Tension erupted recently in a writing group I'm part of, and it stirred things up inside of me. After the dust settled, I came back to this quote by the late Michael Brooks, and I suddenly felt recentered again.
The Internet can be a confounding place. It has the ability to echo our hopes and our fears back to us with no real place to land beyond our own psyche. If you’re interested in reading more about this, synthesized more intellectually and compassionately than I can describe it, Dr. Gabor Mate discusses this in his most recent masterpiece, The Myth of Normal.
In this particular group, the debate was around the language of decolonization and some misperceptions around censorship and cancel culture. The main thread where problems erupted has over 400 comments. Wild. But also expected for a group comprised of those who think the pen is mightier than the sword. I am a firm believer that the words we choose reflect our privilege, not necessarily our rights. As someone who loves using all sorts of language to express myself (don't ever get me really angry), I have made poor word choices throughout my life that have been harmful. I still do sometimes. I'm a mere mortal. But I think the reason I'm so good at owning up to my shit is I’m extremely sensitive. There are times I want to be an obstinate asshole for the sake of my ego, but it doesn’t last long. So I usually own my impact and try to do better. Digging my heels in when others are affected by the language I choose is only reflective the ego and privilege I mentioned above.
If you’ve been around here long enough, or if you know me personally, you've probably seen that there are moments when I get so passionate about equality and injustice that I become disenchanted. I tend to get dysphoric and overcome with feelings of cynicism, particularly when humanity and empathy are relegated to the periphery. In those moments, it feels as though we aren't at all real people with individual struggles and sorrows. Maybe an alien takeover would be best. Sometimes I wonder if nothing actually matters. I feel disconnected, like maybe I don't really belong here and it's futile to use my voice. But deep down, I know the only way forward is through sharing my humanity with others, and essentially speaking out against systems that perpetuate inequalities and injustices. And yet, I don't want to be one those people who merely screams into the void. I don't want to be performative. It's not about me either. It's about all of us.
If you're in the mood for a lengthy post about what I've described above, here's what I shared in the group. That'll be my entry for today.
The blessing and the curse of being creative, soulful individuals is we are often so alive to our humanity that it hurts sometimes. It’s been a tough run hasn’t it? Many of us in this group are still in heightened states, our reptile brains activated. I don’t believe it was anyone’s intention to get here when this discourse began. While there has been vitriol, I think much of what has been said in various side threads has been important and thoughtfully discussed, and I’ve been encouraged by the many bridges that have been built as we attempt to find our way through the rubble.
The thing is, I feel deep in my bones that oppressive systems require dismantling. This never happens through a person’s singular actions, but by way of collective voice. We’ve seen this with successful social movements throughout time. That said, I am cognizant that camps of people shouting into the void on this page won’t do much to eradicate said systems. However, if we’re open to accepting that we all have personal biases and schemas colouring our worldview, then perhaps having these uncomfortable and impassioned discussions over our keyboards may spur us creatively, politically, and socially into action as the humans we want to see and be in the world.
We can argue day and night over what is and isn’t oppressive, use non sequiturs about language ‘bans’, ‘cancelling’, and ‘policing’, and even resort to in-grouping and out-grouping by invalidating lived experiences and so forth, but it won’t do any good.
I hope what we can all agree on, though, is that language has the power to transform and illuminate. It has the power to provoke visceral reactions that remain in the bodymind for years to come. We wouldn’t be here in this space celebrating the craft of writing otherwise. It’s important to acknowledge that the meaning of language, both written and oral, is in flux with systems of power. Words inherently mean nothing, that is until humans engage with them through a co-construction and claims-making process which signals to other social creatures what they can and should mean. These meanings often stay with us long after the word has fallen out of favour, simply because they lived in the bones of our ancestors. Some day I will share the story of my Métis 3x great grandmother Annie Bannatyne, who some 155 years or so ago, aggressively stood up to the bigoted remarks of a journalist who’d written racist slurs about the Métis women of the Red River in the Toronto Globe. But that’s for another day.
Integral to meaning-making processes of language are those individuals and groups who, at any given time, possess the ability to have their claims heard, validated and dispensed into society as legitimate and real. Usually those with the most power. Underdog claims-makers (those with less power) have a far more difficult time having their claims legitimized, and thus, made real. Language, and the claims it makes about people and their status/role/value in society passes for ‘knowledge’ or fact, which then materializes into policy and law that subjugates and actively oppresses them. By that time, it already has life breathed into it and is not so easy to undo. As such, “getting over it” and “not being so sensitive” isn’t always plausible, given how trauma is passed down intergenerationally.
This is but one function of how oppressive language works to maintain the status quo in every single system that exists to date. It benefits those in power. Just ask the billionaires. Say what you want about the Internet and its shadowy, grotesque corners, but I’m encouraged by the potential it has to amplify voices that have historically been silenced. To say oppression is not still a lived reality for many is pure ignorance and erasure. This world is big and fractured, but we all still live here, and we all go through struggles that others know nothing about. There’s room for everyone to have a voice without punching down all the time.
As Canadians, we have the privilege of speaking our subjective truths behind the safe veneer of a screen without ever having to look each other in the eye to witness first hand the the vulnerability and pain that makes each of us human and real. We simply get to invalidate and go on with our day with no real understanding of the impact on others and even our own internal landscapes. Because we now live with tiny pocket computers echoing back our ‘realities’ to us every minute of the day, nothing has to be real anymore in the external sense, but we should be aware that it very much still lives inside us and continues to breed more discontent. We fall prey to groupthink that way.
That’s the shadowy shit. The marriage between modernity and individualism can leave us all feeling a bit alienated and disconnected at times, can’t it? We aren’t always at our best in these spaces. Hey, me neither. 🙋🏻♀️ Not a robot over here, just a passionate and sentient being with an abundance of flaws trying to learn and grow. Part of being human is saying, “I’ve never had that experience myself, but I can see how it could be true for you.” Two truths can exist at the same time.
All that to say, please be critical of systems. They are human creations and thus inherently flawed and made oppressive by purposeful design. If that weren’t true, we’d have lived in harmony by now. The fact that we’ve come this far doesn’t mean we still don’t have a long way to go. Please don’t give into erasure of experiences. That’s an easy out. We can massage any sociological problem into a personal failing or a shortcoming of someone’s belief system, and it could be a melange of those things, but it doesn’t tell the full story.
Please go out and vote and have tough discussions with those you love, like your children and grandchildren. And please write about things that matter, whether you publish them or not.
Validate. Allow room. Exercise humility and grace. Be mindful of how your words can be weapons instead of purveyors of peace. Walk beside people. Meet them where they’re at, and if they don’t want to meet themselves any further, walk away knowing you spoke your truth and your light. And instead of attacking individual shortcomings or points of view that diverge from your own, why not target the shit out of systems that keep things stagnant and unequal? Anything else is a distraction from the real work to be done.
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