rant of the day: better does not require perfect
I'm so fucking tired of the argument that those of us fighting for a better world - climate change, economic reform, social reform - have to give up everything that we already have or we're hypocrites.
We do not need to detach ourselves from the world as it exists in order to fix it.
Every person in the history of humanity whom we admire for doing something great did it from a position within the broken system they were trying to make better. The abolitionists worked in the midst of a society that had been built on slavery. The suffragettes protested from a position of privilege as women of wealth and property. Even today, unionists use the jobs they already have as leverage when trying to enshrine fair rights for the worker.
You know who told them that the system worked okay and didn't need changing because things just were the way they were? That they should give up everything they had or they weren't really in the fight?
The laggards, the luddites, the naysayers, the people who we look upon now as small-hearted, mean-spirited negging nellies who've always tried to hold back what was for the bettering of society.
The people on the wrong side of history.
Yeah, our footprint isn't neutral. We were born into a system that grinds others beneath its wheels and there's no way of avoiding it. The meanest child born in the western world today has benefited from the taking of native lands, the sweat of slavery, the unacknowledged work and effort of the women in our society. And that's just for starters. There's no way to undo what we've benefited from - not today, not even if we had all the power in the universe.
But we need to push back against the idea that if we can't do it perfectly, then we shouldn't even bother trying to be doing better. That kind of purity mentality is toxic enough in fannish discourse; but it's flat-out poison when put upon those who are just trying to improve the world.
The people saying that those pushing for an acknowledgement of climate change need to be perfectly green first are the kind of people who say that because they can't be perfect they shouldn't even bother trying to be good.
We don't have to be perfect to do better.
We do not need to detach ourselves from the world as it exists in order to fix it.
Every person in the history of humanity whom we admire for doing something great did it from a position within the broken system they were trying to make better. The abolitionists worked in the midst of a society that had been built on slavery. The suffragettes protested from a position of privilege as women of wealth and property. Even today, unionists use the jobs they already have as leverage when trying to enshrine fair rights for the worker.
You know who told them that the system worked okay and didn't need changing because things just were the way they were? That they should give up everything they had or they weren't really in the fight?
The laggards, the luddites, the naysayers, the people who we look upon now as small-hearted, mean-spirited negging nellies who've always tried to hold back what was for the bettering of society.
The people on the wrong side of history.
Yeah, our footprint isn't neutral. We were born into a system that grinds others beneath its wheels and there's no way of avoiding it. The meanest child born in the western world today has benefited from the taking of native lands, the sweat of slavery, the unacknowledged work and effort of the women in our society. And that's just for starters. There's no way to undo what we've benefited from - not today, not even if we had all the power in the universe.
But we need to push back against the idea that if we can't do it perfectly, then we shouldn't even bother trying to be doing better. That kind of purity mentality is toxic enough in fannish discourse; but it's flat-out poison when put upon those who are just trying to improve the world.
The people saying that those pushing for an acknowledgement of climate change need to be perfectly green first are the kind of people who say that because they can't be perfect they shouldn't even bother trying to be good.
We don't have to be perfect to do better.