On causing offence... against good intentions #resolution2018

There is something that has been bothering me for years...

Different groups of people who live by the idea that doing their best is good enough, but who actually fail to be good enough. Teachers, family, friends, co-workers, academics, authors, activists. Many people whose heart is in the right place. But who fail to grasp that intentions are not enough.

If I've learned anything in the past years, travelling and living in the United States, in China, in Japan and in Europe, it is that people mean well, but expect that change comes about through intentions alone.

(Picture taken by me, somewhere in Arizona)

Impatient

I know I'm impatient. It is why my research and writing a dissertation about the nature of real change, radical change, has left me at times depressed and desolate. Not because I had no more motivation, but because I saw no way out.

Relativism is the easy way out of the nihilistic tendencies that sarcasm and science seem to promote. But #relativism is just another way of #nihilism. Yes, people are all different, and should be free to pursue their dreams. But only within a specific frame, with limits. And yes, setting limits is dangerous - the Hitler-argument can be made. But it can be made both ways - to the setting of limits to what is acceptable in society, and to the lack of people who are willing to stand up to what cannot be accepted.

Some things cannot be excused. Never.

• Allowing for a discourse in which rape is at least partly the fault of the victim.
• Letting people be defined by their religious affiliation and to prevent them from getting an education, from jobs, from sharing their beliefs with others.
• Allowing journalists who search for facts be imprisoned and killed.
• Purging a country from people based on alleged affiliation with a political opponent.
• Allowing for walls and fences that keep people who need asylum out in the cold.
• Changing constitutional systems in order to undermine the democratic process.

Don't bother

I agree with most of this article in the Huffington Post. And one sentence especially struck me, as the epitome of what has bothered me for so long:

"If your prime objective is not to cause offence, don’t bother."

So to all the people out there who spread hate, without acting on it to make the world more the way they want it to be: stop it. And to all the people out there who spread love, without acting on it to make the world more the way they want it to be: please stop it.

Connect & reconnect

Fortunately there are many people brave enough to act on their beliefs. I wish however there would be more people with love in their heart who would do the same.

For instance the people I met last summer, during the Nordic Summer School, where we spent an evening reading Antigone (the play by Sophocles) on the beach in Latvia, each lending their voice to build the story equally, voluntarily. To be able to share such a moment, is what I would wish for everyone... Connect. Reconnect. Open your minds. And don't talk about love.

I am one of those who often feel helpless on how to act. And my resolution is to change that. I might not be able to change the world. But I can change myself.

(I hope.)