Breaking the Spell: Rethinking queer community

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Ranger Butch Force

True, however, why would you find the person's footwear "rediculous" to begin with? Is it because it is not what a "normal" shoe looks like? At this point, we have been trained by society to recognize a "normal" shoe, so when we see something that is not "normal", we outcast it because it is strange or foregin. Instead of passing judgement on the shoe, or person wearing the shoe, try thinking in a positive manner. Maybe think, "oh wow, look at those shoes!"

If we, as a community, want diversity then we need to practice what we preach. I'm stating that in general.

However, I think there's a nontrivial difference between the example being given and, say, whether or not we have any grounds upon which to say that there are boundaries and actions beyond the boundaries. To give a few somewhat different examples where, in fact, I think we not only do but *should* reserve the right to make judgments:

1) Someone says something blatantly racist. I'll take two of my personal favorites I've had directed at me:

"You are really smart for a black woman."
"Were you raised by a white family? I mean, you're so smart, educated and articulate."

Now, given the ethic of the community under discussion we should NOT judge the person speaking in such a manner. According to your example--and I'm not saying you are saying this but I am saying it logically follows from what you've said above in green--the better reaction would be to say "well, that person is giving me a compliment, backhanded as it is." This in the name of being nonjudgmental. However, there is *also* an ethic--I would say something approaching knee-jerk reaction--to call out racist statements (or statements perceived as racist, they are not always the same thing). We, as a community, have made a judgment that racism is intolerable. That we would very strongly prefer a community where racism is given no quarter to one where racism is tolerated either explicitly or tacitly.

2) A former boss, I'll call her Amy, was married to Donna. Colleen, who worked with Amy and I, started having an affair with Donna. Amy, thinking that Colleen was her best friend, started expressing concerns that Donna was having an affair. Colleen would sit and listen to Amy freaking out. Eventually Colleen and Donna were caught. Again, according to the *expressed* ethic in this community when next I saw Colleen I should have acted as if nothing had happened because to do otherwise would be judgmental. The thing is, Amy was my friend, as was Colleen. Amy had given both Colleen and me our big breaks. I could not believe that Colleen would screw over Amy like this. I thought (and still do) think that what Colleen did was one of the more truly fucked up things I've been witness to. But if I were to comply with the social norm here, I should have thought Colleen's actions not at all remarkable.

If what we were talking about were *either* situations where people are being judged not for what they do but for what they are OR something so trivial that to try to see it through a lens of morality would be to do violence to the entire concept of morality (say, wearing a pair of hideous shoes) then not taking a stance of judgment would be appropriate. However, the types of judgment we're talking about aren't those examples but far more weighty ones.

One more example:

3) Late last year, there was a NASA mission where a satellite was intentionally crashed into the Moon near one of the polar regions. On Huffington Post people were commenting and making all manner of truly bizarre predictions about what would happen. I'm not talking about predictions in line with what NASA was expecting (e.g. that there would be a great deal of lunar ice ejected which would then be measured to ascertain the approximate density of the lunar ice cap) but really weird things like the fact that this satellite--the part that would crash into the moon would be about the size of a modern VW Bug--would disturb the Moon's orbit which would effect the tides and, ostensibly, the menstrual cycles of every menstruating woman on the planet. No, I'm NOT making this up!

A colleague of mine and I crunched the numbers and determined that the amount of force that would be imparted by the part of the satellite that crashed into the planet, would be equivalent to a Hummer being caused to swerve because of the impact of a single bacterial spore from a mosquito hitting the vehicle while traveling 70 mph. In relationship to the mass of the moon, that satellite was like hitting a moving Hummer with a bacterial spore. Needless to say, Hummers and vehicles much smaller fairly swim through a sea of bacteria floating in the air without any ill effect every single day.

Yet, again, according to an ethic expressed in the community a truly openminded person would treat both the prediction that the Moon would be knocked out of its orbit by a small satellite causing tidal and menstrual problems and that it wouldn't be knocked out of its position but some mass would be ejected which would give us some interesting data, as being equally likely. In fact, we go farther and state that if two people are making one claim the one who is LESS likely to be moved by the evidence is the one who is being MORE openminded.

So, if one party said "this will cause catastrophe on Earth, I don't care what anyone else says" and another said "no, it won't but let's do this. Let's measure the distance from the Earth to the Moon now and do it again after the satellite crashes and if the distance has changed significantly* then we'll know I was wrong" the ethic in the community is such that we would say that the first person was openminded NOT because she was willing to have her mind changed but because she believed without any evidence and was unswerving in that belief and would remain so no matter what evidence was presented. Openminded, in this instance, appears to mean 'believing regardless of evidence'. On the other hand, the person saying they would change their mind if the evidence required it and even went so far as to establish what could be used as evidence is closed minded NOT because they won't change their mind but because they will only do so if certain conditions are met and these conditions have to do with presenting evidence, not emotionally compelling stories or evocative language given in personal anecdote.

*The Earth and the Moon are actually moving apart. It's at a very defined rate and we know what that rate is. There is also a very reliable way of determining the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon. At several Apollo landing sites, reflectors were left. By aiming a laser at the site and then determining how long a round trip takes we can determine the distance between the two bodies because light moves at 186,282 miles per second in vacuum (a little bit slower in atmosphere but not appreciable for our purposes here). Round trip for a signal moving at light speed between the Earth in the Moon is a little over 1.5 seconds meaning the Earth is about ~250K miles from Earth.


Cheers
Aj