Things one's going to be a long, potentially wandering tangle. Read if you'd like and I'd like it if you did.
There's a thing that's bothered me for years but I didn't have the words to name the thing I was seeing until recently. There's a social mantra I grew up in, was steeped in, that says blitheness in the face of obscene racism, sexism and bigotry is a victory. That to smile and shrug it off as if it hadn't happened at all is the one and only prescription and then later, in private where only you and your most trusted confidants can hear you because you just don't do that in public, you talk about injustice; THAT is how you show humility, THAT is how you 'turn the other cheek'. I'm fairly certain it's rooted in the meekness and 'turn the other cheek' notion that's bandied about rather heavily by Christians and only furthered by the anti-feminist, anti-LBGTQ dogma so heavily pushed in churches.
This may be the part where some of the Christians I know might start to squirm a little but let me speak to that for a moment. You may not push that agenda, you may not push that thoughtspace, your church or your sect might not but your sect is not the plurality in this country. You are not in the plurality in this country. You may be fighting to be so but you are not yet. I know the culture I grew up in. I know the culture of the churches my parents STILL go to (what's the proper place of a woman, again? And should or should she not have her head covered while doing so? How many churches did I get to witness, personally, schism over questions like these?).
I know their views on women and their subservience, I know their dogmatic views on what my marriage to my husband spells for my eternal soul. I've looked it in the eyes and named its malice for what it is. I don't speak to the 'shoulds' of life, I speak to what is. How you want to feel about that is up to you but don't lay it at my doorstep for naming things as they are; lay it at the doorstep of your fellow practitioners, lay it at the doorstep of the people responsible for what is.
Having said all of that, the irony is that I agree with the basic idea of 'turn the other cheek'. It suggests not to return hate with hate, not to return violence with violence. Generally speaking, cycles of abuse only perpetuate themselves and most situations can only be resolved with empathy1.
But at what point did meekness get conflated with silence?
At what point did 'turn the other cheek' turn in to 'choke down every ounce of pain you feel and leave it strangled in your throat until it's socially acceptable to talk about it but don't you ever confront someone directly'?
And don't think I don't understand the fear that keeps people 'in line'. It worked well enough on me for long enough. I understand that hand that grips your throat as you think about the collapse of your ENTIRE social structure if you speak too harshly at the wrong moment. I understand the paralysis that comes with the terror of knowing that if you spoke as you truly believed, you would be outcast and the target of some pretty foul behaviors at the hands of your fellow 'believers'.
1To my view, this is where individualistic determination versus group dynamics starts to matter. By and large, most of human behavior is memetic. Think of it like this: you have the core of who 'you' are and then you have how you express that essence of yourself. How you express yourself is a synthesis of the various circumstances, events and peoples you expose yourself to. You inherit behaviors from your family and peers and distribute behaviors of your own, both consciously and otherwise. It's the 'otherwise' part that poses the problem in my head, especially when the lens of 'empathy' comes in to play. I'm fairly certain there's an agreed upon definition of what empathy is. Getting people to understand that their behavior is not within that definition is beyond difficult when they believe, from a place of Faith, that they are acting from a place of empathy.
There's a thing that's bothered me for years but I didn't have the words to name the thing I was seeing until recently. There's a social mantra I grew up in, was steeped in, that says blitheness in the face of obscene racism, sexism and bigotry is a victory. That to smile and shrug it off as if it hadn't happened at all is the one and only prescription and then later, in private where only you and your most trusted confidants can hear you because you just don't do that in public, you talk about injustice; THAT is how you show humility, THAT is how you 'turn the other cheek'. I'm fairly certain it's rooted in the meekness and 'turn the other cheek' notion that's bandied about rather heavily by Christians and only furthered by the anti-feminist, anti-LBGTQ dogma so heavily pushed in churches.
This may be the part where some of the Christians I know might start to squirm a little but let me speak to that for a moment. You may not push that agenda, you may not push that thoughtspace, your church or your sect might not but your sect is not the plurality in this country. You are not in the plurality in this country. You may be fighting to be so but you are not yet. I know the culture I grew up in. I know the culture of the churches my parents STILL go to (what's the proper place of a woman, again? And should or should she not have her head covered while doing so? How many churches did I get to witness, personally, schism over questions like these?).
I know their views on women and their subservience, I know their dogmatic views on what my marriage to my husband spells for my eternal soul. I've looked it in the eyes and named its malice for what it is. I don't speak to the 'shoulds' of life, I speak to what is. How you want to feel about that is up to you but don't lay it at my doorstep for naming things as they are; lay it at the doorstep of your fellow practitioners, lay it at the doorstep of the people responsible for what is.
Having said all of that, the irony is that I agree with the basic idea of 'turn the other cheek'. It suggests not to return hate with hate, not to return violence with violence. Generally speaking, cycles of abuse only perpetuate themselves and most situations can only be resolved with empathy1.
But at what point did meekness get conflated with silence?
At what point did 'turn the other cheek' turn in to 'choke down every ounce of pain you feel and leave it strangled in your throat until it's socially acceptable to talk about it but don't you ever confront someone directly'?
And don't think I don't understand the fear that keeps people 'in line'. It worked well enough on me for long enough. I understand that hand that grips your throat as you think about the collapse of your ENTIRE social structure if you speak too harshly at the wrong moment. I understand the paralysis that comes with the terror of knowing that if you spoke as you truly believed, you would be outcast and the target of some pretty foul behaviors at the hands of your fellow 'believers'.
1To my view, this is where individualistic determination versus group dynamics starts to matter. By and large, most of human behavior is memetic. Think of it like this: you have the core of who 'you' are and then you have how you express that essence of yourself. How you express yourself is a synthesis of the various circumstances, events and peoples you expose yourself to. You inherit behaviors from your family and peers and distribute behaviors of your own, both consciously and otherwise. It's the 'otherwise' part that poses the problem in my head, especially when the lens of 'empathy' comes in to play. I'm fairly certain there's an agreed upon definition of what empathy is. Getting people to understand that their behavior is not within that definition is beyond difficult when they believe, from a place of Faith, that they are acting from a place of empathy.
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