Why are we arguing?

This piece, by the ever sensible progressive Freddie de Boer, is about what he calls "critique drift", namely the way that perfectly good concepts such as "mansplaining", "trigger warning" and "privilege" get over-used, well outside their correct spheres, until they have lost their original conceptual moorings, while still carrying their original (or even greater) emotional valence, with the result that supporters of the concepts feel they have to endorse every usage, no matter how silly, while generating a backlash to the concepts themselves. 

Does that sound convoluted? Well, here's an example of what he is talking about:

"Trig­ger warn­ings were ini­tial­ly endorsed specif­i­cal­ly for the good of those who suf­fer from post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, a spe­cif­ic and poten­tial­ly debil­i­tat­ing med­ical issue that afflicts a very small per­cent­age of peo­ple. Trig­gers were not broad cat­e­gories of poten­tial offense that pro­voked vague feel­ings of dis­com­fort, but very spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tions that result­ed in deeply painful expe­ri­ences that stemmed from nar­row­ly-defined trau­mat­ic episodes.

Now, trig­gers are every­where, lurk­ing behind every cor­ner, endorsed by peo­ple in all man­ner of sit­u­a­tions for all man­ner of rea­sons, and sub­ject to appro­pri­a­tion by those who would use them for cyn­i­cal ends — such as the stu­dents at oth­er insti­tu­tions my aca­d­e­m­ic friends tell me about, who use talk of trig­gers as an all-encom­pass­ing excuse to get out of doing work or expe­ri­enc­ing view­points they don’t like. Some of the most priv­i­leged col­lege stu­dents in the world now feel no com­punc­tion against invok­ing trig­gers at any time they find it con­ve­nient. Any­one who ques­tions whether they actu­al­ly deserve to invoke that claim, mean­while, is regard­ed as inher­ent­ly a bad ally and bad per­son. This, in turn, com­pels some peo­ple to think that all talk of trig­gers and trig­ger warn­ings is aca­d­e­m­ic lefty bull­shit that leaves us unable to edu­cate, unable to ever bring stu­dents to encounter any remote­ly chal­leng­ing or con­tro­ver­sial opin­ions, and makes con­ser­v­a­tive back­lash that much more like­ly. This is clas­sic cri­tique drift."

You see the point. 

De Boer adds that anyone who is sympathetic to the concepts but says, as he does, that perhaps this is not a good time to use them will then get attacked by use of the very concept they are trying to defend: "don't you mansplain mansplaining to me!", "your saying that is a very sign of your own privilege!" and so on.

I tried to imagine an equivalent right-wing critique drift and came up with patriotism. "What's that? A German car! Don't you love your country?" Or: "Where are you going on holiday? Italy! You know what side they were on during the War?" And if someone were to reply, "You know what, I'm as patriotic as the next man, but you need to confine this 'patriotism' talk to important stuff - people can drink French wine", they would be met with "Traitor! That kind of thinking is just what is doing down our country!". It would all be very tiresome, and no doubt it would persuade many people that the very idea of patriotism is a big scam designed to shut people up when they deviate from some crazy orthodoxy. I'm glad "patriotism" doesn't work like that at the moment, but I am sure there are times and places where it has done, so let's not think that this is always and everywhere a phenomenon of the Left. 

Anyway, back to de Boer and the current situation. Even dyed-in-the-wool irredeemable right-wingers like me agree that there is a tendency among men sometimes to explain things in patronising ways when they shouldn't (mansplaining), that people who have medical conditions, or are even just a bit sensitive, should not be unnecessarily exposed to things that will make them ill or very upset (trigger warnings) and that some people have an unfairly easier run in life than others by reason of facts about their birth or upbringing that they are not responsible for (privilege). Sensible de Boer and sensible right-wingers could happily sit down and reach common ground on plenty of real-life cases, and perhaps reach reasoned disgreement on many others. (Indeed, when it comes to "privilege", I suspect that right-wingers, who are very alive to issues of class and elite groupings, have much to bring to the party, if that party is conducted in good faith.) With a bit of goodwill and a fair following wind, perhaps we could reduce these heated arguments about race and gender and so on to much calmer discussions about early years education or bullying in schools.

What a wonderful world that would be!, I thought. But then, I realised, that is the wonderful world we used to have. It's very much the world of the 2000s, when nice, decent, well-meaning George W. Bush was succeeded by nice, decent, well-meaning Barack Obama; the decade that ended with the choice in the UK being between Brown-Clegg and Cameron-Clegg. It's like those debates about gay marriage vs civil partnership that no one could get very excited about. Or about how to fund higher education. It was all a little bit boring, certainly nowhere near as exciting as the sorts of things we get to talk about nowadays. It was all a bit Worthwhile Canadian Initiative-y.

Look, here is something written by a current 15-minute wonder, Jessica Krug: "For the better part of my adult life, every move I’ve made, every relationship I’ve formed, has been rooted in the napalm toxic soil of lies. ... I have ended the life I had no right to live in the first place. // I have no identity outside of this. I have never developed one. I have to figure out how to be a person that I don’t believe should exist". I'm with this guy: I feel awfully sorry for anyone in the position of Ms Krug - anyone who feels it might be appropriate to write that sort of thing about themselves. But you have to admit that it is a lot more exciting than discussing the rate at which the deficit should be reduced. What is a "napalm toxic soil of lies"? I have no idea, but it sounds a lot more thrilling than "Compassionate Conservatism".

If we took away all the critique creep, all the energy and vitality that transported recondite academic theories from obscure seminar rooms to front page headlines, then where would be? I know - a better place. But a place that we used to live in, and a sufficiently large number of people did not like it. 

So I find I must agree with what Fukuyama wrote in The End of History and the Last Man all those years ago. You can get to the End of History - i.e. Western civilisation c.2000-2010, say - but you still have humans, and they still want the same things they always wanted. Which includes challenge. It includes high-stakes conflict. It involves right and wrong, something to fight for and something to die for. It does not to include the careful elimination of critique creep.

I remember being struck by this bit of TEOHATLM when I first read it:

And I thought: best not take up climbing then. But that - or something like that - is what people want. All those people who could have re-created the historical struggle on the slopes of Nanga Parbat instead decided to do it in the political discourse of the English-speaking world. I wish they hadn't. But we are where we are and there is no way back.

There is, of course, a way forward. The historical struggle might arise in some new form: the End of History has not reached large swathes of east and south Asia in the way that once it was thought it might, for example. And there are various religious revival movements that provide equivalent enthusiasm to that obtained by the keenest critique-creepers. But unfortunately, sensible and well-meaning as he might be, de Boer is firmly and unfortunately on the wrong side of History with a capital H. 

De Boer concludes by appealing for allies in the task of actually improving the world: "we have been talk­ing about priv­i­lege for 30 years. We’ve been talk­ing about inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty for 25. We’re still here in this unjust world." So let's just get on with it!, he says. Good luck, de Boer. Christians have been talking about loving their neighbours for a lot longer than that, and, well, let's just say it's a work in progress. And I'm afraid that's the way it's going to be until we reach the actual Last Man/Woman/Womxn/Mxn/Other.

We are not arguing because we have made some readily-identifiable mistakes in the application of certain valid critiques: we are arguing because arguing is what we do. If there is no one else to fight, then we'll just have to fight each other.