From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Responsibilities (was Re: Insults)
Date: 26 Aug 92 23:49:45 GMT
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison


In article <4871@news.duke.edu> John_Graves@cellbio.duke.edu
writes:

>If you wish to not take any responsibility for making the
>world a better place, you could not have stated it any
>better than by rejecting education and explanation.

Seems a pretty safe statement.  That points to a problem
with it, I think.

Few people would advocate not taking responsibility for
one's own actions.  Most would probably agree that trying to
do something so that the world would be a better place is a
pretty good idea.

But claiming that people who happen "not to take
responsibility for making the world a better place" are
somehow defaulting on an implied duty is quite another
matter.

Responsibility, and moreover taking it, are extremely
complex personal and social issues.  Your formulation is to
that extent grossly oversimplified, for you are not explicit
about its terms.  

Rather, especially in the guilt-inducing negative rhetoric
you use, it suggests a desire to suppress discussion by
submerging everything in a morass of pious platitudes.  This
is shown in greater relief by the remainder of your
statement.

Many would doubtless agree that education is a key element
in such an improvement ("education and explanation" seems
redundant).  

But you do not address at all a broad range of issues --
they can hardly be glossed over -- about *what* education
we're talking about: by whom, of whom, toward what end,
using which texts, in the presence of which inherent
contradictions or of which inherent uncertainties, in the
light of which realities, according to which strategies and
tactics -- and so forth.

In the context in which your statement arises, the terms
involve sizable disagreement over each of the things I mention,
none of which is actually addressed in your remarks.  

It actually does make a difference if your "education" means
denying basic freedoms to some of our cohort in a vain
effort to placate a homophobic majority (this is the basic
thrust of a couple noxious posters here recently).  That
style of "education" means training LGB people to go back in
the closet on terms negotiated for them by "straight-acting"
storm troopers.  That style of "education" means rolling
back the (already too limited) progress we've made by about
70 years.  That "education" means nullifying the
considerable sacrifices of two and a half generations of our
own people.  That style of accomodation has never worked and
it will never work.  400 years of racism in this country
shows us nothing, if not that.

In more than 35 years of political advocacy, I've met very
few people who are as openly homophobic and misogynistic
as the two gay men posting here recently in support of that
style of "education."

In my opinion, thoughtful and caring LGB people should
promote and insist upon a very different kind of education.
It's virtually inconceivable that we ourselves would agree
on each and every facet of such an effort.  

But I think the terms on which the greatest unanimity might
be expected would be that full and complete civil rights
*must* be accorded to *all* people without reference to
their sexuality, gender, personal affiliations, personal
mannerisms, clothing or adornment, and so forth.

A very high degree of unanimity could probably be expected
on the expectation that LGB couples or other family-like
groups must be accorded every right and privilege as
parents, teachers, scout leaders, etc. as straight couples
are, with or without formal marriage.  LGB people must be
secure from terrorism and hate crimes to the same extent the
majority straight population enjoys such protections.  LGB
people must not be discriminated against on account of the
diversity of their natures.  LGB people must not be
discriminated against on account religion (or its absence).
We must be free to behave in any manner that does not cause
a clearly identifiable harm to other free people or to
society as a whole.

In strong contrast to the approach advocated here by such
mentally unbalanced people as Sarver and Melmon, it is not
LGB people themselves who would be the *primary* focus of
ecucational efforts.  Rather, it would be the homophobes in
the majority population, who must eventually come to realize
that our oppression at their hands works against their own
interests as well as ours.

All of this has already been extensively worked out in a
general way with respect to racism, and to a considerable
degree with respect to sexism.  Indeed, I don't see that LGB
people have the slightest chance of addressing homophobia
without also embracing the goals of ending racism and sexism
in the society.  The problems of these social malaises are
not identical, but they are indissolubly linked.

Obviously, it also true that much education remains to be
done within the LGB constituencies on all these issues.
This summer has been rich in examples of gay men who were
out-and-out misogynists.  It has been rich in examples of
racism.  It has been rich in examples of sexism.  We too have
much to do, including discussing what it is we must do and
how to do it.

Statements of the sort you made, while possibly informed by
an earnest desire to better the lot of all people, are at
base regressive, because they tend to paper over real
issues, substituting instead a kind of cynical, pious,
content-free platitude.  Furthermore, it does so by clucking
its rhetorical tongue at a red herring, the supposed faults
of those unspecified sinners you mention.  That's quite the
opposite of education, I think.  What it is is a sell-out.
It's anything but a program of love.

<> Q: What are two things we commonly teach our children that
<> are wrong?  A: That a knowledge of science is nice but not
<> necessary and that a knowledge of sex is necessary but not
<> nice.
-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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