“We are all implicated in this system” — A philosopher’s advice for surviving unethical times

There are no softballs in Arianne Shahvisi’s “Arguing for a Better World: How Philosophy Can Help Us Fight for Social Justice.” Instead, the Kurdish-British author, ethicist and academic sets up the reader with exactly the sort of provocative questions many of us heard from our most whataboutist friends and family members. “Has ‘political correctness’ gone too far?” she asks in one chapter, before proceeding to query “Do all lives matter?” And “Is it sexist to say ‘men are trash’?”

What makes Shahvisi’s writing so refreshing is that she then explores these concepts with a serious and open mind, one that accepts that “Mistakes are unavoidable in political movements.” Hers is a voice that presumes a degree of good intentions from us, while challenging our seemingly inescapable complicity. Toggling between despair and hope, Shahvisi offers a practical and forgiving path into the tough discussions we have with each other — and our own consciences. 

Salon talked to the author recently via Zoom about doing good when everything feels pointless, recognizing that there’s a “hierarchy of harms” and making space for “learning and forgiveness.” And if you want to argue well, she advises, “Let’s look for the agreement first. Let’s be charitable.”

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

There’s a part early in the book where you talk about making space for learning and forgiveness. That’s an element that is often lost in these deeply polarized conversations. 

Being an educator, working in a university, my first instinct is to find a way for somebody to understand where I’m coming from. I obviously wouldn’t do a job like mine unless I felt that was possible. You wouldn’t do a job like yours unless you thought that was possible either. It’s got to be at the core of it somewhere, that you feel as though there’s that possibility of taking somebody who feels quite differently about something and actually changing their mind. But there’s so little space for that in social media, for example, when most of these conversations are happening.

You talk about how we balance our understanding that we are very small in relation to climate change and corporate irresponsibility and other social issues, with that need to lean in the direction of moral justice. Is my metal straw really making any difference in the world?

There are two answers to the question. The first is that we operate at the level of greater political organization. Yes, these individual acts are not going to be enough, they’re certainly not going to be enough if we’re doing them quietly. Individual acts can have an impact if they’re done loudly. For example, somebody who has a very large following or impact in the society, if they act in a particular way, that can have a huge impact.

But if we can organize ourselves, in terms of boycotting particular goods and services or carrying out particular acts of protest, then we’re no longer talking about individual tweaks to our lives. We’re talking about great, big, organized actions. 

I also think about ensuring that whatever kind of a life a person is leading right now in this deeply imperfect world, that they have an attitude of openness and support for the world we clearly want. Individual actions don’t matter, but it is nonetheless the case that the collection of those actions is what creates the problem. The actions of corporations and governments are the real movers and shakers in these discussions, but they’re relying on our consent.

Every time we do one of these things that we think abstaining from would not make a difference, that adds to this widespread consent. For example, buying and driving an SUV that is clearly highly emitting [greenhouse gases] takes far more than a person’s share of what the planet can handle acts as a form of consent to the idea that governments should permit such vehicles to be produced and sold, and that corporations have a market to sell to. 

We have to operate those two levels. We’ve got to operate at the very clever and difficult level of getting our political acts in order. And we’ve got to be ready in our attitudes for a different kind of world. That’s where some work needs to be done. At the moment, someone might be driving an SUV, might be eating lots of meat and might buying clothes that were made in sweatshops. But when the realistic opportunity arises to have a different sort of political system, you’ve got to be there for that, and to have helped to have get to have got there as well.

I believe most people genuinely don’t want to give offense, most people genuinely don’t want to hurt. And yet there is no hard line agreement on the best ways to talk to each other. There isn’t one right way to be an ally. There’s disagreement within different groups and identities and movements. How do we reckon with that?

There are two levels at which you could approach that question. One is to acknowledge that, yes, there are all these differences. There are some interesting examples of people disagreeing with each other on on terminology or a particular agenda within a movement. For example, what do we need to be doing first, or what’s more or less important?

In the book, you use the example of saying “victim” as opposed to “survivor.” That was a choice you had to make, and you knew might exclude some people. 

The important thing to recognize with that, and in many of the other examples that I mentioned in the book, is that the ultimate aim is the same for everybody. The person who’s writing about victims of domestic violence, and the person who’s writing about survivors of domestic violence, both of those people want to end domestic violence. Both of those people want more resources to go towards refuges, but they also want to tackle some of the higher level issues that lead to domestic violence, like poverty and poor mental health services.

That’s the thing to focus on, in all this noise of all these different terms and disagreements. If you feel at some higher level you have common ground with somebody, then you have really good reason to approach the whole discussion with generosity. To say, “Look, our objective is the same here.”

Which isn’t to say that the terminology isn’t important. A huge part of the book is saying language is important. It’s important because it changes the way that we think about things, usually something rooted in material reality. But we’ve got to first of all acknowledge that we’re fighting for the same thing. When we’re talking about a person with a disability or a disabled person, usually, the reason we’re even using those terms is because we’re having a discussion about making the world more accessible, about making the world less prejudiced, and so the objective is going to be the same. It helps to hold on to that. 

If we’re not holding on to that, then those people who have no interest in improving the material conditions of the lives of marginalized people are winning, because they have us shouting at each other over something that is important but is not the ultimate objective of us having the conversation in the first place. 

Let’s look for the agreement first. Let’s be charitable, and then we can go to the questions about language. If we’ve got that overarching objective secure in our minds, and our agreement on the objective secure in our minds and our alliances with one another secure on some level, then that can hold the disagreement. Part of what I’m saying in the book is disagreements are more much more productive when you know why you disagree. 

Alliance and solidarity can support that disagreement. Thoughtfulness will take us in different directions at different moments. I think we also just have to celebrate it in some ways, rather than finding it annoying. It can be annoying, right? Somebody calls you out on something and it slows down the discussion and it derails it slightly. Maybe you feel like you were talking about that broader aim and suddenly you’re talking about language.

The way I see it with language is, every time you’re asked to use more thoughtful language, or you’re told that the morally acceptable language on a particular issue has changed, what you’re really being told is some voices that were not previously heard have now been heard, and they have spoken out. They have said the following, and it differs to what the conventional wisdom was, and it differs to what you were used to. What that’s telling us is that some progress has been made. Some people who were previously ignored have now spoken up, and there’s got to be some kind of a gladness about that, even if it makes us feel left behind sometimes.

And uncomfortable, which I think is a big part of why people get so defensive. That’s one of the things that I thought was so interesting in the book, when you talk about these ideas of “reverse racism” and “reverse sexism.” Tell me a little bit more about why those phrases and those concepts are a little disingenuous.

It comes down fundamentally to a hierarchy of harms. Clearly masculinity is harming men, patriarchy is harming everybody. It’s easy to just say, “Okay, so we’re all harmed by the system.” But it’s fairly obvious, even on a very kind of cursory survey of how the world works, that the people who are most harmed by patriarchy are women.

The reason for that is because there isn’t a way to win. If you’re a man, and you are prepared to suppress your emotions, are prepared to work out and get really big and strong, and you’re white, and you’re cis and you’re heterosexual and you’re able to get a well earning job, and people listen to you, and all the other sorts of things, you will win as a man. You will succeed. Clearly very few people do, in fact, win. But there’s the possibility of doing reasonably well by the system’s own terms, even if the system’s terms are deeply problematic. The difference for women is there just isn’t a way to win, whatever you end up doing. 

Even when things are going reasonably well, as a woman, there are very many ways to lose and to be made to feel bad. One of the things that makes women successful as women is being beautiful — but beautiful women have to contend with the fact that every time they look a little bit less than beautiful, everyone is going to pounce on that, and criticize them for it. And then also, people are going to criticize them for putting too much time and effort into their appearanceand being shallow. It just feels as though wherever you turn, society’s going to punish you.

When we’re thinking about race, yes, the system of racial segregation is psychologically bad for everybody in some way. Racial discrimination is clearly harmful to society as a whole. We all lose out as a result of it. We lose out on the talent of people of color, especially with affirmative action. That is a huge loss. Clearly, we lose out in many other ways, as well. But Black people are losing out much, much more than white people are losing out.

Once you’ve recognized that that’s the case, you then need some words to describe what’s going on. That’s what [words like] racism and sexism are doing — describing the very particular and very acute harms that certain groups have in the face of a system which is rotten right the way through. For me, it’s about saving those words racism and sexism for that very serious, repetitive, deeply rooted structural set of harms, while at the same time acknowledging that it’s good for nobody. 

It’s holding those two things at once. Clearly, we are all implicated in this system. Anybody can be sexist, anybody can be racist. In fact, we all are, because that’s the system we’ve been raised in. But just preserving those words for those very particular harms which encourages us to begin with undoing the harms from that place.

As we’re all trying to move forward in a way that is is helpful, I like that you end this book wrestling with your own hope and fear.

Generally, I do feel very negative, which for me, is actually quite a motivating force in some ways. The anger then drives me to think, “Well, I’d better keep shouting about this thing.” It may not do any good, but I can’t see what else I can do with myself in this scenario.

One of the things that does make me positive — and September’s coming around — I’m going back and the students will be back. My students give me hope. I think there’s a lot of really problematic stuff circulating. And I think social media is playing a major role in almost radicalizing people in strange, toxic ways. But for the most part, young people are further to the left as a general rule than the generations before them, especially when it comes to things like climate crisis, gender, race.

I’m not saying all of them, but there is a general trend in that direction. Every year teaching students, I am heartened by the place they begin at when I start teaching them. Because there’s also a lot of stuff circulating on social media that’s actually really positive and is actually informative, and it’s helping people to learn about these things and organize themselves. I do feel hopeful about younger people. I really do.