A dear friend has, for the last six months or so, continually thrown out a single-lined quote: “Take care not to become what you hate, Christy.”
He’s offered these words, in various forms, when I’ve ranted, cried, tried to find my equilibrium balance. But hate is too strong a word, I think. Hatred signifies emotional involvement, just as love does. Indifference, the antithesis to both emotions, is all that’s deserved after the hate-filled sexual harassment attacks that I’ve endured. I’m working on it, human frailties and all.
But back to the quote, which, I’m sure, tumbled off of the tongue of some wise sage, years ago. (Google has been no help in trying to figure it out.)
I see that becoming-what-you-hate mantra sprouting in all facets of our society. Tolerance is one. As in tolerating religious differences, political differences, cultural differences. Sounds good. Except that tolerance becomes a buzzword while the actuality, the expected behavior, is to conform to some in-power groupthink. And if you don’t, well, look for some get-in-line punishment, the antithesis to tolerance. You see it with differing points of view on the war – staunch (read: dogmatic) defend-this-country-and-her-honor conservatives have shouted disparaging and unpatriotic names at what-are-we-doing-there liberals (who don’t want to see another viewpoint, either). Meanwhile, the whole continuum of viewpoints tries to sort through the mess. But who can come to an understanding over the shouting, lower emotions and in-your-face insults? Reminds me of Sonja Foss and Cindy Griffin’s theory of invitational rhetoric, a feminist perspective of discussing and understanding, rather than trying to beat an opponent into submission with the you-must-view-the-world-as-I-do perspective.
As a former U.S. Air Force Reservists, and daughter of a career military man, I’ve watched with dismay as our war policy, and thus our nation’s ethics, has become what I hate. Prisoners of war held and tortured at Guantanamo Bay – the same kind of behavior that we abhor as a society. I’m hoping for some deep, foundational, navel-gazing on that front.
I guess I’m just worried. Lower passions, those base and raw emotions that conjure up hatred and intolerance, seem to be rampant nowadays. Thinking and reason seems to have gone the way of stonewashed jeans and DayGlo T-shirts. But somewhere, someplace, I always imagined thinking and reason to be like a string of pearls and a little black cocktail dress: Always in style.
“Take care not to become that which you hate.”
-Christy
Filed under: Christy Lochrie, Feminism, Harassment, Sexual harassment, ethics | Tagged: Cindy Griffin, ethics, Feminism, Invitational rhetoric, Sexual harassment, Sonja Foss
