I agree that the social commodification of marginality is problematic. But I'd argue that it's the commodification part that's objectionable, not the expression of marginality.
Hi Kier! Have you ever looked into how Social Conditioning/Cult Programming work? It's fascinating stuff. One of the classic recruitment methods for cults is to break down the sense of self. Next you provide a means for the person to re-find their worth inside the group. "You used to be scum, but now you're one of the good ones!" (These first steps are also the basis of "Negging" btw.) This step can also include controlling their outward appearance, making them adopt the physical look, clothing, body modifications, etc of the group. The final step is to turn the person against outsiders by maintaining control of their access to information, "othering" and discrediting rival organizations, and constantly amping them up through emotionally charged language.
It's crazy how well this model fits so much of the online social justice community. And not just them. Right wing media has been doing the same for decades.
Thanks for writing this Keir. Not contributing to the guilt & grievance economy is something I've been trying hard to put into practice irl, to walk the walk so to speak, but to be honest I feel like it can be really hard sometimes to not take advantage of it when you believe it would be for a net good. Like I think my volunteer work and voice in the community would be more valued by the non-profit orgs I deal with if I spoke more about my 'marginalized identity'. It would certainly give my concerns more legitimacy among the progressives who make all the decisions in my town, but I also don't want to contribute to the culture of using personal trauma to get something, instead of developing and delivering a strong argument. Gahh life is hard. I appreciate hearing your take, thank you.
Kier, I unfailingly learn something from your posts. Nobody else (among my personal collection of independent opinion writers) has your perspective. This makes it extremely valuable. Specifically, this time 'round, I've been pondering for some time why the Woke (progressive activist) angle on cultural events like Women's History Month is almost ruthless in its focus on past injustice. (As opposed to, say, celebrating women. Duh.) You've provided me an answer, which is that the unrelenting focus on "harms," whether past or present, protects the identity group's claim to marginalization, powerlessness, or harm *even when, arguably, there is no longer any such significant, wide spread cultural harm or marginalization.* The identity group cannot risk losing the power that it gains in the guilt economy. Thank you for helping me solve that longstanding puzzle!
While there are parts of your post I don’t agree with, I do resonate with parts of it. Working as a psychotherapist from a narrative therapist lens helped me to notice how often young Western social justice spaces “flatten” people’s narratives. So with the potato famine example you shared, I would prefer to view that as one among many stories and not THE one defining story of an ancestry or a person. I have seen in my therapy office how BOTH intergenerational trauma AND intergenerational values, skills, strengths, and resilience get passed down but so often as you said people center the intergenerational trauma as an identity which can have them justify projecting it onto others and miss on the fullness of their life story.
What I appreciate about older folk who have been part of social justice movements is how they hold their pain and anger in a very very different way from what I have seen in younger social justice spaces. I notice with the former, the pain and anger are not all consuming to the point that there is no room for joy, compassion, solidarity, dialogue, and community building whereas with the latter the anger and pain can often be ruminative and competitive like you said with little to not concrete action being taken.
I have also noticed that as a non-American who used to live in northeast US for a decade before moving back to my country, that I haven’t seen any other culture link everything with an “identity” as tightly as Americans do. Perhaps there is a historical context to this but it’s something I have thought about more than once.
Every time Trump is charged with something, he appeals to his voters as someone being persecuted and the money pours in. Victimhood can definitely be lucrative.
I got so heavy into the idpol/sjw world back in the feminist blogosphere heydey of the 2008 - 2010 era that I pretty much forgot how to talk to people who weren't also white for years. I was absolutely terrified of saying the wrong thing or offending anyone or being "that" white girl. I got better, lol, but damn it's crazy to look back, because it was just so ingrained.
“When it becomes the sole metric by which to decide who is right and who is wrong in any given situation, things are bound to get a little weird”—I once was told, apropos of nothing, by my best friend at the time-a white person-that if any conflict ever arose between me and their new friend-a Black person-then they would take the new friend’s side, because they were Black. No matter what. We don’t talk anymore lol
I agree that the social commodification of marginality is problematic. But I'd argue that it's the commodification part that's objectionable, not the expression of marginality.
Hi Kier! Have you ever looked into how Social Conditioning/Cult Programming work? It's fascinating stuff. One of the classic recruitment methods for cults is to break down the sense of self. Next you provide a means for the person to re-find their worth inside the group. "You used to be scum, but now you're one of the good ones!" (These first steps are also the basis of "Negging" btw.) This step can also include controlling their outward appearance, making them adopt the physical look, clothing, body modifications, etc of the group. The final step is to turn the person against outsiders by maintaining control of their access to information, "othering" and discrediting rival organizations, and constantly amping them up through emotionally charged language.
It's crazy how well this model fits so much of the online social justice community. And not just them. Right wing media has been doing the same for decades.
Thanks for writing this Keir. Not contributing to the guilt & grievance economy is something I've been trying hard to put into practice irl, to walk the walk so to speak, but to be honest I feel like it can be really hard sometimes to not take advantage of it when you believe it would be for a net good. Like I think my volunteer work and voice in the community would be more valued by the non-profit orgs I deal with if I spoke more about my 'marginalized identity'. It would certainly give my concerns more legitimacy among the progressives who make all the decisions in my town, but I also don't want to contribute to the culture of using personal trauma to get something, instead of developing and delivering a strong argument. Gahh life is hard. I appreciate hearing your take, thank you.
Kier, I unfailingly learn something from your posts. Nobody else (among my personal collection of independent opinion writers) has your perspective. This makes it extremely valuable. Specifically, this time 'round, I've been pondering for some time why the Woke (progressive activist) angle on cultural events like Women's History Month is almost ruthless in its focus on past injustice. (As opposed to, say, celebrating women. Duh.) You've provided me an answer, which is that the unrelenting focus on "harms," whether past or present, protects the identity group's claim to marginalization, powerlessness, or harm *even when, arguably, there is no longer any such significant, wide spread cultural harm or marginalization.* The identity group cannot risk losing the power that it gains in the guilt economy. Thank you for helping me solve that longstanding puzzle!
While there are parts of your post I don’t agree with, I do resonate with parts of it. Working as a psychotherapist from a narrative therapist lens helped me to notice how often young Western social justice spaces “flatten” people’s narratives. So with the potato famine example you shared, I would prefer to view that as one among many stories and not THE one defining story of an ancestry or a person. I have seen in my therapy office how BOTH intergenerational trauma AND intergenerational values, skills, strengths, and resilience get passed down but so often as you said people center the intergenerational trauma as an identity which can have them justify projecting it onto others and miss on the fullness of their life story.
What I appreciate about older folk who have been part of social justice movements is how they hold their pain and anger in a very very different way from what I have seen in younger social justice spaces. I notice with the former, the pain and anger are not all consuming to the point that there is no room for joy, compassion, solidarity, dialogue, and community building whereas with the latter the anger and pain can often be ruminative and competitive like you said with little to not concrete action being taken.
I have also noticed that as a non-American who used to live in northeast US for a decade before moving back to my country, that I haven’t seen any other culture link everything with an “identity” as tightly as Americans do. Perhaps there is a historical context to this but it’s something I have thought about more than once.
Every time Trump is charged with something, he appeals to his voters as someone being persecuted and the money pours in. Victimhood can definitely be lucrative.
I got so heavy into the idpol/sjw world back in the feminist blogosphere heydey of the 2008 - 2010 era that I pretty much forgot how to talk to people who weren't also white for years. I was absolutely terrified of saying the wrong thing or offending anyone or being "that" white girl. I got better, lol, but damn it's crazy to look back, because it was just so ingrained.
“When it becomes the sole metric by which to decide who is right and who is wrong in any given situation, things are bound to get a little weird”—I once was told, apropos of nothing, by my best friend at the time-a white person-that if any conflict ever arose between me and their new friend-a Black person-then they would take the new friend’s side, because they were Black. No matter what. We don’t talk anymore lol