Tag: privilege

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2017 rewind: The evidence Gareth Morgan doesn’t want to see

TOP three! See, it’s funny because I said “TOP”. The 5% dream may have slipped from Gareth’s grasp, but he’s vowed to keep on trucking, and now even more women have resigned over his evidence-based behaviour he should have every success.

Originally published 24 August 2017

Gareth Morgan. You can’t escape his (hopefully deliberate? Possibly ironic?) Big Brother-esque visage on a distressing number of Wellington buildings, commanding you to CARE. THINK. VOTE. And if you spend any amount of time in the circles of #nzpol Twitter, you can’t escape him railing against anyone who criticises, questions, or so much as engages with his message. “2-bit blogger”, “toothless sheep”, “clot”, “pathetic Jacindaphiles”, do you even care? WELL DO YOU???

It takes a very particular kind of arrogance to assume that you, and you alone, are gifted with the objectivity and sense and rational capabilities to thoroughly sift and measure every aspect of society and come to the only proper, true, evidence-based solutions to all life’s problems. It requires a total lack of self-awareness to notice that all of these evidence-based solutions just happen to align with one’s pre-existing assumptions – or to even realise one has pre-existing assumptions.

But many people are arrogant, and many people can’t reflect on their own thinking. Pretty much everyone believes that they’ve formed their opinions sensibly and thoughtfully and based on evidence (which is why the idea that elections are or should be about Pure Battles Of Policy is rubbish), and very few of us question the subconscious biases and contexts that influence our thinking. So that’s not really Gareth Morgan’s problem.

Gareth’s problem is that he’s an old, white, rich man.

*waits*

Now that the angry trolls are off yelling at me on Twitter about reverse-sexism and ageism and politics of envy, let me explain: none of those things make Gareth Morgan a bad person. None of them are inherently bad things. But each represents another layer of mud on his windscreen, obscuring his view and making it inevitable he’s going to crash into something. And he can’t even see that it’s there.

We live in a society which holds fast the belief that being a man makes you more rational, and being white makes you more intelligent, and being old entitles you to a public platform, and being rich proves you’re right about everything. We have a frankly religious attachment to Enlightenment thinking, raising “evidence” on a pedestal which cannot be challenged. It’s a virtue to not have ideology. “We’ll just do what works,” they nod seriously, from seats across the whole political spectrum.

Yet that is not how the world is.

We know, for example, that many medications do not work as effectively on women, because they are more often tested on men (note: cissexist framing). We know in social science research that the way a question is phrased delivers markedly different results.

Our preconceptions can literally affect our ability to do math.

But none of this gives Gareth Morgan pause, because he’s getting constant positive reinforcement for his worldview. Our society’s base settings mean he’s right before he’s opened his mouth. Criticism from other people –who aren’t as old (therefore authoritative) as him, who aren’t white men (therefore rational), people who aren’t rich (therefore correct) – just tells him he is the lone noble crusader for truth and objectivity in a world populated by gullible fools who need to be educated.

So his personal attacks aren’t immature bullshit, because they’re true; and he can’t be sexist, because he’s sensible; and none of you silly people were going to vote for him anyway so it doesn’t matter.

You must be wrong: you’re criticising Gareth Morgan. And if that weren’t the rational thing to believe, he wouldn’t believe it.

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The evidence Gareth Morgan doesn’t want to see

Gareth Morgan. You can’t escape his (hopefully deliberate? Possibly ironic?) Big Brother-esque visage on a distressing number of Wellington buildings, commanding you to CARE. THINK. VOTE. And if you spend any amount of time in the circles of #nzpol Twitter, you can’t escape him railing against anyone who criticises, questions, or so much as engages with his message. “2-bit blogger”, “toothless sheep”, “clot”, “pathetic Jacindaphiles”, do you even care? WELL DO YOU???

It takes a very particular kind of arrogance to assume that you, and you alone, are gifted with the objectivity and sense and rational capabilities to thoroughly sift and measure every aspect of society and come to the only proper, true, evidence-based solutions to all life’s problems. It requires a total lack of self-awareness to notice that all of these evidence-based solutions just happen to align with one’s pre-existing assumptions – or to even realise one has pre-existing assumptions.

But many people are arrogant, and many people can’t reflect on their own thinking. Pretty much everyone believes that they’ve formed their opinions sensibly and thoughtfully and based on evidence (which is why the idea that elections are or should be about Pure Battles Of Policy is rubbish), and very few of us question the subconscious biases and contexts that influence our thinking. So that’s not really Gareth Morgan’s problem.

Gareth’s problem is that he’s an old, white, rich man.

*waits*

Now that the angry trolls are off yelling at me on Twitter about reverse-sexism and ageism and politics of envy, let me explain: none of those things make Gareth Morgan a bad person. None of them are inherently bad things. But each represents another layer of mud on his windscreen, obscuring his view and making it inevitable he’s going to crash into something. And he can’t even see that it’s there.

We live in a society which holds fast the belief that being a man makes you more rational, and being white makes you more intelligent, and being old entitles you to a public platform, and being rich proves you’re right about everything. We have a frankly religious attachment to Enlightenment thinking, raising “evidence” on a pedestal which cannot be challenged. It’s a virtue to not have ideology. “We’ll just do what works,” they nod seriously, from seats across the whole political spectrum.

Yet that is not how the world is.

We know, for example, that many medications do not work as effectively on women, because they are more often tested on men (note: cissexist framing). We know in social science research that the way a question is phrased delivers markedly different results.

Our preconceptions can literally affect our ability to do math.

But none of this gives Gareth Morgan pause, because he’s getting constant positive reinforcement for his worldview. Our society’s base settings mean he’s right before he’s opened his mouth. Criticism from other people –who aren’t as old (therefore authoritative) as him, who aren’t white men (therefore rational), people who aren’t rich (therefore correct) – just tells him he is the lone noble crusader for truth and objectivity in a world populated by gullible fools who need to be educated.

So his personal attacks aren’t immature bullshit, because they’re true; and he can’t be sexist, because he’s sensible; and none of you silly people were going to vote for him anyway so it doesn’t matter.

You must be wrong: you’re criticising Gareth Morgan. And if that weren’t the rational thing to believe, he wouldn’t believe it.

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Who gets to be apolitical, and who neutrality serves

A great article about serious politics and Captain America from Dr Naja Later at Women Write About Comics:

The trouble is that this narrative is hinged on the idea that until now, Cap was not political. Apart from being historically untrue, it speaks to a greater failure in recognising that everyone is political. The privilege to believe you can be apolitical is particular to a demographic like [current Captain America writer] Nick Spencer’s. These people are exnominated, a term coined by Roland Barthes to describe how privileged identities are unnamed because they are the norm. The exnominated can believe that their race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, bodies, and ideologies are “neutral.” For those of us outside the exnominated—anyone who is “other” in some way—our every action and inaction is, whether we like it or not, read as political. This is how the term “identity politics” arises, because only the non-privileged have a visible “identity,” and its existence is treated as political. Because we have been forced to recognise how our everyday is political, we recognise that the same is true of the exnominated.

This is one reason I kind of hold on to the label “identity politics”, even as it’s been weaponized by dudes who really wish the womenfolk would stop having opinions loudly and in public. It’s a beautiful circular trap: my politics are grounded in my identity because my identity has been created for political ends, i.e. to preserve and protect capitalism.

Being defined as neutral or not having an “identity” is the basis of privilege. Your rights aren’t special when you’re the norm, your needs aren’t extraordinary or frivolous, your welfare is inherently important. Your existence and opinions are simply not seen as political the way a woman’s or a black man’s or a queer person’s are. But when we buy into the idea that to be political is icky, and that the best way to be is neutral … well, we end up defending Nazis. Literally.

[Spencer’s] entire tenure as the writer of Cap books has been working to recreate the popular fanboy illusion that superheroes can and should be apolitical. He’s set a scene where activism and criticism are not only wrong: they’re out of character, unheroic, and embarrassing. This long game leads to a point where the man who writes one of culture’s most famous Nazi-punchers advocates for a genocidal neo-Nazi. Now that Richard Spencer has retweeted him, we can see exactly whom the myth of neutrality serves.

I’m almost finished reading Katrine Marçal’s Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? which absolutely nails this topic. Hopefully have a review up shortly!

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Were we wrong about Trump?

A few thoughts expanded from my Twitter yesterday, on the number of leftwingers or liberals who I see saying things like “Oh, Donald Trump has calmed down since winning, he’s toned down the extremism, maybe he won’t be a total monster as President.”

The thing is, Trump’s behaviour may have calmed down. But the hatred and violence he deliberately fostered during the election hasn’t.

There were many, many factors involved in the US election result, and a lot of the narratives presume there was a massive surge in Republican support, to which I just keep referring to this graph:

But just because Trump didn’t get a huge stack of new voters doesn’t mean his aggressive, violent messages had no impact. Of course they affected the way people talk, and the way people are behaving now he’s won, and their sense that openly racist, xenophobic, sexist attitudes are acceptable now.

Those people are now doing the work for him, of terrorising people who might resist, of shutting down honest debate about democracy, and of marginalizing even further the people already on the margins. They are harassing, attacking, abusing, vandalising, threatening, and inevitably they will be killing other people because of Trump’s message.

It’s entirely convenient and cynically, strategically smart for Trump to chill out and start acting like a grown-up for the cameras now. Because the violence will carry on regardless – they got the message – and our “oh it’s not so bad, he’s stopped screaming racist abuse” reaction means it will go unchallenged.

If we say “oh but violence is terrible, I deplore violence” yet do not actively resist the root cause of that violence we might as well say nothing at all.

Trump’s newfound “mature” demeanour gives people – especially privileged liberals with access and resources – an excuse to step back and stop being angry. Stop elevating the voices of others who don’t have our privilege. Stop caring about violence and abuse targeted at people who don’t look like us.

After an election in which so many marginalized people already felt like (and have plenty of data to support the notion) middle-class liberal white people sold them out, we simply cannot double down on ignoring their needs.

We cannot take comfort in the fact that Donald Trump has taken off the red baseball cap of the disruptive threat to the status quo and put on the trappings of a normal, safe white male politician. Because then all we’re doing is saying fascism is okay as long as it’s not too shouty.

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The Kermadecs and racist environmentalism

I did a bit of a tweetstorm earlier today, inspired by seeing friends embroiled in frustrating conversations like this one and the decided slant of articles like this about the proposed Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary.

My thoughts resonated with a bunch of people, so here they are in post form, but I’m going to stick up at the front something which I tweeted late in the piece: I’m just a Pākehā woman with a Twitter account and a reflexive critical analysis of political discourse. I’m not an expert in this area. I refer you to far wiser people like Morgan Godfery and the reportage of folk like Maiki Sherman at Newshub.

So. This week has been a revelation in the racist imperialism of mainstream (white) environmental organisations.

We’re not even arguing about meaningful consultation around establishing the Kermadec sanctuary, we’re talking about ZERO consultation by white politicians who assumed they knew best. National are literally in coalition with the Māori Party but didn’t even pick up the phone to give them a heads-up, probably because like every other Pākehā handwringer they just assumed they knew best about whether there’d be an issue.

That’s problem 1: Pākehā assuming they know everything about a complex historical/legal issue which gets really shallow coverage in the media and frequently is only lightly discussed in school, if ever.

Problem 2 is the (very Pākehā) environment lobby’s outrage that anyone might stand in the way of an ocean sanctuary. “Think of the planet!” they cry, which is appallingly arrogant coming from the ethnic group which has done the vast majority of screwing up the planet to start with.

But no, now we know better so let’s do things our way, it’s for the greater good after all!

This also brings in the horrible racist undertones of the Pākehā worldview being more ~sophisticated~ than Māori.

We have to take a hard look at how environmental organisations and Pākehā liberalism exploit indigenous culture. When it suits us, we happily draw on the notion of indigenous people being ~more in touch with the land~ and having a ~spiritual connection to nature~ and painting with all the goddamned colours of the wind. When it helps our agenda, we happily retweet the hashtags opposing oil pipelines and trumpet the importance of honouring the Treaty.

But scratch the surface and all the smug superiority is there. We know better; our thinking is more advanced because we care about ~the whole planet~.

It’s very easy to care about the whole planet when you’re on the team who took it by force.

The third problem I came to is broader than the current debate: it’s the hate-on Pākehā have for the idea that Māori dare to operate in a capitalist framework. Like, we came here, smashed their culture, took their land, tried to destroy their language, imposed capitalism on them, and when we offer a pittance in compensation for what they have lost, we get OUTRAGED when they set up “modern” business structures with it.

Do people have justified concerns about the decisions and operating practices of some Māori corporations? Probably. There are issues with every capitalist construct run for profit. But we treat Māori ones very differently – we treat everything Māori do differently (remember the foreshore and seabed? Remember how nobody seemed to have a problem with rich white people owning whole beaches and islands, but the idea of Māori just having the right to test ownership in court was the end of the world?)

We’ve put Māori in a catch-22: imposing Pākehā capitalism on them, but acting appalled whenever they dare use it to survive.

So this is how it goes. Pākehā make a decision to eradicate fishing rights without consulting Māori, because we know better. Then we decry them for not caring about the environment – which we stole from them and exploited for over a century – and imply they only care about money – which is a good thing if you’re in business but not if you’re brown.

And so we pat ourselves on the back for being More Enlightened About The Environment while literally confiscating land & resources from Māori again.

~

A tangent on industrialization, climate change and the environment: let’s consider how all the “first world” “developed” nations got to where they are – by pillaging and strip-mining every piece of the planet we could get our hands on – but now we’ve hoarded all the money and resources and built “sophisticated” economies, suddenly we want to scold “less developed” nations for doing exactly the same thing.

Blade Runner and The Fifth Element knew exactly what they were doing when they showed the working classes living beneath the smog layer, is what I’m saying.