I have a friend who told me, “I am tolerant of everyone except for the intolerant; I am not biased against anyone except the biased; I am not prejudiced except against the prejudiced.” This sounds fine and well at first glance, but can you see the problem with it? The problem is precisely that those who are intolerant always make this same argument: “Oh yes, I include people, except for those who exclude people.” Or else, “I am empathic to everyone, except those who lack empathy themselves.” The argument falls apart when one realizes that it is always already the argument of the oppressor that he or she is being oppressed. If I say, I am open to everyone except oppressors, this is already the oppressive argument! It’s nothing different than what the bonafide racist says. The difficulty with scapegoating is the same. Every time I say that another person is scapegoating me, I run the risk of scapegoating that person. When I decry another for creating a villain to fight against, I turn that other into the villain which I myself fight against. Or, as Timothy Morton puts it in his essay BEAUTIFUL SOUL SYNDROME (2009), following Hegel, perhaps the true evil is not “out there” but is the very eye which sees evil as something out there. I may accidentally perpetuate evil in the name of fighting it. - Dempcy
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 07:42:09 +0000
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