However it is packaged, purity — of mind, body, planet — does not exist. Canadian philosopher Alexis Shotwell wrote in his 2016 treatise: “There is no primordial state to which we can wish to return, no paradise we have described, no contaminated body What poison can we discover through enough chia seeds and kombucha,” Canadian philosopher Alexis Shotwell wrote in her 2016 treatise. Against purity. Sanctions, in any form, “is a de-collectivization, non-mobilization, paradox of despair” politics – in contrast to leftist pledges, which aim to change the world. better world.
Accepting that we’ve been compromised and always have been can be difficult, but Shotwell argues it can set us free as we organize for the future. Keeping your mind clear, and refusing to get dirty with others, is a “self— genuine politics,” wrote Shotwell. Not being able to move forward in your life for fear of cancellation is bad enough; so that it hinders self-improvement or even worse collective action.
Or, to put it another way: “self-appointed political purity defenders” believe that “they have greater integrity or more sophisticated analysis” only makes the job harder, writes black feminist Loretta Ross. While possible interested in many things at the same time, everyone bandwidth is limited. Endless fine-tune the message—And especially, correcting the speech of mostly cis, white people with a large background — can come at the expense of active activism and direct action that makes people’s lives better.
In this, the Internet will continue to play an important role. It’s a great tool for publicizing issues and raising money, but so far, social platforms have mostly contributed to the politicization of everyday life to the point where, paradoxically, , nothing really political happens. Interrogating our worldview, providing ourselves with a fuller understanding of how we got to this point in human history, and re-aligning our values accordingly is work. important, but has limits (since many of our thoughts are not within our control) and is only valuable to the extent that it creates real-world change.
In psychiatry, many people with OCD are said to be “ego-disordered,” or live with the feeling that their intrusive thoughts — and the time they spend on them — run counter to their values. their. The same thing seems to be happening collectively: Humans clearly value the planet and each other, even as we see the ongoing harm we, both individually and collectively, have caused. While we’d love to fix it, we don’t necessarily think we can; major problems and the current purity standards are too high. Instead of living by our principles, which may come and go, we self-destruct — wiping out the timeline of our past misdeeds and wrapping ourselves in antibacterial fabric. too tight to make new ones.
However, as people in OCD therapy will tell you, “what you resist persists.” The chaos of modern life has not disappeared. The values we cultivate, even if we fail to meet them, are important. Doing something almost always makes more sense than saying something, and purely online culture is preventing people from doing much of that. Although we will never reach a state of purity, in accepting our “complicity and compromise,” as Shotwell put it, and accepting uncertainty, we may only find ourselves.” starting point for action”.
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