Of ugly truths, oppression, privilege, and doctrine – 1

On Ugly truths and Pretty Lies.
I oppose the very notion of an ugly truth. Why?

Because truth is never ugly, only when we look at it from a limited perspective it can appear ugly.

“Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies…”

Lies can taste sweet, but they are only pretty from a superficial point of view. Truth can be bitter, it can be very painful, in particular when it collides with the pictures of the world that we were raised with. But it is never ugly. Bitter can be beautiful, and Sweet can be ugly to the bone once you lift it’s satin sheets up.

When it collides with our expectations of reality. But to me the very definition of truth implies beauty, and beauty in itself is a form of truth. Contingent it is, on some level, beauty reveals the real to us. In my mind it is only a limited human perspective that causes us to miss such things.

Like you can’t describe the subtle taste of a sweet fruit, soft and ripe and honeyed tasting to one lacking a tongue, nor can you describe the ecstasy of an erotic embrace to a virgin. What strikes us as ugly is the pain that certain truths bring, and the pleasure that certain lies bring. But these are only partial, and illusory. A realist accepts reality. Acceptance being open, and then a surrender, and submission to the reality of what we accept.

We can rage against the Real all that you like but it changes nothing, only by accepting what is can we possibly be able to change it.

It is possible, and easy, to misunderstand my point here. To simply emotionally react against this, see it as defense of a status quo, a cry of human helplessness. No, what I am saying is that if there are things in life that one wants to change, one must first accept their reality. The reality of our lives, our situations, our history, our being here. Our mistakes, our strengths and our weaknesses all alike.

Abandoning the very notion of a pretty lie and ugly truth is necessary in order for us to simply see what is, as and how it actually is. Not as you would like it to be, as you were told and taught it would be but then grew up and found it different.

On Oppression, Privilege, and Doctrine wearing Jack-boots.
I like Jackboots. They are useful things. My Cold-War era Eastern German Army issue Jackboots look and feel as if they were designed to survive a nuclear winter, though the tread sucks they are tough as nails. Also, certain women tend to find them sexy. but this is a marginal benefit, mostly I am concerned about cold feet during Ohio snowstorms. They are also symbols, to some, of rigidity and oppression. To others of discipline and honor. I like my jackboots.

We all have, or will have before we are dead, experienced oppression, on some level, from childhood up. We have all been oppressed, from a pre-school bully to a civil servant to a lover or spouse to a friend or partner. The common human experience of oppression we all have in common, though some have tasted greater depths of it than others who may have only tasted the smallest trace.

Rich and poor, white and non-white, male and female, the experience of being oppressed is common to all of us. Claims to the contrary tend to be tendentiously expressed by people with vested interests of their own often wrapped in their own subtle oppression and misappropriation.

Though sometimes really sincere and well meaning folks make these claims. Often due to their own horrifying experiences of oppression that close them off, in their wounded-ness, to the larger picture. This is very sad.

We all, or at least most of us, have pulled our rank and oppressed others, even if by very subtle degrees. I can honestly admit this because I know it is true in my own life. At times it may have been necessary to achieve a greater aim, and though without apology per se I may have some regrets. Some degrees of oppression are so slight as to only warrant a perfunctory “sorry dude, that was messed up of me.” Whilst others are more fitting for a firing squad. We should avoid the latter, and the former actually, seeking to do as little damage as possible in life.

“Tread softly” – though sometimes life forces us into things that we would not normally do, and when we do them we regret. The burden of gilt is strong. Unless, of course, one is a sociopath.

Questions of oppression, privilege, and power have occupied me lately. From much reading of Foucault and Situationist literature in my free-time, casual perusal of several Radical Feminist blogs and MRA (Men’s Rights) blogs lately. By radical I mean just that, not more socially acceptable liberal Feminism, but more doctrinaire Hard-Corps Radical Feminism. Much of theory is familiar throw-back to the several Women’s Studies courses I took as an undergrad. As a Muslim, in the West, questions of Gender and Sex Power acquire greater significance given that most of the many standard polemics against Islam from both Feminist and Right-wing Christian camps focus on the historical situation of women in Islamic societies. Also power, privilege and oppression has always been interests of mine on a wider scale.

In the real world, divorced from paper theory, I generally tend to see oppression and privilege as being far more nuanced and diffused than ideologues are prone to want to admit. Power and privilege have many manifestations, some more subtle to note than people generally take notice of. As much as ivory tower elitist pseudo-intellectuals may be prone to deny, privilege and oppression and power interact with, forms relationships, and are manifested in a diffused way though concentrating here and there.

When I say “pseudo-intellectual” it’s to avoid falling into some sort of populist anti-intellectualist trap. Because as anyone who watches Fox News knows (and yes that was a cheap shot, deal with it) Populism in America is usually joined with a general resentment of intellectuals. Never mind the fact that opinion-makers who lead populist sentiment are generally intellectuals of some capacity.

People have comparative advantages over others and disadvantages that are nuanced and context, and situation, dependent. Many of my friends are White Liberals, who openly admit a general “liberal guilt” over their privilege and comparative advantage. More astute female friends in particular seem to have this guilt in spades, while they may perceive Male privilege over them, they readily admit their own privilege due to their station, class, and race. And this causes them guilt and a feeling of needing to redress social ills that they frankly had no hand in creating and are only, as I see it, tangentially attached to at best.

This attitude is sincere, but it is very problematic. There is a grain of truth in it, but real life is more nuanced. I avoid any sort of collective guilt, for one, because I prize individuals. I may detest the actions of an Israeli government but I refuse to hold individual Jews accountable collectively for what I see as the historically pernicious effects of political Zionism. I would readily befriend, date, and associate with an individual Jew because I would see her or him as an individual belonging to a religious and racial community of course, but a community composed of individuals, many good, many not so good. In the same light I would readily befriend, date, and associate with a Catholic or Protestant White, or a North African, or an Arab, or – for that matter – an Eskimo. Whatever historical ills may have been perpetuated, or may still to this very day be perpetuated, by their larger group I can see, acknowledge, and understand.

But I refuse to hold the individual to any sort of blood-guilt.

Thus ends part 1