I read this post last night at sunset and went for a long walk into the darkness. I kept hearing your voice, Garrett, and then envisioning a person waving their hand dismissively in the air, saying “someone should do something about this!” My heart hurt.
One thing I thought about as I walked is how much that feeling of powerlessness you reference, as a possible source of why people are asking other people to make it better, stems from this sense that power is sourced only in individuals, so our job is to find the ‘bad" ones and stop them, and then find the “good" ones who are going to figure it out.
There’s much less fluency in talking about how systems and structures are also sources of violence. It’s absolutely crucial to act as individuals and groups, rather than just talk. But I also long to gather in groups to increase my understanding of these systems and ideologies, so that we can organize to challenge their stories about the world, and the ways they rationalize violence as necessary and unchanging, in order to keep the machine of the dominant culture running.
First off, what an honor to be along for our walk in that way. And to your broader point-- I've been thinking about this so much recently, about all the ways we're trained to think of morality as being about individually good or bad people, and how that absolutely does lend to a real powerlessness. And yes, I think community spaces can be so useful to unpacking those stories and exploring structural ones!
Thanks so much, Garrett. I'm glad this is resonating with you. So much of the conversation about Epstein is also falling into the good and bad people effort to make what is structural instead about individual "choices" . . . it can be difficult to take in the scope and scale of non-individualist violence, but there are ways to do it! :-)
I read this post last night at sunset and went for a long walk into the darkness. I kept hearing your voice, Garrett, and then envisioning a person waving their hand dismissively in the air, saying “someone should do something about this!” My heart hurt.
One thing I thought about as I walked is how much that feeling of powerlessness you reference, as a possible source of why people are asking other people to make it better, stems from this sense that power is sourced only in individuals, so our job is to find the ‘bad" ones and stop them, and then find the “good" ones who are going to figure it out.
There’s much less fluency in talking about how systems and structures are also sources of violence. It’s absolutely crucial to act as individuals and groups, rather than just talk. But I also long to gather in groups to increase my understanding of these systems and ideologies, so that we can organize to challenge their stories about the world, and the ways they rationalize violence as necessary and unchanging, in order to keep the machine of the dominant culture running.
First off, what an honor to be along for our walk in that way. And to your broader point-- I've been thinking about this so much recently, about all the ways we're trained to think of morality as being about individually good or bad people, and how that absolutely does lend to a real powerlessness. And yes, I think community spaces can be so useful to unpacking those stories and exploring structural ones!
Thanks so much, Garrett. I'm glad this is resonating with you. So much of the conversation about Epstein is also falling into the good and bad people effort to make what is structural instead about individual "choices" . . . it can be difficult to take in the scope and scale of non-individualist violence, but there are ways to do it! :-)