A year of tyranny versus a day of anarchy

[sabotabby]

Poor zingerella is having a hard time explaining the concept of the patriarchy to a few guys on her friends list. She's run up against what is a very common problem in liberal and progressive circles, which is that men who see themselves as "not sexist" feel personally attacked at the idea that there's systemic, deeply embedded male privilege. It's an analysis that runs rampant in any discussion of oppression. No one wants to think of himself or herself as sexist, or racist, or classist, or ableist—and that discussions of patriarchy or white supremacy, etc. always run along these lines says an incredible amount about how everything is brought down to the level of the individual, conflating massive impersonal systems with a guy wearing a white sheet.

I know we've had this discussion before, but it bears repeating: If one wants to work for a better world, a good start is not taking it personally when someone points out that social structures exist, that some people benefit from them and that others don't.

Anyway, I asked her if I could link to the discussion mostly for the lulz but because she, human_loser, and I are arguing with someone who is operating from a set of very different assumptions, and I get the sense that we're all talking over each other. neonchameleon's starting point seems to be this: "Better a year of tyranny than a day of anarchy." Despite the awful things that Dead White Males of Northern European Extraction have done, slavery and the Holocaust and so on, the sum total of their contribution is positive—for everyone.

Now, I don't think that one can measure history in terms of sum totals, especially if one is proceeding from the assumption that history is still happening and, in fact, we are facing some nasty changes up ahead. I don't want to speak for neonchameleon (and I'd very much welcome him to speak for himself here), but arguing that any massive change is inherently bad (unless it can be justified later) seems rather futile when one acknowledges that massive changes happen regardless of whether we want them to or not.

I'm not sure how one explains to someone for whom "the system" seems largely beneficial—something that can be tweaked so that everyone currently excluded can be "allowed in"—that the sum positive that he perceives doesn't apply to most of the world. Thoughts? (Feel free to join in the discussion there or here. Just be polite in zingerella's blog.)

P.S. If you'd like to engage in a discussion of the politics of shaving one's legs, feel free to do that too.