I don’t have anything in particular to say about the actual topic of this Slog post, which has to do with arts criticism, but the author’s first comment about why it’s bunk to say that critics are unqualified to comment on art because they’re not artists struck me:
(1) It’s a provincial and solipsistic argument that assumes one needs to be a member of a group to say anything intelligent about that group. Which, to pick three random examples, would mean that Alexis de Tocqueville had nothing intelligent to say about Americans, Dan Savage has nothing intelligent to say about hetero sex, and all historians are wasting their time.
I think this is well put, and expresses an annoyance that I’ve experienced several times in my life – not with respect to art criticism, but with respect to various social subgroupings and activist communities. You see, I am a privileged, white, hetero female. So what could I possibly have to add to a conversation about class, race, or alternative sexual preferences? I’d better just shut up and leave these topics to those who actually understand, right?
To take an example from my more active activist days, I recall having an experience like this at an IPPN conference I attended as a freshman in college. IPPN, for those unaware, is the Independent Progressive Politics Network. The conference was taking place in my liberal/progressive hometown of Madison, WI when I was home on break, and a friend of mine (P., a lesbian of color, which becomes relevant later) encouraged me to attend with her. So I did.
Now, I admit, I don’t remember too much about the conference in general (it was almost 10 years ago, after all). I remember it was interesting, and that I had some fascinating conversations with individual people at the breaks between sessions.
But I do remember one session. Toward the end of the conference, I sat down with P. at a roundtable on racial issues (in what context, I can’t even remember), and I was the only white person at the table – and some of the participants vocally protested my being there.
In fact, their protests were so forceful that the table ended up having to take a vote on whether I would be allowed to stay.
P. spoke up for me, saying I was an ally and didn’t they need those too?
Others argued that they needed a “safe space,” separate from representatives of the majority (i.e., me) in which to discuss their issues.
In the end, I was allowed to stay – as long as I didn’t say much.
At the time, I was shocked and saddened to be treated this way – and at a progressive politics conference, no less. But really, it was just a particularly explicit instance of a recurring theme that has run throughout my work as a community servant and activist, involved with various pushes for different sorts of human equality. And I’m still torn about it.
On the one hand, no, obviously I cannot truly feel what it is like to be black or gay – or, for that matter, homeless or a prostitute. And I do think that “safe spaces,” away from the judgements of the majority group, might well be conducive to the psychological and social well-being of individuals belonging to these kinds of groups.
On the other hand, though, I wonder if it really serves the interests of equality and acceptance to exclude non-judgemental majority voices from the conversation. After all, majority-group status does not keep a person from being sympathetic to the trials that come with belonging to non-majority groups. And note, sympathy is distinct from pity: in the one, a person can intellectually understand another’s feelings; in the other, a person simply feels sad for another’s misfortunes. But sympathy is also different from empathy, wherein a person can truly feel what another is feeling. So no, I may not be able to empathize with those in out-groups I do not belong to. But dammit, I can sympathize.
Which I suppose brings me back to the Slog quote that sparked this whole thing. It seems to me that liberals often get so caught up in their sensitivity to out-groups that they come to truly believe that if you’re not a part of it, you have no right to even talk about it. Never mind the obvious benefits of having a more enfranchised face speaking for an out-group’s interests to those in power; never mind the fact that excluding members of majority groups just reverses the inequality; never mind that in order to achieve equality, by definition, the majority groups have to be on board too. If you’re not in the group, you couldn’t possibly understand; you have no right to comment. And I’m a majority, through-and-through, so I should just shut up about promoting equality, right?
But that’s ridiculous.
Isn’t it?
…
Isn’t it?
It totally is.