26 Kasým 2020, Perþembe
saat: 23:54
i feel like this is all so elliptical and vague i’m not sure it will even make sense to anyone reading it, lol. but i wanted to just think through it aloud (look at me, talking talking talking):
i understand the value of value signaling. i really do! like, it’s important to be clear on where you stand, and to demonstrate to others that you are paying attention to what’s happening. but it’s just not my style. i would rather go quietly read a bunch of books about the subject and listen to other people talk about it. me reposting something is going to have zero effect on the world except to signal to other people that i’m a Good Person (TM) who has the Right Opinions (TM), which is just, like... it’s just words ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
IDK. i always think, like, if a man tells me he’s a feminist, or if he’s posting constantly about his "Feminist Opinions", my instinctive reaction is: don’t trust that man. because someone who is spending that much time talking probably doesn’t have a lot of time left over for listening or reflecting or quietly learning about things. i also feel like someone who likes to hear themselves talk that much, or who derives some kind of fulfillment from having their Good Thoughts (TM) publicly recognized and affirmed by others, may not find much fulfillment in the internal, introspective, long-term work of reflection and internal change. and that’s because that work is so private! and because so much of it happens without anyone applauding you or “liking” those internal shifts, or even seeing them in real time! often if you make a big shift or experience deep growth in terms of unlearning something/redefining your worldview, it’s not visible in the immediate moment. it happens really slowly over time, and it’s often only, like, two or three or five years later that you can really see the concrete ways in which your values + your behaviors (ie your enactment of those values) has shifted. (i guess this is why the idea of wokeness is frustrating to me, because it’s not just like, “i opened my eyes! i WOKE UP!” if it happens that fast, it’s a superficial change that isn’t going to change the deeper structures of your personality or your patterns of responding. it’s more like.. a slow surfacing, or something. or a slow going-deeper, a slow submerging in a different way of seeing, thinking, feeling.)
i guess i feel like: i’m fine with other people engaging in what feel to me like these scripted performances, because whatever, like, we all hold different perspectives and have different ways of communicating, and for some people that might be a really important part of their.. praxis, or whatever. but for me it’s just not. to circle back to the male feminist thing: i know which men in my life i can trust and which ones i can’t. i have a pretty good sense for which ones would advocate for me and just generally have my back. i have a good feeling for which ones would listen to me and deeply reflect on what i was saying, if there was something i really needed them to know or change or be accountable for. and i know that because i’ve watched their actions over many years; i’ve seen them in many different kinds of situations; i’ve listened to them and been listened to by them. i know they don’t tirelessly perform wokeness online, because they’re engaged in quietly, seriously doing the actual work – in their classrooms or workplaces, in their own hearts/minds, in their relationships with other people. and if you asked me, i would rather have one of those guys in my corner than ten thousand dude feminists on Twitter claiming loudly to be on my team, vocally performing their outrage in ultimately self-serving, self-confirming ways.
i am suspicious of performative talk because i know how easy it’s been for me to act and speak in that way, without doing any of the deep sustained slow work of examining and changing my patterns of thought or behavior. it’s easy to proclaim that i am not an amy cooper – easy to perform the scripted social media declarations that distance me publicly from the angry white amy coopers of the world – but yknow what? the only thing my ability to say those words very loudly would tell you is that i am very good at saying “i am not an amy cooper” very loudly. it would not tell you anything real about how i act or conduct myself in my professional life or in my interactions with others. and that is especially true in a social media environment where your only knowledge of me is that controlled, heavily mediated, heavily stylized performance of self – where you have no opportunity to compare that self to your observations of me in a variety of complex situations over time.
in the arc of my life, the good concrete things i’ve done, or am working towards doing, are so small. but they feel deeper to me. I want to work to become the kind of person about whom others think/feel: “i would rather have that person on my team than ten thousand more vocal people online.” i know i’m not consistently that person yet, but i also know that i am getting better at it, especially in the workplace and in my mentoring/teaching relationships. i’m getting better at seeing things i used to not notice. i’m getting better, little by little, at paying close attention to the institutional structures in which i live and work. and in the last couple years, i’ve felt increasingly capable of quietly using the power/agency i have to make small concrete changes that positively affect the lives of current and future students. and those are, again, changes i never would’ve known needed to be made, if i hadn’t done the deep listening and relationship-building and consistently showing up that helped students trust me enough to tell me those things.
anyway. that all goes to say: you don’t get to take the easy way. you don’t get to do the thing you already know you’re good at, the thing that feels effortless for you – talking and talking, writing and writing. you don’t get to experience the immediate gratification you already know feels good. i deny myself those avenues not because i think they are inherently Wrong for everyone, all the time, but because for me, they would be the easy way, and i can’t grow or change if i just keep doing things that feel effortless, and that don’t push me to go deeper.
anyway who knows! these are questions i grapple with a lot, and i am sure the way i answer them will continue to change over the course of my lifetime. so i will try to let go of the need for certainty, as well as the desire to arrive at some takeaway, and will instead end here.
