Re:Want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip
by jrochkind1 on Wednesday August 26, 2020 @09:23AM
(#24282208)
I disagree, and others would call me a "SJW", not coming at it from an anti-left point of view.
You might feel guilt, but will ultimately have to work through it to be a productive person fighting for a just society. If you are motivated mainly by guilt, you can easily end up prioritizing whatever makes you "feel better", instead of trying to figure out what is actually most effective to change society for justice.
Plus the things in the OP article, and others; guilt is simply not an effective motivation, and a movement of guilty people can't build the liberatory society we need.
You should be OPPOSED to all that, you should realize your comfort is not because you "deserve" it but just the luck of the draw, but guilt isn't actually helpful.
> What we as individuals, groups, and societies need is active opposition to racialized discrepancies, not idle, unproductive self-reproach. From awareness grows motivation to make a difference. White guilt tends to warp or subvert the very sympathies that spurred a yearning for change to begin with.
> For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.
You might feel guilt, but will ultimately have to work through it to be a productive person fighting for a just society. If you are motivated mainly by guilt, you can easily end up prioritizing whatever makes you "feel better", instead of trying to figure out what is actually most effective to change society for justice.
Plus the things in the OP article, and others; guilt is simply not an effective motivation, and a movement of guilty people can't build the liberatory society we need.
You should be OPPOSED to all that, you should realize your comfort is not because you "deserve" it but just the luck of the draw, but guilt isn't actually helpful.
> What we as individuals, groups, and societies need is active opposition to racialized discrepancies, not idle, unproductive self-reproach. From awareness grows motivation to make a difference. White guilt tends to warp or subvert the very sympathies that spurred a yearning for change to begin with.
-- https://thehumanist.com/commentary/want-to-help-end-systemic...
> For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.
From Ursula K LeGuin's _The Disposessed_