Rage

I’ve gotten angry about things in society and culture that have hurt me. I’ve raged. I’ve yelled. I’ve blamed individuals for harm caused by a system they didn’t create and aren’t trying to maintain. I’ve insulted. I’ve talked down to (See last post, where I “explained” what’s going on with other people rather than giving my take and opening up a place for discussion about it).

My feelings and anger about these issues are justified. My friends, and even others should understand why I’m upset and not hold it against me for expressing my feelings.

But.

No matter what society may tell me, I’m not just expressing my feelings. I’m not just “venting." If I wanted to make a point, analyze something in other’s behaviors or in our society, I could do that without taking out my anger on everyone else.

No, I rage to hurt. I rage out of revenge. I rage because I know no one likes to be yelled at, insulted, lumped in with people and ideas they too don’t like; stereotyped. I rage because it momentarily makes me feel better to imagine they’re hurting now too; that it give me power over their feelings that they had over mine; that it will teach them hands-on humility and empathy.

 

Of course, it won’t. I know that because being hurt myself doesn’t make me sympathetic to their perspective. So it won’t help them understand mine either.

 

It’s not even the guilty parties who end up facing my rage. The high school teacher who crystallized my understanding of privilege? He’ll never know what he did to me, and I wouldn’t go to him and yell at and insult him to his face even if I could. That would be wrong; most of us would agree trying to hurt others is wrong. Instead, I rage in “safe spaces,” but my friends may encounter my rage. It’s not their fault; they’re great, despite being from a culture that produces people like that teacher. They may even understand and be sympathetic and take steps to not contribute to that harm. But I would still be hurting them because it’s still parts of their own history and identity that I’m attacking when I generalize my rage.

 

And in some way, that’s the point. “I’m justified in being angry, so I’m justified in taking it out on your identity, but you also shouldn’t feel hurt by that personally if you’re not responsible.” It's not really between me and them, so they can’t, and won’t, hurt me back, so I can get some kind of emotional revenge while convincing myself it’s harmless, that it’s not revenge at all, just “expression” of my feelings. But it does hurt them, and I'm only attempting to control other's feelings more by telling them they can't get upset with me for it.

 

None of this is conscious or deliberate of course. I don’t really want to hurt anyone and want to prevent harm. But if I really think through what I’m feeling, why raging, yelling, insulting feels good, at least in the moment, what thoughts I’m repressing because I don’t want them to actually be true about myself, this is what I come to.

 

It’s not that I’m not wrong to criticize. I’m not wrong to analyze problems in society, in a culture. I’m not wrong to try to change the problematic systems. I’m not wrong to feel angry and be motivated by that. I’m not wrong even if it’s painful for people to hear the groups they identify with have caused harm and need to change.

 

But I’m not going to pretend I can’t cause harm myself by acting on that anger by blaming whole categories of people as if all individuals are responsible, even if I  do so while acknowledging it's an exaggeration. It’s a different kind of harm; not a systematic, oppressive kind, but it’s still wrong and unhelpful.

 

It’s also something I’ll probably continue to do. Not because I think I’m justified to lash out, but because I’m not perfect, I get upset, and I sometimes act on my emotions without thinking, like everyone else in the world. I would ask, however, that others would be understanding and sympathetic because my underlying emotions are still legitimate and real, and I hope this has made it clear that I try to do the same for others.

Using words correctly

Why do people who criticize feminism confuse feminism with chivalry? Or patriarchy with men as a group? Feminism and the philosophy underlying chivalry couldn’t be more different or oppositional; it’s perhaps the one thing feminists might actually all agree on. And how does anyone confuse a word referring to a social structure with a word that’s simply a category title?

Hanlon’s Razor says “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,” or, to put it more generously, ignorance is often more likely than malice. It’s a perspective I’ve always tried to take even before I knew there was a term for it.

Yet I can’t help but think that stupidity/ignorance isn’t adequate here. Everyone’s heard of feminism, and it’s not at all difficult to come across information about at least the very basics, like the problems with chivalry. Pop Feminism 101 right there. The difference between “patriarchy” and “men” should be obvious just from a linguistics perspective, even without knowing the exact definition. You can’t say “You are two patriarchy” as a replacement for “You are two men.” There can’t be that many native-English speakers who don’t know how their own language works.

The only reasonable conclusion I can come to is either outright malice or willful ignorance (which, frankly, is itself a form of malice since it means treating other people’s ideas as unworthy of serious consideration and accurate representation – refusing to learn). Perhaps the problem in fact comes back to something like a lack of application of Hanlon’s Razor on the part of these willfully ignorant people. They’re attributing malice to feminists rather than any other possibility, and so don’t even bother to attempt to learn what their words and concepts actually mean, or learn, but claim it’s a cover, lie, conspiracy on the part of feminists to hide some “true agenda,” which only makes sense if they go back to redefining terms to mean things feminists don’t mean. Again, Hanlon’s Razor; or better yet, stop assuming the worst.

 

Or perhaps it really is ignorance. Ignorance so deep that they can’t even comprehend that there are perspectives outside their own, and so, without anything for contrast, are unable to even see that they have a personal, non-universal/default perspective that can change. Terms thus get redefined because the terms changing is the only way they make sense.

 

If you find yourself frequently being told that’s not what a word means, be it in regards to feminism, evolution, or any other contentious subject, the problem is, indeed, most likely your (mis)use of the terms, not everyone else you disagree with.

 

(Next post, a follow-up to this "talking down")