Tonights blog from the keyboard of yours truly is based around a simple thought I had the other day.
For those who don't know, I'm a trans person. That simply means I was born with a presumed Gender that didn't quite fit, thus I transitioned to one that does back in 2015...
But why is this important? It's simply to give the reader a perspective on what follows. Make of it what you will.
During the course of my life, work and my research whilst traveling through this trans gender process, I've come into contact with many people. As you might expect there are a wealth of various opinions on the trans gender "thing" in the disparate group of people.
My closest friends haven't been all that bothered, on the whole showing a mild and polite curiosity, since they wish to learn and to avoid offence in conversation..
My family similarly, though theres been a rockier road to understanding and acceptance for some. In one case a family member choosing to sideline me, if not exactly fully ostracise.
Professionally, I've met confusion, acceptance, awkwardness, well intentioned questions, and in some cases overt or covert discriminatory practice, with a few odd looks from customers.
So whats my point? It's that word. "wealth" a wealth of opinions is just that. Consider the phrase. It's intrinsically stating that wealth and value is to be found in a diversity of opinion. From that diversity, and crucially the questioning and discourse that is borne from it, come our greatest treasures as a species. Scientific thought, art, poetry, mathematics, politics, music, sport, to name but a few.
So often when one speaks with elements of the trans population, be they activist or otherwise, one gets a very polarised view of one person's transition. One persons journey. The opinions inherent are therefore often at odds with others. Indeed if you speak to two people who have both traveled to the same country for instance, you often get two differing opinions of that country. Why so? because opinion is borne of experience and examination that experience.
The experience is going unique to the person.
The examination is going be unique to the person.
So it's fair to say that the average probability... (using that there "maths" I spoke of earlier) of two people having exactly the same opinions is fairly low.
This is why I rarely choose to be offended if someone doesn't initially - or even ever - "get" the trans thing. After all they might like gerkins, and I cant see me EVER changing my mind on that score. I am not a fan of "organised" religion, but similarly I don't seek to change the minds of those who choose that path.
On those rare occasions where I do allow myself to "be offended" The root of the offence can usually be found in the "how" of the disagreement. In most cases offence usually is precluded by rudeness, or simply is derived from irritation that the person concerned has an inability to accept that others may have opinions that differ from theirs, and leave it at that.
The concept of "compromise" and acceptance of beliefs different to your own as equally valid is central to any progress.
Consider human "society", the word is defined as:
"a group of people living together in a more or less ordered community."
ANY society usually has rules. Boundaries, limits on people actions, that if one exceeds one is deemed to have "crossed a line" These rules are particular to a given society, ever changing, legal, moral, ethical, fiscal, and political in nature. Throughout history successful societies all have one thing in common though. The rules are usually of a type that for the most part are beneficial.
Let's take a real basic thing. Murder. Without a now almost universally accepted truth that it is wrong to simply kill a person and take what they have, then our current societies across the globe simply could not exist. We have of course over the millennia gotten very good as a species at giving ourselves caveats for what we call "legal" killing of others. "war" or "self defence" or "religious/family honour" or any number of "get out clauses" each with its own level of validity depended on ones POV and opinion. Morality being something else that is entirely dependent on ones POV and those two things "experience" and "examination"
As a human society grows our wonderful ability of communication gives rise to the inevitability of discussion & ideas. Ideas, which then evolve into "politics" At it's heart political discussion could very well be thought of as the single biggest thing that makes us "humans" a bit different to other primates.
So I often welcome disagreement, as if it is approached from the position of "what can we learn" it is the birth place of progress. I for the most part believe the trans population has some inherent blind spots, (who doesn't?) The wider population of cis people and the scientific community are opening new avenues of discourse yet we often busy ourselves with internal squabbles. It hardly surprising then that some people just don't "get" us as a concept, since we have little energy left to give to that discourse.
I can hear you guys going .."yeah ok...but you gotta tie this all up into a point..?"
Well my point is very simple really. Our disagreements, or differences are what lay at the heart of the success of the human species thus far. Or rather, it is our ability to address those differences in a constructive and measured manner, such that all may benefit, that has allowed us to be the dominant species on this earth.
Recent years saw the rise in "no platforming" of those with objectionable views. Mostly these were of the right wing, nationalist variety. Some were advocates of segregation and exclusionist rhetoric that promises much on the mantra "othering". Some will I'm sure have been of the extreme left, but they tend to be the sort that whisper rather than shout.
On the face of it "no platforming" is an entirely rational response to irrational arguments and viewpoints. But consider that in denying anyone a voice they are imediately repositioned as an underdog and victim. this lends them legitimate currency to gather likeminded to their cause. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" as it were. Dr Richard Dawkins pointed out that no platforming Professor Greer due to her views on trans women was counter productive to the university way of free academic thought. The challenge to a viewpoint being the point in and off itself, not the fact you may strongly disagree with hers.
Indeed its not so many years ago trans and LGB people were institutionally no platformed in just such a way.
Socrates, who many people see as the "original" philosopher, and who was the tutor of Plato, did on occasion consider the issue of morality, good/bad etc. He believed that in doing wrong to a person one does not harm them, beyond the physical, but rather one does moral harm to ones self.
He (Socrates) made no distinction between knowingly harming and unknowingly, but I think he'll forgive me a disagreement. Knowingly harming a person or being deliberately belligerent is a different thing to causing inadvertent offence. Inherent recognition of this difference is why in many civiliations we have two legal definitions in the courts for the same outcome, e.g. "manslaughter" and "murder" We recognise the difference of "intent" and the inherent levels of condemnation and punishment each case might warrant.
It's also worthy of note that although we are surrounded by information these days, with the average 10yr old being exposed to more during that time than an adult in the 1930's, we are becoming more ignorant. Knowledge does not prove wisdom. And just like currency, the easier knowledge is to possess the less it is valued. It is this more than anything that provides the foothold for "alternative facts".
In the flood of info that is out there. Wisdom is the sieve through which we separate truth from lie. via critical thought, and research. Some do not apply this to their sources. Trusting the perception of authority in the source and therefore its implied "truth".
So, we have no platformed the extreme viewpoint, and failed to educate a significant portion of the masses in how to think and examine what is put in front of them. I wonder what Socrates would make of it?
For the issue of trans rights it is important to be heard of course, but on the whole it is a relatively small issue. However when one takes the unquestioning and arguably un educated on a ride of hyperbole and rhetoric that promises much and delivers little, save division and risk of war, it becomes a huge issue. Much of the present circumstance in the Whitehouse is down to lack of critical thought, though all levels of establishment, from media to voter.
Perhaps then it is paradoxically heartening then that The Donald, and the Bannons of this world are now visible. For in the light of public scrutiny and reasoned discussion their arguments will fail. We have to trust that the tests of logic, and critical reflection by the educated masses across many borders and boundaries will eventually bring the arguments back into balance. Make no mistake we have an uphill battle. For once Donalds and Bannons have power they will do all they can to ensure they retain it. Moral courage is needed now more than ever.
Should Critical thought, reflection, logic and discourse fail, and the veil of ignorance, exclusion and the inability to accept any viewpoint but their own settle on America, France, the UK and others, then we walk towards a very uncertain time as species. If we take that path and survive its consequences, we may be richer for it perhaps. But at risk of a terrible cost, and only if we finally learn what we seem to have missed this time around.
...."....a world without border or boundaries. Where we go from there is choice I leave to you."
Sarah
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