Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
It appears I have a highly unpopular opinion, namely that "you cannot understand what it is like to be X because you're not X" is one of the most toxic ideas people can hold.
I'm not sure that I'm going to change that opinion, so if you feel this is a problem, best unfollow me or whatever it is you do.
There's a systemic and a personal reason I can give for my opinion.
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
... it is (claimed to be) impossible to bring enough empathy to bear to make any difference. This sabotages that apparent goal.
The apparent goal, then, is false: it cannot be about improvement at all. It must be about something else.
If one must be X to understand X, and non-X cannot possible achieve alignment with X in a helpful fashion, then X remains the eternal victim. And by extension, non-X must participate in the perpetration of injustice.
The goal, then, even if it is not explicit...
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
So either we succumb to the truism and can stop right here. Or we have to realize we're talking about something other than complete understanding.
If that's the case, it begs the question of what we're talking about. What's the goal here, for which the required amount of empathy is either brought to the table or not?
That tends to remain conveniently unanswered by people making such statements.
Ostensibly it is to improve the conditions of what it is to be X. But the phrasing is such that...
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
The systemic one first.
"Understand what it's like to be X" requires empathy. Empathy exists in degrees like most things; I'm not talking about any particular degree here, but the the principle of being empathetic.
Degrees mean that not everyone is capable of bringing the precise amount of empathy necessary to bear to feel the same as the victim.
In that sense, the phrase is correct. But it's also a truism, because no two people can bring enough empathy to bear to feel exactly like the other.
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
I cannot fault anyone for taking this path, is the point. It's pretty fruitless, but very understandable.
The thing that bothers me is that it's toxic on many different levels.
Society relies on empathy functioning. Empathy is what makes people get along. The issue with empathy is that it doesn't scale, so we extract moral codes from empathy, and laws from moral codes.
A lot gets lost on that way, and we need to continuously renegotiate this, to better reflect the empathetic roots.
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
... is to enact revenge. Take control of a power relationship, and exercise this power to the detriment of others.
Victims of any kind of abuse very often cannot do this with their abuser. The empathetic ally is then turned into a stand-in for the abuser, because - by definition of the binary distinction of X/non-X - they are part of the abuser's group. And, being empathetic, they offer themselves up.
I very much understand the coping mechanism here. We all fall into such patterns, I think.
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
... too deep and I will *not* go down there again, if I have to piss people off to avoid it.
It also means I'm oversensitive to the mechanism. I see "eternal victimhood" in action, I am triggered, and I sniff for a pattern of abuse. I cannot avoid that.
What I can avoid is to declare every person applying the mechanism an abuser. I hope I have done that here sufficiently. The mechanism and its application are not the problem.
But I cannot "get on board" with this, either. Ever.
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
... choice for them? It is either to accept the apparent perpetrator role, or accept the apparent victimhood. In other words, to collude. To, effectively, turn themselves into the victim.
Speaking from personal experience here, if one does that for too long, one ends up bent out of shape. Unable to recognize themselves. Depression is an easy thing to follow.
So my personal reason for rejecting the "you can't understand because you're not X" rhetoric is because I've been down that path...
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
Eliciting sympathy for apparent victimhood taps right into the empathy of the recipient. Any sufficiently empathetic person will fall for it. They have to.
But this usually requires a particular interpretation of the facts, where other interpretations are also feasible. Except that these other interpretations do not agree with the apparent victimhood status, and thus turn the recipient into a perpetrator.
No empathetic person wants to be the cause of other people's suffering, so what's the...
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
Psychological abusers employ a variety of techniques for being abusive. But the one mechanism they all seem to rely on is to use their own supposed victimhood as a means to move themselves into a perceived position that is beyond reproach.
To be clear: a person does not become an abuser by applying the victimhood mechanism. A person becomes an abuser by using the victimhood mechanism consistently to hide the abuse they commit.
The difference is vast. And also, it's miniscule.
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
It's vast because no single instance of using the mechanism can ever, under any circumstances, be considered abuse. We're all playing the victim from time to time. We're not all abusers.
But it's miniscule in that once this becomes a pattern, it's harder and harder to see the difference.
The particularly insidious part about the mechanism is that it serves to hide abuse and be abusive simultaneously, when applied with consistency.
Because it requires the victim to participate.
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
On the personal level, the "eternal victimhood" mechanism can be abusive, and I've been the victim of such abuse.
This is not at all to say that anyone who uses this rhetoric is an abuser. Far from it.
Psychological abuse, however, uses this mechanism, which means that the boundaries become blurry. If anything, I would like to unblur them a little here.
What makes psychological abuse difficult is that it's often hard to detect. Every individual incident within it may seem very reasonable.
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
So to deny people sufficient empathy to perform the most fundamental function of a social animal is on the one hand to deny them their humanity.
It's also denying that the fabric of society can function by extension - in the small, where empathy is directly employed, and in the more abstract where it is needed to effect required changes.
It may stem from very understandable struggles. But it sabotages the possible paths to ending these struggles.
From here, to the more personal one, I guess.
Emily
@jens Thank you for writing this. This was a much better way of stating the similar unpopular opinion I'd been sitting on for a while - I'd been formulating it as "marginalized communities breed toxicity". Which, yeah, try expressing *that* one delicately to literally any marginalized person, even when you're part of the same group.
FailForward
@jens The whole thread is good, thanks for it. I react here (though I was triggered several times already):
so what’s the choice for them
Here’s a proper psych theory about the dynamics you describe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle
Keywords: Karpman drama triangle, co-dependency, emotional abuse
There is a way out of the triangle and it is by refusing to participate in the dynamics. I experienced it as an “escape through the centre” of the triangle. There are smart articles and youtube videos on this just a google search away.
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
@FailForward Huh... thank you for this. Live and learn, and apparently you learn by ranting to the fediverse.
I think/hope I've managed to avoid becoming the persecutor in this, but yeah, the rescuer rings all kinds of bells.
Something to unpack, so really, thank you!
Thomas
@jens That concept was pushed hard during Cold War II to discredit reds advocating for liberation of oppressed groups. It's anticommunist poison.
amirouche
> You cannot understand what it is to be X because you are not X
I said it myself two times for different value of X. What I think now is that the following sentence describe more what I was thinking:
> It is very difficult to explain what it is to be X
And that is what I am still thinking.
I can't say I understand very well someone that is not me.
There is a other interesting replies in this thread.
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Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
@clacke I'm not saying you're wrong, but you're also seeing this from different angle I was.
I just made the experience that trying to manage how you appear to others is exhausting and ultimately doesn't get you the acceptance you want. This isn't to say that barfing all your shit into people's faces is right, either. But openness still is good.
People either stick around after that or don't. If they don't, they weren't for you, at least at that time. And that's okay. The hard...
Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅
Jens Finkhäuser 🌻
@clacke ... part usually is accepting that, but it also becomes hard because of the need to control the outcomes. Because that turns it into a failure, I guess?
Anyhow, I guess it's more about accepting my failures and try openness instead.
Matthew "Smiffy" Smith
@clacke @jens I also feel that being open means people can't hold one over me. Whether it's about my disabilities, or my homophobes/transphobes/etc statement in my bio. Also keeps the Wrong Sort of People away from me.
With the health stuff, was always worried that it would go against me work wise, but, being open, I've actually found people to be supportive, if I deliver.
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