Listen to the people at the bottom of the pile

[sqbr]

Something I realised I left out of Various axioms of my anti-(racism sexism etc) (this extended conversation is definitely making me express a bunch of interconnected ideas I hadn't properly articulated before :))

EDIT: This is not a self evident truth, it's an axiom of the way I think. This does not mean it's right, but you'll have to work pretty hard to convince me otherwise :) (But one of my other axioms is question everything)

As I said there, if there is a society wide inequality which puts one group in a position of less power with regards to another, then the group with more power cannot be trusted to judge how best to fix that inequality. No matter how good their intentions(*).

Feminism and the fight against sexism needs to be mostly run by women.

Anti-racism needs to be mostly run by POC.

The left needs significant input from the poor and lower class. (Unfortunately once you have the power to change things you generally aren't lower class any more so this gets a bit catch 22ish)

etc.

And if you're in the more powerful group then you cannot rely on the opinions of other people in the same group.
If you're white, and the only people who agree with your opinions on race are white, and most POC think differently? Then no matter how well educated and well meaning you are, and how many other educated well meaning white people agree, you are probably wrong. And the only way to be less wrong is to go out and listen to what actual POC are saying. If you don't know what POC think you should probably go find out.

Also elected or otherwise acknowledged spokespeople have more weight than some random person from the less powerful group who happens to agree with you.

This can get complicated of course since none of these groups is a monolith and there's always varying opinions. Feminism especially contains many radically different opinions, plus of course there's all the women who don't feel represented by any of them. So there's no way to get The Single Opinion of the less powerful group, but that doesn't mean you can't make a concerted effort to get the general idea, and be open to their POV.

EDIT: This post is a rather simplistic description of a complicated issue, read the comments for a more nuanced view. Most importantly, I didn't add that yes, the less privileged group also needs to listen to the more privileged group, and in the end the best approach is usually a strong dialogue and carefully worked out compromise. But power dynamics being what they are, the chances of any compromise being too far in the less privileged groups favour is pretty small...

(*)Come to think of it, I don't think there even needs to be an inequality: it is impossible for one group of people to fully understand the experience and needs of another different group, and so it is vitally important that there is as much consultation and equal representation as possible in the decision making process and avenues of power. (Thus, democracy) But when there is a power imbalance this effect is magnified.

Comments

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Ayayay ... I'm becoming increasingly cynical vis-a-vis these issues day by day. Your general point is well taken, I guess. Some big questions do arise in my mind.

If you're going to discuss how best to organise political movements, what are your criteria for evaluating them? Presumably, how successful they would be in achieving their goals.

But if they could be set up almost well enough to almost guarantee they would succeed, wouldn't merely setting them up be tantamount to achieving those goals? So shouldn't we be discussing how best to set up the movement that sets up these likely-to-succeed movements ... and then oh shit recursion?

(Or more boldly, isn't it possible that as a non-POC, your public theorising about how to set up an antiracist movement is actually "running" antiracism in and of itself, even if your conclusion is that POC should run the movement? Does that mean your conclusion can't be trusted?)

Likewise if there is to be a power structure within a political movement aimed at altering the power structure without that same movement, how would one go about ensuring the justice of that internal power structure that perhaps is not inclined to rigorously subject itself to its own critiques? (Zimbabwe?)

Regardless of where you draw the line there seems to be a need for some verifiable, trustable entity deemed "external" to the "system" to draw it. And I'm not sure that entity exists. In fact, given the variation in individual experiences, all group-based politics are approximate by definition, and if as you suggest there is no perfect communication of experience, even of closely shared experience, it strikes me that Plato's Revolutionary Committee is made of fail.

Relatedly I have to quibble with gyges_ring above when he says:

"In a looser sense, it becomes even stranger, because if you take privilege (as I think it's used, not defined) and the above axiom, I think you end up in a situation where the only people with understanding have no power to act (and so can't), and the only people with power to act have no understanding (and so can't)."

Let's leave aside one rather obvious criticism of this line of thought, that almost all types of formal education don't remotely equip the student for political action, and another, that it is obvious that there are very important things one learns (or equally does not learn) outside the scope of formal education.

We seem to be alive at a very bad time as far as trusting the predictive ability of any sort of formal education is concerned. Certainly we are currently suffering from the signal failures of the most highly educated political strategists, economists, military people and sociologists to predict outcomes in war, the market and society, and meanwhile in the sciences we are more than ever aware of the essential intractability, incomputability, even of those problems we can model -- such as the weather -- let alone those we can't!

Not that I'm against "asking the experts". But at least as far as the social issues are concerned -- the racism, the sexism et al. -- maybe the best thing to do is not to formulate a top-down theory of how to "fix" the "problem"* (which is really a whole heap of local problems anyway) based on vague data about the general case, but to cobble together a local response to the local problems about which you have much more specific data, based on your own ideas.

(I realise this comment is all very "OMG there is no absolute truth nor any means of formulating a true proposition!" and "we're awash in a sea of impenetrable information!" but I hope it's not entirely jejeune. I am totally unconvinced that there are any political changes that do not, as gyges_ring suggests, in some sense occur as mere historical accident, or at least as the machine of humanity grinds on chaotically.)

* which, incidentally, remains very ill-defined throughout this discussion, not that I want to get into the old chestnuts about what "inequality" really means and when we might consider it to have been "fixed".

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

*jejune

It's almost as if "cobble together a local response to the local problems about which you have much more specific data, based on your own ideas" describes what you, alias_sqbr are actually doing -- or at least it seems pretty similar. Are you sure you need your dearest-held principles to have a more universal applicability than to your LJ flist?

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that sounded incredibly patronising. I did not mean to suggest that your political views will never make it beyond LJ (that'd be me, these days). What I mean to say is: if one's politics have a certain sphere of influence, does any aspect of them dealing with things outside that sphere of influence actually matter?

[alias_sqbr]

I have a feeling I'm not quite getting your point but I'll make a stab at responding to what I am getting and hopefully not be too far off.

Or more boldly, isn't it possible that as a non-POC, your public theorising about how to set up an antiracist movement is actually "running" antiracism in and of itself, even if your conclusion is that POC should run the movement? Does that mean your conclusion can't be trusted?

Yes. Of course there are two options here: I'm right, or I'm wrong, and thus can be trusted as much as anyone else :D But certainly I would hope anyone reading this who agrees with me would then go see what actual POC are saying (and while I've found several who think racism is less of a big deal than I do etc, afaict they still all thought their opinions on race were more significant than mine)

Also I think axiom was too strong a word: good general rule only to be ignored under extreme circumstances is better. Any decision involving people is going to be messy and flawed whatever ideas the decision is based on.

And yes, as several people have pointed out, there are many examples of organised groups of people on the bottom end of a power dichomotmy going Very Bad. Then again, I quite deliberately didn't say, for example, that anti-racism should ONLY be run by POC, just that it should be mainly run by them, and I think there are situations where outsiders do have to step in. But it should be done very very carefully and with as much consultation and dialogue as possible. strangedave said some worthwhile things on the subject downthread.

As to whether or not anyone can ever effect broad scale social change, or if we should just work on our local pockets where we have most control and understanding: I like to think we can. And if we can't it doesn't hurt to try. I agree that working on a local scale is often the most effective option. It is, afaict, the main thing POC say to do in the few cases anyone asks :)

Something I haven't made clear is that the two most significant driving factors in me writing about racism etc on my blog are (a) getting it straight in my head to help me deal with this stuff in "real life" better and (b) Encouraging discussion and understanding in my "local community" ie fandom (both Perth fandom and internet fandom) So yes, it is what I'm doing.

if one's politics have a certain sphere of influence, does any aspect of them dealing with things outside that sphere of influence actually matter?

Given how varied my flist is (a good quarter of them are american I would say) and the variety of situations in which I find myself (perth fandom, work, international fandom, voting on national and international issues, etc) I need a fairly flexible framework.

But there's a reason that when gyges_ring brought up Europe in another thread I tried to change the subject: while it might be useful to have a decent understanding of european racism it's not something I need very urgently, and since very few europeans read my blog it's not something my posts are designed to specifically deal with. I don't much point in angsting about whether or not my ideas apply very well there as long as I'm willing to admit ignorance when it comes up rather than applying them rigidly.

But that said: I am at heart still a pure mathematician. I like my axioms to apply universally, it's more elegant :D

[alias_sqbr]

I would hope anyone reading this who agrees with me would then go see what actual POC are saying (and while I've found several who think racism is less of a big deal than I do etc, afaict they still all thought their opinions on race were more significant than mine)

nb in case anyone else comes across this, for the sake of full transparency here is a POC who thinks white people's opinions are just as worth listening to as their own. I thought about disagreeing but decided the logical paradox was too much for me :)