Trusting my judgment while acknowledging my bias

[breakinglight11]

Getting a touch burned out on social justice issues right now. Since I graduated I made a real effort to become an educated feminist, and you really can't responsibly study feminism without various other intersecting issues, so these things are my main form of informative reading these days. I care a great deal, want to learn as much as I can, and

Comments

[contradictacat]

wrt the coke thing, I feel like that's the difference between "social justice" and "leftist politics" and also an exercise in "good, but". Diversity is awesome, and the sheer number of shits that were flipped about the ad daring to have many non-Western cultures in it is a sign it was doing /something/ good. That's the social justice angle, to me. The whole "Capitalist imperialist company" thing is leftist stuff. The two often overlap, but they are not the same thing. It is good that the advertisement promoted the idea of a multicultural America. BUT they can also have some shady stuff. This is not to take away from the goodness of the ad, though- just to remind that everything is not sweetness and light anymore. A sort of memento mori, if you will

[breakinglight11]

This was a very helpful comment, thank you for making it. "I have some idea, but I'm open to being either right or wrong" is a very useful formulation for my brain.

[lillibet]

My experience is that being ready to be wrong is a huge clue to have. Not that you doubt your judgment all the time, but you're ready for new information and different perspectives. Being wrong is something I spent a lot of time thinking about a couple of years ago--it's not something that most of us are very good at, even though we get a lot of practice. Being ready to say "ok, I seem to be wrong about that," and to apologize when your words and actions have hurt others, is a powerful stance. It doesn't mean that you walk around worrying that you're probably wrong, just that you accept that it's part of the human condition.

There was a good blog post recently (I can probably dig it up if you're interested in more than my summary) about how vicious people in the activist community can be toward those who aren't politically correct (I use that term not in its pejorative sense, but in the sense of au courant with current issues and preferred vocabulary) on every issue. The post reminds readers that we have all had to learn this