To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Friday, February 21, 2020
 
I am a bit ambivalent about a tendency I notice on certain Facebook groups and perhaps isn’t limited to online groups. Let me just call it ‘groupism’ for lack of a better word. I find myself unable to relate to this behaviour or attitude where someone in the group will present an issue, give some particulars of the situation with another main character, the character will be portrayed as negative even though the situation could be interpreted in at least two ways, and this poster will seek advice or sympathy or both. When this happens the entire group will jump in with overflowing sympathy, anger at the villainous character, calls for putting them in their place or generally taking them down a peg or two, discussion of other situations where an almost exactly similar character acted in similar unacceptable ways, and so on. Never if ever do I see a response that even dares to suggest that there might be a different way to read the situation or that the situation actually suggests that the poster’s actions also seem blameworthy, especially if the facts do point that way. It is almost a unanimous decision to hang the villain in the very public court of opinion without trial or evidence but only the so-called victim’s statement. And mind you, I am not talking about any ethical issues that fall into definite black and white areas, more in the general grey perception category of say for instance office politics or work evaluation.

This groupism tendency seems to be founded on an us vs. them sentiment. Say if the group is all-female and the so-called villainous character is a male then the very fact that the character is male would make them culpable. Or if the group is all writers and the so-called villainous character is an editor then the very fact that the character is an editor would make them culpable. The solidarity of the group is derived from this common identity of being female or being writers and anyone who is seen as an antithesis or of an opposite camp must be a villain in any situation where one of the group’s own members feels or perceives themselves to be wronged. There is no question of questioning one’s own group member or even entertaining the idea that one’s own group member might be in the wrong. Even taking such a perspective for sake of analysis or fairness would be to out yourself as not a solid member of the group. You might as well belong to the wrong camp, you have faked your identity, you do not deserve the group card. These are not the spoken rules of course but if you look at the responses of the group members it is quite clear that this is the underlying sentiment. There are no responses that ask a question about the situation itself, ask more details about the other party’s approach, try to get more clarity on the situation to make a better judgement… the almost auto response is the uncritical outpouring of sympathy for the supposed victim and attacks against the obvious villain.

I find myself quite the odd person in this sense. I don’t subscribe to a ‘group’ in the way people seem to subscribe to groups. I might share something in common with the group so I might be a female or I might be a writer but I am not against people who represent other groups such as males or editors just by virtue of this common identity I share with a group. To me the most fundamental thing that I share with anyone is humanity so if there is a contention between two people I wouldn’t see what group they belong to, whether they have some common identity with me such as female or Indian or writer… because the most fundamental one is shared by all and that is humanity. From this perspective I will use my critical judgement to evaluate the situation and its features keeping any other identities they share with me aside; those identities have or should have no bearing on my judgement. It is quite possible that a woman did not do her part of the job and hence got told off or the editor was quite unreasonable but that would not be because I am a man so the woman must be in the wrong or I am part of the writers’ group so editors must be the unreasonable ones. These identities might shape who we are but it doesn’t mean anyone who has the same identity must necessarily act as we would or anyone who has a different identity than us cannot act in as ethical a manner as we would. I think we need to judge every individual in the same scales as we would like to be judged irrespective of their affiliation to anything else...belonging to a group must not hinder us from being truthful and critical of the group itself… if all it does is promote conformance and groupthink… I am quite happy being my own individual rather than part of such a group.


posted by Sylvia D'souza at 10:34 pm 0 comments
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