, or listen to both sides laughing at the press secretary of the president of the United States about tens of thousands of dead gay men. Criticism would be the least of it. Criticism still is the least of it, even in these times that have more protections for and awareness about gay people . . . protections and awareness that are what make us more polarized, as many very fine people will remind us.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“There were real people indicated by the slurs and words we used to use on the playgrounds in the eighties, which we “can’t” say anymore. Perhaps those real people experienced those golden olden times—when those words were given free license and nobody got offended and everyone was much more relaxed—as a more polarizing time than right now, when using those words will at least create some controversy, even if that means there is more visible anger and argument at the dinner tables and on the airwaves now than there was before”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“When you accept the “both sides” framing, the conversation immediately stops being about figuring out how best to honor the essential humanity and basic needs of everyone, and becomes about which people to exclude.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Now realize that this supremacist side, which refuses to participate in humanity—they are habitually framed as one of the two and only two sides that is meant when we say both sides. Really? The people who don’t want to participate in our shared humanity represent half of the entire ideological equation here? If they get their way, and pass all their laws designed to preserve their own blameless supremacy, and pave over the global swimming pool, is it really only one side that loses? Think how much more stagnant “both sides” framing makes us. It takes the gorgeous multifaceted gem of society and smashes it flat. Think of how much we’ll miss. Think of what we’ll fail to learn. Think of how simplistic supremacist arguments are, no matter how complex they make the rationale. Think of the improvement that won’t happen. Think how far behind we’ll fall. Think of the voices we’ll never hear, the accomplishments we’ll never see. Think who will be harmed. Think who will be killed. Think who already has been harmed and killed.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Now realize that this supremacist side, which refuses to participate in humanity—they are habitually framed as one of the two and only two sides that is meant when we say both sides. Really? The people who don’t want to participate in our shared humanity represent half of the entire ideological equation here? If they get their way, and pass all their laws designed to preserve their own blameless supremacy, and pave over the global swimming pool, is it really only one side that loses?”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Think of this respectable modern idea of fighting against polarization on both sides. You know, that great narrative formulation of our modern age: Both sides. The two sides. The only two sides you have to consider. Please, name the two sides. We might use the standard way of looking at “both sides,” which is to frame it around whether or not somebody agrees or disagrees with a proposition. Take gay marriage. You agree with gay marriage. I disagree with it. We are both sides, though neither of us is gay. We might point out that this framing allows two people who are unaffected by a topic to discuss the topic in a way that erases the person directly affected by the harmful proposition—actually takes them completely outside of it, by postulating two sides, and not including the person affected as either of those two sides. We might point out how this advantages a person who wants to keep the harmful proposition in circulation forever. We might therefore postulate that a better way of framing “both sides” would be to view the two sides along lines of “those who are affected” and “those who aren’t affected.” You agree with gay marriage, I disagree, but neither of us have our humanity up for debate. We are one side. And then there are gay people, for whom marriage is a case of being a part of society or being shunned from it. The other side. I think that’s a better framing, for sure. We should use that framing, if only to understand the ways our thinking has been warped by modern “both sides” narratives, and stop treating real toxic ideas that really harm real people as if they are bloodless abstractions that merit debate. But I suspect it’s still the wrong framing. I think the problem is the word both.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“You know, that great narrative formulation of our modern age: Both sides. The two sides. The only two sides you have to consider. Please, name the two sides. We might use the standard way of looking at “both sides,” which is to frame it around whether or not somebody agrees or disagrees with a proposition. Take gay marriage. You agree with gay marriage. I disagree with it. We are both sides, though neither of us is gay. We might point out that this framing allows two people who are unaffected by a topic to discuss the topic in a way that erases the person directly affected by the harmful proposition—actually takes them completely outside of it, by postulating two sides, and not including the person affected as either of those two sides. We might point out how this advantages a person who wants to keep the harmful proposition in circulation forever. We might therefore postulate that a better way of framing “both sides” would be to view the two sides along lines of “those who are affected” and “those who aren’t affected.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People

“Here’s what I think: any compass that does not use as true north a justice founded in love (that is, a justice that ensures the inherent dignity, legal equality, and basic physical and spiritual need of all human beings) will inevitably fail to recognize that people are art. It will arrive at one barbarism or another, in a way that confounds intention, because even a well-intentioned navigator will go to a terrible place if that’s where the compass points. Navigation can be corrected. A course can be adjusted. New paths can be devised to arrive at the correct destination. But if the compass is wrong, the corrections and adjustments will be incorrect, the new path just as wrong as the one before, and the destination will remain a foul one.”
― A.R. Moxon, Very Fine People