Wanting the World to Be a Better Place...for Me!
One of the things that came up in my first therapy session was that I have a lot of what might be simplisticly (but truthfully?) called white middle-class hetero male guilt. There are at least two senses that this sort of thing makes sense. First off, I can say that about myself (or somebody else) as a kind of dig--the implication being that if I, say, speak up for some feminist/anti-racist/anti-sexist/etc. causes, I may be acting from a place of trying to make myself feel better, rather than trying to further the cause. This is what makes me feel sorta like Charlie Brown:
On the other hand, another sense that 'white middle-class hetero male guilt' might have is the notion that, as a middle-class (sorta) white hetero guy, I have to keep sort of ever-vigilant not only about the world around me, but of my own actual/perceived power in the various realms that I get power by default.
Taking these two senses together, what I end up with is that I have to recognize where I might have power by default and I have to recognize that sometimes I might be acting out of trying to make my life better, rather than trying to make the world a better place for everybody (keeping in mind that a lot of the time, of course, I can do both). Both of these things are incredibly complex, however. I'll try to think/talk about the former some other time--the basic problems being blind spots regarding where I have power and what to do about abdicating the power I do have 'by default'. The latter is a bit more approachable, and that's what I'd like to discuss here.
Well-Placed Guilt and Not-So-Well-Placed Feelings of Rejection
Back to therapy. The reason I starting talking about my 'wmchmg' is that some of my general anger actually comes, I think, from being rejected as a middle-class hetero white guy. That is, one of the great things about dating S was that, while she was supportive as far as my feminist/anti-racist/etc. efforts, she would often also call bullshit when she thought I was being sexist/racist/classist. I want to make it very clear that this is something I valued in our relationship, and something that I value in friends in general. Now that we aren't friends (again, currently--not sure what the future holds), even, it's sometimes hard for me to remember the supportive side of things--my mind tends to fixate on the criticism; given that I have a hard time not focusing just on that, I find myself feeling more rejected and on some deeper levels than I might. That is, I feel like part of us not being friends has to do with her thinking that I'm a racist/sexist/classist jerk. (To be clear, I feel this way not because she has caused me to feel this way--she isn't in the wrong in any way in this regard--but because of my buttons.) That I feel this way is not her fault in any way, really. While there isn't any definitive way to know (because we're not friends now), there's lots of evidence that she doesn't think I am, generally, any of these things.
Fear and Loathing in Jeffland
The thing is, I'm just projecting my own fears about myself onto her when I imagine she thinks of me as this racist/sexist/classist jerk. On some deep levels, I am afraid that I am all of these things.
And of course that's not a completely unfounded fear, is it? I am a white, middle-class (sorta) hetero male, and as such I have been steeped in the racist/classist/sexist elements of culture just as much as the next white, middle-class hetero guy. I think on some levels it's right for me to fear this...I need to keep track of myself in this regard, because living in this culture is the place from where I have to begin.
But I also need to learn to better give myself some slack, sometimes, I think. As my therapist pointed out--asking oneself if one is a sexist is at the very least a very good first step toward not being as sexist as one could be. It's perhaps not enough, but it is an important something.
Not quite sure how to do that, just yet.
Filed under:Health and
Therapy
One of the things that came up in my first therapy session was that I have a lot of what might be simplisticly (but truthfully?) called white middle-class hetero male guilt. There are at least two senses that this sort of thing makes sense. First off, I can say that about myself (or somebody else) as a kind of dig--the implication being that if I, say, speak up for some feminist/anti-racist/anti-sexist/etc. causes, I may be acting from a place of trying to make myself feel better, rather than trying to further the cause. This is what makes me feel sorta like Charlie Brown:
On the other hand, another sense that 'white middle-class hetero male guilt' might have is the notion that, as a middle-class (sorta) white hetero guy, I have to keep sort of ever-vigilant not only about the world around me, but of my own actual/perceived power in the various realms that I get power by default.
Taking these two senses together, what I end up with is that I have to recognize where I might have power by default and I have to recognize that sometimes I might be acting out of trying to make my life better, rather than trying to make the world a better place for everybody (keeping in mind that a lot of the time, of course, I can do both). Both of these things are incredibly complex, however. I'll try to think/talk about the former some other time--the basic problems being blind spots regarding where I have power and what to do about abdicating the power I do have 'by default'. The latter is a bit more approachable, and that's what I'd like to discuss here.
Well-Placed Guilt and Not-So-Well-Placed Feelings of Rejection
Back to therapy. The reason I starting talking about my 'wmchmg' is that some of my general anger actually comes, I think, from being rejected as a middle-class hetero white guy. That is, one of the great things about dating S was that, while she was supportive as far as my feminist/anti-racist/etc. efforts, she would often also call bullshit when she thought I was being sexist/racist/classist. I want to make it very clear that this is something I valued in our relationship, and something that I value in friends in general. Now that we aren't friends (again, currently--not sure what the future holds), even, it's sometimes hard for me to remember the supportive side of things--my mind tends to fixate on the criticism; given that I have a hard time not focusing just on that, I find myself feeling more rejected and on some deeper levels than I might. That is, I feel like part of us not being friends has to do with her thinking that I'm a racist/sexist/classist jerk. (To be clear, I feel this way not because she has caused me to feel this way--she isn't in the wrong in any way in this regard--but because of my buttons.) That I feel this way is not her fault in any way, really. While there isn't any definitive way to know (because we're not friends now), there's lots of evidence that she doesn't think I am, generally, any of these things.
Fear and Loathing in Jeffland
The thing is, I'm just projecting my own fears about myself onto her when I imagine she thinks of me as this racist/sexist/classist jerk. On some deep levels, I am afraid that I am all of these things.
And of course that's not a completely unfounded fear, is it? I am a white, middle-class (sorta) hetero male, and as such I have been steeped in the racist/classist/sexist elements of culture just as much as the next white, middle-class hetero guy. I think on some levels it's right for me to fear this...I need to keep track of myself in this regard, because living in this culture is the place from where I have to begin.
But I also need to learn to better give myself some slack, sometimes, I think. As my therapist pointed out--asking oneself if one is a sexist is at the very least a very good first step toward not being as sexist as one could be. It's perhaps not enough, but it is an important something.
Not quite sure how to do that, just yet.
Filed under:Health and
Therapy
posted by Jeff Pollet at 9:14 AM
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