I haven't posted in a while. Not because I haven't been thinking - I'm always thinking - but because I seem to have thought myself into a circle I can't seem to find a way out of.
I've been finding myself more and more at odds with social justice activists. Not their goals, certainly; I support these issues and outcomes most social justice communities are aiming for. But the methods, their ways of relating to and rejecting the power structures in society.
Disagreement isn't necessarily a bad thing; I think that often times, there are multiple "right" perspectives and ways of engaging, even contradictory ones, often depending on context and the individual's own experiences. But that doesn't mean I think all ways are good, helpful, valid. And some of my values and ways of understanding and relating, based on my own experiences or marginalization and privilege, are outright rejected by many who I consider to be on "the same side."
One of my guiding principles, coming from those experiences, is that when everyone around me is telling me I'm wrong about something, especially when I otherwise agree with them, I need to really consider where they're coming from and really assess if I am in fact wrong. This has usually worked well. Sometimes I conclude that yes, I was mistaken, sometimes I don't, and can give a reason for justifying my conclusion.
But here, on these particular issues, I still don't understand how I'm wrong. The evidence I'm given for why I'm mistaken is that certain experiences I've had (or rather, not had) by definition prevent me from seeing it, a general principle that I do understand. But I can't just accept blindly that everyone else is correct, even just for the fact that I can't support them if I don't understand. Yet the alternative is that everyone else is wrong while I'm the one not understood. This seems highly unlikely. But one of the very things we seem to disagree on is whether that mutual understanding is even possible without the experience.
How do I prove that I understand something when it can always be denied with "no, you can't"? And how much am I required to think about it before I conclude that no, in fact, I've thought about it enough, and I'm not wrong?
