Take today's post, for instance, where she's responding to an anonymous inquiry. The asker wonders about the usefulness (or necessity) of feeling bad to sort of prod yourself into morally commendable action. Piper answers that feeling bad by itself, all things considered, likely won't lead to quality self-examination and self-improvement. "I think correcting your reasoning processes and considering whether you’re overlooking things is tricky," she writes, "in the same way that processing a complex book or completing a puzzle or understanding a math problem are tricky." She continues:
The way I try to feel, when I’m doing this, is stubborn and curious. I want to find the strength in myself to pick at thoughts which hurt to take seriously, to look at them and understand their implications and think about how to think about them, while also being secure that there’s no thought that will fundamentally unravel everything about who I am, that I am deserving of happiness and fulfillment no matter what, that I am strong enough and good enough to bear the true answer to this process whatever it happens to be.I love her stress on the integrity of self necessary to benefit from difficult investigations and self-critiques. (There's a kind of Mr. Rogers-esque theme in Piper's blog: you are worthy of flourishing no matter what, and your existence is a net positive for the world.) Doubting your worth as a human being, for Piper, generally signals something dysfunctional in your environment and/or your cognition. Those dysfunctions can produce angry and fearful expressions. Piper models what it means to listen to and look beyond those expressions and highlight a worthwhile self under duress.
I overlook that worthwhile self during those times where I get dangerously self-loathing with regard to the multiple axes of privilege I have (white, male, US citizen, etc.). Putting it bluntly sounds banal, but I'm more than my unjust, unearned social privilege. So are you. I've learned to include that message explicitly when I'm teaching about privilege to (mainly) privileged students. Improvement and self-critique are only possible when you trust and believe that you are a worthwhile entity greater than your worst moment, choice, or feature. If you regard yourself as nothing more than someone's criticism of your social group, you'll soon develop a bad reaction, like a psychic immune response, to true and useful criticisms.
As psychologist Harriet Lerner reminds us, it's a sign of psychological health to resist being defined as something bad, even and especially when there's cause for us to confront and accept responsibility for a bad thing. "For people to look squarely at their harmful actions and to become genuinely accountable," she writes in The Dance of Connection, "they must have a platform of self-worth to stand on" (197). We have to have space of self larger than the negative patch we're critiquing so that we can stand apart from that patch, examine it closely, and accept that, yes, this is part of what we've done/who we are, and move on from there.
Focusing myopically on our negative qualities without situating ourselves on a wider platform of self-regard leads to some predictable reactions. Denial (Well, I've never sexually harassed a woman!), shunting the blame (As if women aren't just as likely to mistreat others!), and even catastrophizing self-pity (Fine. I'm awful because I'm a man. I should just kill myself!) all work to preserve our positive self-regard.
A larger question I have concerns if and how this psychological pattern scales up to social movements for justice. How much of white fragility and aggrieved white male entitlement lie in a paucity of white males' grander view of self?
To be clear: I'm not laying on marginalized groups the job of providing positive self-image to white men (or other privileged groups). Most oppressed groups have had to carve out spaces of life-affirming self-regard against a majority/oppressive culture that constantly sends messages of degradation. Such carving comprises the survival function of subcultures. White males, in general, have not had to do much carving; positive self-regard for white males (relative to non-cis-males and people of color) has structured popular culture for centuries. The recent (and still minimal) weakening of automatic positive reinforcement may explain why so many white straight males feel vulnerable, like they're under constant attack.
The progressive left's predominant responses to this feeling tend to be (1) now you know how marginalized folks feel, and/or (2) get the fuck over it. Both are understandable. But so too are counter-reactions against them. Does anyone other than a saint ever respond well to you should get over feeling this thing or what you feel is nothing compared to what others feel?
I'm not sure what to do about that.
More tomorrow,
JF
* Piper is also a science writer for Vox. See here for an example of her superb writing.
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