Activism must not be derailed by behaviorism

Behaviorist ideology says that there are four basic reasons people do things: to get things/activities, to get pleasant sensations, to avoid something they dislike, or to get attention.

All of these are real reasons people do things, and it’s useful to keep them in mind. It’s also important to remember that they are not the only reasons people do things. People also have thoughts, feelings, and values.

This behaviorist framing assumes that human beings are fundamentally amoral and selfish.  Behaviorism has no room for courage, integrity, or concern for justice. In real life, values matter.

For instance: People who would not steal to support themselves will put their lives on the line to protest cuts to Medicaid. People who find it humiliating to be publicly praised as ~inspiring~ will call congress to fight bad policies, including bad policies that affect groups other than their own. There’s more going on than attention. Values matter.

In activism and advocacy, it’s often useful to show others that it’s in their interests to support our policies. (Eg: “Your constituents care about Medicaid, and you’ll lose your seat if you vote for a bill that would cut it”, or “No matter how responsible you are, you could get sick tomorrow and need access to Medicaid.”

It’s *also* useful to show them that the policies matter within *values* they already care about. For instance, if someone cares about religious freedom, it could be useful to point out that institutionalized people lose access to their houses of worship and other things they need in order to practice their religion on their terms. If someone cares about encouraging people to work, it could be useful to point out ways in which Home and Community Based disability services make it possible for people to work.

It’s also important to make a case for our values more broadly. People don’t understand what ableism is and why it’s bad. Many people are receptive to learning, if it’s explained in a way that they can understand. It’s not just about self-interest. It’s also about values. People can understand right and wrong, and act accordingly, whether they are marginalized or privileged.

Privilege doesn’t need to prevent someone from being a good person and doing the right thing. There’s more to life than behaviorism and self interest. People are capable of caring about their values more than they care about enjoying the advantages of privilege.

Short version: Behaviorism reduces everything people do to self-interest, with no room for values. Activism based solely on privilege analysis falls into the same mistake. We need to keep in mind that all people are capable of learning to tell right from wrong and act accordingly. We need to make the case for our values, in a way that people can understand. Lives depend on it.

“You should make a complaint!”

So, I’ve noticed this pattern:

  • Someone will describe some act of discrimination or social violence
  • And then very well-meaning people will weigh in and say things like
  • “They can’t treat people that way!”
  • “Wow, you should really report that!”

Reporting incidents of discrimination can be a good thing, and sometimes it goes somewhere. But, hearing this well-intentioned advice can actually be really frustrating, for a number of reasons:

The thing about being a marginalized person is that discrimination is a routine experience, not an occasional outrage:

  • Things that sound like aberrations to folks who are usually socially valued enough to be treated well most of the time are daily life for a lot of marginalized people
  • If we filed a formal complaint every time we experienced this, we’d have no time or energy for anything else
  • And sometimes, we want to get on with our lives and do things other than fight discrimination
  • Which means that, sometimes, when we talk about discrimination, we’re not asking for advice on how to make it go away; sometimes we’re accepting that we’re not going to be able to make it go away this time
  • And it needs to be ok to disagree about the right way to proceed

Also, sometimes complaints don’t actually help:

  • When the bad thing is the rule rather than the exception, it’s unlikely that anyone will care.
  • When the offender is much more socially valued than the victim, it’s likely that no one will care
  • People who complain frequently are generally seen as problem whiners, even if they are entirely justified in every complaint they make

Complaints are a good idea sometimes. But complaining is a very personal decision. Understand the costs and risks of complaining. Do not pressure a marginalized person to make a complaint in order to make yourself feel better about the state of the world. Do offer to support them if they want to do so.

Some things I think I know about dirty jokes

This post I think is not quite right. It’s something I know a bit about, but there are parts I don’t understand too. Anyway, here are some things I think I know about dirty jokes.

Jokes about the following subjects are usually considered dirty (some of these jokes are relatively innocuous):

  • Sex
  • Masturbation
  • Genitals
  • Breasts
  • Defecation
  • Urination
  • Vomiting
  • Drinking alcohol
  • Doing drugs
  • These jokes can be good or bad, it depends on the joke, and the context in which it is told.

Rude jokes that are dirty because they deal with impolite subject matter can be ok to tell in some circumstances, but not others:

There are three basic situations in which these jokes are usually ok:

  • People who are social equals and have an equal friendship, and both like telling rude jokes to one another, or:
  • People in a profession that deals with impolite areas, making trade-related jokes to colleagues (eg: people who work concert security making jokes to one another about bodily functions and weird things people do at shows)
  • When someone is doing a comedy routine and other people are listening to it on purpose

It’s almost always a bad idea to tell rude jokes to people you have power over:

  • Partly this is because it’s not ok to tell rude jokes to people who dislike rude jokes. And people you have power over might not feel comfortable or safe telling you to stop.
  • It’s also threatening in a few ways that go beyond this.
  • Telling rude jokes is a sign that you regard someone as a social equal, and emphatically expect that they share that view
  • This can be a sign that you aren’t willing to acknowledge the power you have over them. That’s threatening.
  • It can also be sexually threatening. The rules about dirty jokes are part of the rules about sexual boundaries. Telling a dirty joke in an inappropriate contexts is often the first step a sexual predator takes in testing someone’s willingness to enforce sexual boundaries. Even if you have no such intent, telling a rude joke, especially a sexual rude joke, can be seen this way.
  • That’s especially true if when someone objects to the joke, you tell them to lighten up because it was just a joke.

There’s also another kind of dirty joke: the hate joke. Hate jokes are about hurting people. Hate jokes say bad things about other groups, or express violent desires, then make somewhat more socially acceptable by phrasing it as a joke:

  • Jokes that contain slur words are usually, but not always, hate jokes
  • Jokes that rely on asserting that stereotypes are true are usually hate jokes
  • For instance, dumb blonde jokes.
  • Or “ironic” racism (eg: telling a racist joke, where the joke is that it’s so hilarious that someone who is so not-racist would say such a thing)
  • Some hate jokes are explicitly violent.
  • That kind of joke normalizes violence. The violent abuser in that joke is the sympathetic character.
  • Hate jokes are only ok when it’s actually ok to hate the people the joke is about. That’s almost never the case. But sometimes hate jokes about an abuser, or general hate jokes about rapists, can be ok jokes to make.
  • There’s a difference between telling hate jokes with the intent of harming members of the target group, and telling hate jokes without active ill intent because you think they’re funny. But it’s a difference of degree, not kind.
  • Sometimes members of target groups tell hate jokes as a form of self-hatred. That’s also a difference of degree
  • Sometimes members of the target groups tell hate jokes as a way of mocking the way people hate them. This is a difference of kind, not degree.

Basically, the bottom line is that it still matters what you’re saying if you’re making a joke while you’re saying it.

Another thing about privilege

If you have a lot of privilege, you’ve learned to take up all or most of the space when you’re around people below you in the hierarchy. 

It’s important to learn to stop doing that. It’s important to learn how to be in a space without dominating it. It means learning to listen to people you’ve been systemically taught that it’s ok to talk over.

This can be hard to learn. When you stop dominating spaces, you have to live with less control, space, and attention than you’ve become accustomed to. You’re going to feel constrained, and like the other people are taking up all the space – even if you’re still taking up most of it.

And, once it becomes clear that you’re trying, people will express anger at you a lot more than then used to. This might feel really unfair, since you’re acting better than you ever have before, yet you’re attracting a lot more anger and criticism. 

The reason it works this way is because people used to put up with you treating them badly because they didn’t see any point in objecting. Most people who have privilege and power over others don’t especially care about how it hurts people. Further, a lot of them get really angry and retaliate when it’s pointed out. You’ve shown that you’re someone who might actually listen. That means you’re the one who gets yelled at.

It’s not fair, but the people who are yelling at you aren’t the ones responsible for the unfairness. Don’t get angry at them for it – get angry at the people like you who aren’t getting yelled at because they don’t give a damn. And maybe start calling them on it and make their indifference cost them something. You’re probably in a much better position to do this than the people below you in the hierarchy. 

And keep in mind that the situation faced by the people who are yelling at you is a hell of a lot more unfair than the situation you’re in.

That said, don’t beat yourself up for feeling frustrated, either. This is hard, and it’s ok to find it difficult. You’re going to make mistakes, and some of this is really going to suck. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or that you can’t learn how to act right. (Also, sometimes people will tell you that you’re oppressing them when you’re not. You can’t automatically assume that everyone is right when they tell you off – but if you’re in a highly privileged group and you think *everyone* who is telling you off is wrong, you’re probably the one who is wrong.)

Just keep trying, and don’t make the people below you responsible for making you feel better.

Being aware of privilege only helps if you do something

Talking about how privileged you are and how much you acknowledge your privilege doesn’t do much, on its own.

It has to actually change what you do.

It can actually make things worse, if all you do is mention it.

Because then the implication is “yeah, I know I’m privileged and have all kinds of unwarranted power over others, but I don’t really care and it’s not going to change what I do. Please to be praising me for noticing this. I’m pretty great.”

And people you have power over can come under a lot of pressure to give you the praise you want, and to help you feel ok about the discrimination you participate in. Don’t do this to people.

When you have privilege, you have obligations that go along with it. You have unwarranted power that you can’t renounce, and the obligation to learn what to do with it. If you’re not willing to think about your power and examine what you do with it, you’re not going to be able to avoid abusing it.

There are any number of other implications too. And there are things it’s not ok to participate in even if it would benefit you, and even if it’s hard-to-impossible to get those things otherwise.

Don’t expect noticing and naming your privilege categories to be enough.

Something about privilege

Some people have way more power over others than they should.

Having too much power over another person is always harmful to that person. Even if you’re good. Even if you’d never intentionally misuse it.

Sometimes this plays out between groups. For instance, if you’re white, you virtually always have a kind of power over people who aren’t that no one should ever have over another human being. That’s not always the most important power dynamic in a given interaction, because real situations are complicated and there are a lot of different privileges (as well as power dynamics that aren’t reducible to privilege). But it’s still always *there*. (Some other dynamics that are also always there: male/not male, cisgendered/trans*, disabled/not disabled, intellectually disabled/not, poor/not poor. These are examples. It is not an exhaustive list. There are many dynamics like this, and many of them have not yet been named.)

And the power dynamic is long-term, it’s been that way for generations. And there are deep-running wounds that are going to take many generations of concerted effort to heal. You can’t make that go away by your good intentions.

You can be good to others; you can and should learn how to treat people well. But you can’t, on your own, fully undo the power dynamic and the harm it does. And part of the way to be good to people involves understanding the position you’re in, and being aware of the power you have and the obligations being in that position creates.

If you ignore the power you have, or pretend you can make it go away by being a good person, you will harm people in ways you could otherwise avoid. (One instance of this is constantly talking about how you’re checking your privilege – it doesn’t actually work that way. That tends to turn into flaunting unjust power, even when it’s done with the best of intentions.)

If you want people to treat people right, you have to understand and be willing to face the consequences of the power you have.