The Good People Rules
I see people who concerned about perfecting language to the exclusion of all else and I find this troubling and dangerous.
There is no set of rules that you can follow that will make you A Good Person. Being good is action. It is trying to do the best you can. Sometimes it will not always be clear what the right thing to do is, and reasonable people of good faith may disagree.
That is ok. There are going to be times when the path forward is not clear. There will be times when you may hurt people. You try not to, but even with the best intentions, hurt will happen.
There are serious problems with the SJ capital D “discourse” (or as I like to think about it- the Good People Rules).
For one, the people involved in perfecting and refining the Good People Rules don’t seem to care that they are removing the ability to engage in nuance in discussions. That there are no set of rules that can cover every situation or life experience. By trying not to hurt people ever, you will inevitably hurt people.
The Good People Rules are also dangerous because by focusing everything on words and not on actions over time, you are giving people a roadmap to pretend to be A Good Person while not really being one.
If people can gain trust simply by following a set of rules for how to speak, then there will be people who are perceived as trustworthy that aren’t. People who everyone can see acting in ways that are abusive, but they get a pass for saying all the right things. Male feminists are guilty of this, like SO much.
We need to shift some of the energy we spend micro-examining people’s talk to seeing if they are actually walking the walk.
People’s actions over time will ALWAYS tell you who they are and what they are about.
Our communities will be safer for our current members and more welcoming to new people that want/need to be here if we can make this shift.