אֶת־חֲטָאַ֕י אֲנִ֖י מַזְכִּ֥יר הַיּֽוֹם
I was once Mr. Logic Man. Everything was a debating society point; if I could argue my way around you I was right and you were wrong. (And I could usually argue my way around you.)
I was once Mr. Logic Man. Everything was a debating society point; if I could argue my way around you I was right and you were wrong. (And I could usually argue my way around you.)
Not only were lived experience and feelings irrelevant, introducing them into the conversation proved the weakness of an argument that could not stand up to the rigors of reasoned debate.
(If this sounds like a whole lot of frum internalized misogyny, you are absolutely right.)
(If this sounds like a whole lot of frum internalized misogyny, you are absolutely right.)
I remember in college at some point getting into a vigorous argument with someone about how disabled people would be best served by robust Access-A-Ride programs that would give them rides places, rather than retrofitting public transit stations. Cost/benefit analysis, you see.
At no point did I consider the feelings or experiences of disabled people, or how they'd like to be or move in the world.
But you know what happened? I grew up. My memory isn't what it was when I was 17, but I have vastly more life experience, first- and second-hand; more empathy; and more understanding of what I don't understand so I should be quiet and listen to the people who do.
(Migrating from the study of the hardest-of-the-hard-sciences to a social sciences/humanities field probably helped, too.)
You might say that it's been a quarter-century education in וְאַל תָּדִין אֶת חֲבֵרְךָ עַד שֶׁתַּגִּיעַ לִמְקוֹמוֹ.
That debating-society posture, aside from everything else, seems so silly to me. So immature. "With these three sentences, watch Ben Shapiro **DESTROY** the libs!" I know why teenage boys love that stuff. Life helps many people get past that--my goal is to accelerate the process.
(And of course, that posture wields a lot of power. To say that I find it silly doesn't mean that it's not pernicious. The "rational/objective/just reading the text/why would I consider real-world results or lived experience" posture is a way of exercising real-world power.
It is a posture with a long history of race-ing and gendering, as I've talked about on here before. And because I love using poetry to teach history, here, again, objectivity and science and race and gender: poetryfoundation.org/poems/52111/th…)
But when people say this in debate, as though it's mic-drop-and-I-win, it just seems so silly.
Life's not your high school debate society. (And I say this, to reiterate, as someone who spends all of her time with, and loves, high school students.) Have a seat, and listen.
Life's not your high school debate society. (And I say this, to reiterate, as someone who spends all of her time with, and loves, high school students.) Have a seat, and listen.
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