Lisa Hickey explores the intersectionality of issues on The Good Men Project: race, gender, fatherhood, language, prejudices, sexuality
My daughter Shannon hates the way I am always comparing The Good Men Project to real life.
“Hey Shannon, can I ask you a question?”
She rolls her eyes as only a teenager can, knowing what’s coming. “What now, mom?” I had just picked her up from a friend’s house, who had curled Shannon’s hair into golden ringlets. Tonight is prom night.
“So, at the Good Men Project today, we’ve been discussing gender, lgbt stuff, sexuality. And I was just about to send the people I work with an email that said, ‘I’ll get back to your question about heteronormativity the minute after I drive my daughter to her very heteronormative prom.’”
Shannon laughs. ”Hah hah hah, funny one, Mom.”
“But before I send it…is that true? Are the people going to the prom all straight couples?”
“Well, actually…there has been at least one gay couple each year that has gone to the prom since I’ve been at the high school. But…also, you know, don’t you, that the number of transgendered kids in my school that is really quite high? There’s that home for transgendered kids right next to our school. It’s for kids who have been kicked out by their families. They’re…you know…not completely changed. They are all in different stages.” She pauses. “It used to kind of gross me out but now I think it’s cool”
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“It used to kind of gross me out but now I think it’s cool.”
As I type that sentence, I worry that it’s the “wrong” thing to for me to say in public. That it “used to kind of gross me out” – while still a completely honest thing for a 16-year-old to say – is still “wrong” somehow. That it’s perpetuating stereotypes. That by merely mentioning the word gross in the same paragraph as transsexuals it will somehow make it ok for people to actually say that they, too, think it is “gross”.
But then, “now I think it’s kind of cool” isn’t much better, is it? That makes it seem as if changing one’s gender is the trend of the day – not much different than dying ones hair or getting a tattoo. Or that becoming friends with someone transgendered is a form of tokenism: “Hey look at me, I have a transgendered friend. I’m open-minded, I’m cool.”
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More than anything else at The Good Men Project lately we’ve been talking about whether there’s a right way or a wrong way to talk about these very difficult, provocative topics. The issues of gender, and race, and men’s rights, and domestic violence. Guns and war and homophobia and bullying. Gay marriages and the changing roles of dads and the objectification of women.
I think back to that moment when I was totally naïve, when Tom Matlack said he wanted to start an international conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. Did I really sit at that table with him, over lunch and Diet Cokes, and think it would be easy? Somehow, in my mind, I thought that getting the 4 million people who have come to the website since we started would be the hard part. That part of it ended up being relatively easy.
It’s the actual talking about all of those issues that are hard. As I said on a conference call the other day, “I don’t know what I was thinking. How did I not know that when we set out to talk about men and masculinity and goodness that I would have to do a whole lot of talking? And that it’s actually unbelievably difficult.”
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Joanna Schroeder wrote a post recently “Can Hipsters Be Racists, Too?” In it, she argues over the importance of language.
It was that post that I was talking to Shannon about earlier in the day, in between picking her up from school and driving her to a friend’s house to get her hair done. Joanna mentioned how using the word “ghetto” is racist. Shannon uses the word “ghetto” to describe a host of things. We had been in Target the other day picking out shaving cream. She didn’t want the unbranded kind that was on sale because it “looked kind of ghetto.”
So when she explains her choice of words to me in the car now, she’s explaining it to me patiently, like she would to a child. “The shampoo looked cheap, mom.” That’s what I meant by “ghetto.” In fact, I use the word “ghetto” as an exact synonym for “cheap”. Race doesn’t occur to me. I think you are racist if you think “cheap” is a racial slur.”
Shannon is less sure of herself about the “n-word.” “Here’s what confuses me, mom. Don’t black people use that word all the time? With themselves? As a positive word? They are the oppressed class, and they are leading the way with the language by using it themselves. That’s what confuses me. Don’t worry, I never use it. But it confuses me.”
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When I was growing up, I didn’t talk. Some people are shy, I was more like non-existent. I was afraid to say anything. I was afraid to swear because that was wrong. I was afraid to talk about politics because I couldn’t say with any certainty which of the sides I thought was right. I was afraid to say things that sounded dumb. I was afraid to sound too smart. I was not only afraid to use a word like the n-word, I was afraid to talk about race at all. Surely I would offend someone. Surely I would say the wrong thing. I didn’t know people had different sexual orientations until my twenties because it never came up in conversation. And when you can’t say a word like “rape” out loud, guess what happens when it happens to you? Nothing. You simply don’t talk about it, the same way you didn’t talk about anything else.
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The victims of sexual violence on The Good Men Project — victims of violence, sexual assault, domestic violence are, for the most part men. And they feel just as marginalized talking about these issues as I did growing up. It’s difficult for them to talk about these issues. It’s not easy to be heard.
Part of what’s so rewarding with seeing this project grow is to seeing what happens when people are heard. Watching as people find their voice. Listening to them start out with superficial generalizations of the topics and get deeper into them. Seeing guys start groups or join with others who share their values. Watching connections take place.
And seeing how the actions of our community can create change. One of the things Tom Matlack set out to accomplish with the project was to change the perception of men in the media. Particularly dads. How often are dads portrayed – whether it’s in Hollywood or Madison Avenue — as bumbling, incompetent, absent, deadbeat or unengaged? And yet, we can see what happens first hand when we challenge these stereotypes. Forty-eight hours after a commercial by Huggies showed dads as the parent who weren’t paying attention to their kids because they were watching sports, we had posts up on our site, the commercials was pulled and Huggies representatives flew down to the Dad 2.0 conference that our writers were attending. Dads had a voice in how they were portrayed, and mainstream media and advertisers were listening.
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I wanted to talk with Jackie Summers about what I see the as prejudices against people who are black and the intersection with the objectification of beautiful women in our society. I talk with Jackie about race whenever we can grab a quick five minutes on g-chat. He is a black male who has written about race for GMP a lot. I have written about beauty. I want to find the overlap. To me – if Jackie and I walked into a room together, the first thing someone would notice about Jackie is that he is black, and the first thing they would notice about me is that I am not beautiful. It’s that moment of prejudice – what happens when you first walk in a room. It’s the reason I believe a kid like Trayvon Martin was shot. It’s the reason we took such flack for an article, “In praise of small-breasted women.” It’s ok to physically desire a woman with small breasts *as an individual* (the article also got shared and liked on Facebook over 2,000 times). But it’s not ok (said some very vocal members of our audience) to generalize personality traits from those physical attributes. It’s not ok to “pre-judge” what that women will be like, in any way shape or form, from the size of her breasts. Jackie doesn’t want to make the comparison between a woman’s beauty and race because, as he puts it “the pressure put on women to be beautiful is real and can’t be minimized. But there have never been laws against governing the treatment of people based on their attractiveness. As painful as it can be emotionally, there never was a civil rights battle for attractiveness, because there wasn’t systematic disenfranchisement.”
And so I drop it. Letting people NOT talk about issues they don’t want to is every bit as important to me as allowing them the space TO talk about the really difficult issues.
But I still wonder. The conversations I hear from men about women “I like beautiful women. I’m a man. And I want it to be ok for me to like beautiful women. I want to like what I like and not feel guilty for it.” is strikingly similar to the conversations I have with men who others call out for being racists and bigots, “But I want to be able to talk about how I feel honestly about race. I want it to be ok to talk about race without being called a bigot. I want it to be ok that I have a very real fear of walking into a ghetto.”
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Shannon has spent almost an entire day getting ready for her prom in order to look beautiful.
I didn’t want to tell her she looked beautiful. I wanted to tell her “Don’t go to the dark side.” I wanted to tell her that all those things she saw as the outward trappings – the manicured nails, the curls, the lip liner perfectly applied – the hours and hours and hours of time it took to get there – shouldn’t have been as important as they were. That it’s not what will matter most when you get older. That what you spend your time on is what becomes you. And intelligence, grace, open-mindedness should be way more important that beauty. I want to tell her it’s hard to work on a complex financial spreadsheet when you are waiting for your nail polish to dry.
But I don’t say any of those things. I chicken out.
I tell her she looks beautiful.
This is not a post about beauty. This is a post about intersectionality – the point where heteronormativity and racism and men’s issues and women’s issues and sexual violence and gay marriage and the changing roles of dads – and yes, beauty – collide.
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I hope that Shannon grows up in a world where there are no black actors or female presidents or stay-at-home dads or gay marriages or transgendered people – only actors and presidents and dads and marriages and people. And I hope that she realizes that she – just like all of the people here at The Good Men Project – can be the ones to help create a world that is that way.
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main photo: stopbits / flickr
About Lisa Hickey
I have to ask a hard question as gently and kindly as I know how.
You acknowledge that part of your objective is to challenge the perception that fathers are “bumbling, incompetent, absent, deadbeat or unengaged.”
A good objective.
How do you reconcile your “fairness to fathers” objective with support for the Democratic party — given the persistent attempts by the Democratic party to marginalize fathers from their children?
http://www.minnpost.com/minnesota-blog-cabin/2012/04/custody-laws-our-government-inaction
http://www.nownys.org/fathers_resp.html
http://www.glennsacks.com/nysp/index.htm
At this time, I cannot imagine how a compassionate or faire person can defend the Democratic party. Can there be any issue that is more important than the right of parents and children to have a mutual relationship?
Anthony, The Good Men Project is not pro-Democrat, nor is it anti-Democrat nor any other political party.
We agree that the marginalization of fathers from their children should be talked about. Would you or anyone you know want to write about this? Email me at lisa@goodmenproject.com. We would love to get more voices about this debate. Thanks.
“Gross” “Cool” First you have to even determine what these words mean. “Gross” like, I”m glad I don’t have to do that? “Gross” like, Oh ick, that’ person’s not normal? “Cool” Like, they are ok by me or like a token.
Those indicator words need definition.
So too, does she need history on words like “Ghetto.” She says that it indicates cheap…but things were cheaper in poor areas, which were inhabited in many places by people of color so…….
Words take journeys in their meanings. Just look at the word “gay” once meaning happy or bright, then homosexual, now meaning “uncool” and homosexual and maybe both, but sometimes not.
Language is important.
And as for beauty, man…it may not be a systemic disenfranchisement, legally and otherwise, but beauty still equals a kind of power that you either have or do not have. You can buy it, sort of, but you still lose it. At 43 I’m probably past the cusp of having that power. I have other power, but I can tell you the invisibling of middle aged women (in terms of their sexual value) isn’t something I feel good about.
Oddly, most middle aged women I know have better more satisfying sex lives than they ever did in their 20′s, when they were “beautiful.”
“The invisibling”. Sounds like horror movie! That’s a great term for anyone being marginalized. There are the hate crimes, of course, but the invisibling is profoundly troubling too, no matter who it happens to.
But the question, to me, is different. It’s do we police “words” — or do we help the groups that are take actions so that those words no longer apply to them. Do actually allow them to be used, diffuse the harshness of their meaning, so that the ability to hurt someone with those words is lessened?
I would rather change actions than words.
I would also rather be in control of what is said against me.
*I* want to be the one in charge of the meaning of a word when someone calls me a name. That’s why I go around in speaking engagements telling people I was called a “lying feminist scum”. I am the one that gets to use that as a trump card, a positive, a way of connecting with people — instead of being bullied or shamed by the words. Reclaim meaning and turn it into a positive.
I know that’s a controversial way of looking at things, which is why I want to be sensitive to other people when it comes to words. But for me personally — that’s what works.
I think for me, if I’m going to use a difficult/sensitive word, I should know it’s history. Then I use it and can stand by why I use it.
Totally agree that in an ideal world, that would be ideal. But this is *exactly* the reason I used my 16 year old daughter as an example. Shannon is as polite, respectful, and thoughtful a kid as you’d ever hope to meet. We talk about these things all the time. But she uses the word “ghetto” because she thinks it means “cheap”. She uses it because her friends use it and means the same thing to all of them. How would she know it was a difficult / sensitive word?
And that was my point about the difficult / sensitive words like rape. It was my experience that being told not to use certain words meant I couldn’t talk about difficult / sensitive issues.
Absolutely. I think it’s a great moment to say…well what does that mean? Where did the journey of the word come from. For me, if I know the history I’m less likely to use something, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. It’s that I’m empowered to know about the totality of the word. It’s vital to talk about things I think and to be able to choose about words.
I don’t understand why “knowing a word’s history” is the ideal.
That implies that the history of a word should be given power, and thus the word itself gains power through its history.
This is how weapons are created.
If we stop making pretend that words have power based upon their historical uses, then we stop creating weapons built out of sound. I don’t fear being called a word that has no historical meaning for me, and I shouldn’t have to fear being called words in general.
Shouldn’t we try and get to a place where words don’t have historical meaning, period?
AHA!
You just said that SO much better than me Mike L, but I agree.
I don’t want words to be used as weapons.
I don’t want words to have power.
“Weapons built out of sound.” — what an awesome turn of the phrase.
I agree. Thank you.
Words do have power. They are tools that humans use to communicate. That I am able to type these particular letters out in a particular order to send you a message that makes sense means they have power. Great writers, poets, speechwriters know this. Hell, any kid who has teased another kid knows this.
You take away the power of words, any word, we get nothing.
You want to take the violence away? Deal with the people using the tools.
All words have meaning and context and history. I find that beautiful actually. Without meaning and history and context I’m not sure we could have word play, poetry, great prose.
Our words are part of how our culture develops. They are a deep structure of how we communicate.
But you agree that it’s ok to allow words to be used as weapons — weapons that can hurt other people in tangible ways because everyone agrees on a harmful meaning for that word?
People as a group give the word power to be used against someone else?
I’m not sure what you are asking, but no I don’t want people to use words as weapons and I’d expect from knowing me and reading my work you’d know I find that a repulsive idea, using words to hurt people. I understand that people often do exactly this, despite what I would want, both intentionally and unintentionally. And that using words that have started a change (ghetto, gay, retarded) may have the accidental effect of hurting people unintentionally, so I think it’s important for people to know as many meanings of the word as possible and then decide if they want to use that word and how they want to use it, knowing that it can/may have an impact.
But of course I don’t want people to harm each other.
I hope that makes more sense.
Well no, of course not Julie. When I’m rushed I sometimes forget to go back and double-check my pronouns.
I did not mean YOU would ever use words as weapons. I know that about you.
What I meant was — suppose there is Person X across the room. And THAT person uses words as weapons. And Person Y is on the receiving end of those words.
For me, personally — I would rather connect with Person Y and create change on that end. Because chances are, Person X is someone I dislike. I happen to not like people who are deliberately mean with words. That’s a personal, deliberate choice on my end.
On the other hand — I admire the people who DO go after Person X, call them out, tell them why what they are doing is wrong. But I think it’s only effective to a point. I think there is a difference between saying to someone “You shouldn’t use that word.” and “Here’s why what you just said was hurtful.”
For me — I’d rather simply talk to the people who aren’t Person X about how to gain power despite the words being used. My desire to use individual words correctly has very little to do with the fact that I think I can still help create change in the world on a large scale. I’m just not sure that spending my time telling people how to use words correctly is as effective as other tactics.
Julie — I was thinking about power and words. And of course I understand and appreciate the power of words. I’m a poet, a stand-up comedian, a copywriter. Words are a gift. Words have tremendous power. In fact, one of the very first advertisements I did was for a Suicide Prevention hotline. The headline was “Words are the most powerful things on earth. Some have even been known to stop a bullet.” And it went on to state that calling a suicide hotline can very often save a life.
And if I do anything in my lifetime, I’d like to do that once again — use more words to stop more bullets.
So let’s start there. With common ground. Words are powerful. Words are important.
When I am communicating with someone as a fellow human, I try very hard not to use any word as a weapon. There are *plenty* of words I would never use in certain situations. I would never call someone “stupid”. I would never use the word “ugly” to describe someone, not to that person, not to others. I would never use words that would imply that a janitor was any less valuable than me. I would never use words to imply someone with a handicap was any less than 100% human.
But that is me being on the giving end of words, to individuals.
When I am receiving end of words, people can say what they want to me. But I want to be able to take a word — ANY word — and make it have *positive* power. And if I am the one who says “don’t use that word, you can’t use that word because *I* say so” — I’ve just given up my power to have that word used positively. Now, any time that word IS used, it’s divisive. There is no longer a place for shared communication. There is no longer a way to own that word. A power struggle ensues over that word. A word!
What I was trying to say with words is that I think that by categorically saying a word is “wrong”, it makes it *more* likely to be misused than less.
I know that words are important, but I don’t want any one word to be important. What I’d rather — I’d rather that every interaction I have with every person be important. In every single interaction, I’d like to give my power to the other person. Through words. They can have all that they can take from me.
We are more in agreement than you think. Thanks for clarifying though, it helps.
While I share your hopes Lisa, given what humans are (merely human), I’m reasonably certain your wish will not be fulfilled.
So it goes…
In five years, the whole world can change, Wet One.
“intersectionality – the point where heteronormativity and racism and men’s issues and women’s issues and sexual violence and gay marriage and the changing roles of dads – and yes, beauty – collide.”
Indeed.
One of the most fascinating things about The Good Men Project. We are truly at the crossroads.
I would really like to talk about this part of the piece:
“The conversations I hear from men about women “I like beautiful women. I’m a man. And I want it to be ok for me to like beautiful women. I want to like what I like and not feel guilty for it.” is strikingly similar to the conversations I have with men who others call out for being racists and bigots, “But I want to be able to talk about how I feel honestly about race. I want it to be ok to talk about race without being called a bigot. I want it to be ok that I have a very real fear of walking into a ghetto.”
I struggle with this when commenting here regularly.
I love economics. Learning about the economic analysis of law changed my life and my worldview. Reading papers and opinions by people like Judge Posner made me decide to got to law school, and really gave me direction in life.
But the trouble with economics is that it tries as hard as possible to adhere to empirical scientific methods. The arguments are all rooted in what’s provable with statistics. Which arguments are correct, and which are not, depend entirely on how the data plays out.
And sometimes the data plays out in unfortunate ways.
Many of the ideas I express here come from economic papers I’ve read, and classes I’ve taken. They’re backed by statistical research, most of which I’ve seen. And the outcomes can be extremely unfortunate: some groups really do commit more crime even when we control for all the variables, sometimes when children fail it really is the parent’s fault, sometimes when schools fail it really can be traced to individual teachers.
None of this is said out of racism, or classism, or any other ism. It’s just what the data indicated. More often than not, the study was actually done by people hoping to find the opposite result. But they didn’t, data doesn’t work that way.
Nonetheless, I’ll post the arguments and promptly get called “uninformed” or “uneducated.” I’ll post links, and they’ll be dismissed. I’ll get called a troll.
I would give anything for others to understand that sometimes unpopular opinions aren’t based in bias or bigotry. Sometimes they just reflect reality as best you could measure it. And sometimes, before throwing out an accusation like “racist” or “misinformed” maybe we should just give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
I don’t know what the answer is Mike.
I believe in numbers. I told this story in a conference call the other day. About a family member who had been in and out of hospitals for 3 months with congestive heart failure. And one day, I had just returned from visiting her — we had been laughing and joking as we always were. And I got a call from the doctor who said she had 48 hours to live. And when I said “how can that be, she doesn’t seem to have changed” — the doctor said “It’s her numbers. Everything is pointing to the fact that her organs are failing. Her system is systematically shutting down.” And knowing that allowed me to run back to the hospital and be there with her when she died.
I since realized that “the numbers” can be used to judge the health of anything. A business. Your personal finances. An economic system. A country.
I’m a numbers junkie. I live and breath them every day. I’ve been known to wake up at 3 am and run to check GoogleAnalytics to see how things are doing here on this site.
But knowing what the numbers are doesn’t always tell you the right thing to do.
Knowing the numbers doesn’t always tell you how to act with love and respect and empathy for others.
I believe that no matter what the numbers are, you can use them in a way to move forward in a positive way. To move forward for the best possible good.
When I give someone the benefit of the doubt, it’s because I believe they have looked at reality, and moved forward with good intentions no matter what. The numbers can *always* be used to understand what is going on. To know what to focus on. To help create positive change.
When it comes to something like race, I have nothing against looking at the problems to say “here’s where the problems are”. In the case of Trayvon, a lot of people brought up the statistics of black on black murders. There were numbers to prove it. GREAT! I said. If you feel so passionate black on black murders, help me solve that problem! Let’s solve it — we absolutely should, if that’s what the numbers say. But suddenly, those people disappeared. They didn’t want to really solve that problem. They didn’t want to take the actions that might lead to something good. They wanted to use those numbers as a shield to say “my belief system is right.” I couldn’t see where the forward progress was in that conversation about numbers.
The thing about numbers I always tell my staff is this. Never look at the numbers if you don’t know what action you would take to make things better.
I think it’s important to have honest conversations about race. I think it’s important to understand all sides. But there hast to be a shared desire to move forward to something good.
Lisa,
I think part of the problem is that there really are ways forward, solutions that are within our reach, that are supported by numbers, and yet will always get dismissed out of hand.
I remember reading an article some time ago by Cory Booker, the pseudo-celebrity mayor of Newark, NJ about a school model that he wanted to import from New York City. The prototype for this model was the Harlem Success Academy. It had been brought to Mr. Booker’s attention when economist Roland Fryer demonstrated that it could improve student performance by an entire standard deviation. This was a miracle in a field where you only ever expect to see incremental improvement.
And then there’s the catch.
The methods used by the Harlem Success Academy are not primarily related to teaching methods or curriculum; they instead work to change the culture (for want of a better word) that the students are raised in.
Methods include demanding that parents read six books a week to their children, and blame is explicitly placed on parents (rather than children) when homework isn’t completed. If a student receives a Saturday detention, the parent must also show up.
These methods were based off of older research that showed parental-investment was the biggest factor in predicting student outcomes.
Given the research, and the success of the program, this is clearly a message that needs to be spread. But it’s not going to be spread.
No one wants to hear that when a child fails, the parents deserve a large part of the blame. No one wants to hear that in communities where fathers rampantly abandon their children, that abandonment affects school-related outcomes. No one wants to accept that the community itself is to blame for student outcomes when the parents in that community do not invest themselves in their children’s education.
These arguments need to be made so that immensely beneficial solutions can be implemented.
But good luck making them. You’ll be called “heartless” or “ignorant” or “racist” before you even finish talking.
This is what I am talking about. We lose access to entire categories of solution because the arguments underpinning the solution are “unthinkable” by modern PC standards.
Mike,
Could you write a post about this? I’m all for different kinds of solutions to problems. Or even your post of last night, about being mistaken for prejudicial behavior on the subway.
I *agree* changing the culture is part of it. But to me, that’s why it’s important to understand the culture that systematic racism brings about. Have you ever rolled pennies to feed your children? If all you can do is survive — reading 6 books per week is a grand idea, but where do you get the books? It’s not that you can’t — sure there are libraries — but for some people, everything is just much harder. You’re right, change the culture, change the community. But that’s why here, for example, we not only write about the shooting of Trayvon Martin but we talk about volunteering with Big Brothers, Big Sisters, we talk about mentoring in general, we help people develop language skills so they can talk about these difficult problems with their kids. We have relationships with people who run transitional houses for men who have been in jail. We talk about fathering — how difficult it is, how wonderful it is. We seek to strengthen ties, individual to individual and community to community.
We seek to create an space for men from every economic class, every education level, every race, every country in the world can learn and grow and create change together.
I think these things are always good to talk about. It’s why I am so hep on “intersectionality”. I believe it’s easier to solve all the problems at once rather than any single one in isolation.
“the first thing they would notice about me is that I am not beautiful.”
I beg to differ.
Well, maybe you are not model-like beautiful, ok.
But human-like beautiful? Sure thing.
Ah, subjectivity… isn’t it a bitch?
WRT your thesis, well, I admire your enthusiasm and good-will, yet I think “humans will be humans” and there will always be some conflict and friction and suffering.
Because anybody see things their own way, so they disagree and behave differently from expectations.
I think it’s part of our free will: to be free, we need to be able to displease others as well – otherwise we’re just “puppets”.
Since “my freedom ends where yours begins”, we cannot protect someone’s freedom without limiting another one’s freedom.
IMHO, it’s just the nature of reality: life is not meant to make us happy.
We can always improve, sure, but there will always be “wrinkles” in reality.
“Human-like beautiful” I’ll take it! Thanks! You made my day.
I think that free will is a very very good thing. And also that there will always be collisions, and some of them messy. But I simply love looking for solutions to difficult-to-solve problems. It’s what I do. It’s who I am. So when you say “life is not meant to make us happy” — no, I have no expectations of that, whatsoever.
*I” am meant to make me happy, and despite my occasional complaints, I do a damn good job of it.
But part of what makes me so happy is that combination of free will and looking for ways to keep making things better.
Thanks for stopping by.
@Lisa Hickey: “But I simply love looking for solutions to difficult-to-solve problems.”
And so do I. I’m a natural-born problem solver. 8)
The issue I was pointing out, is the belief that we can solve everything; that we can stop suffering, once and for all.
No, I think it’s impossible, and believing it make things worse, not better.
In other words:
- Striving for improvement: wise and useful.
- Striving for “perfection” (put an ending to issues and suffering): impossible and prone to create more problem than it solves.
I’ve been thinking on writing an article about this, but it’s a complex subject… and I think most people don’t want to hear it (it feels much better, believing in dreams and “perfection”).
“I hope that Shannon grows up in a world where there are no black actors or female presidents or stay-at-home dads or gay marriages or transgendered people – only actors and presidents and dads and marriages and people.”
The stated wish above has to be contextualized for only bias based on negative experiences because they are many people who want to celebrate their unique culture/differences.
I think it perceived “differences” only are problematic when you use it to discriminate or oppress people but I am sure Irish-Americans still want to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and Caribbean folks will always want to have the West Indian Day Parade in NYC.
Great post.