Situating my thesis within the social justice tradition: part 1

Note - this post is more judgmental of the term "social justice" than I would like it to be.  Please consider this writing to be a mode of processing for the author - as always, the thoughts here will evolve.  

As I've been writing this thesis, I've increasingly been wanting to define my stance as an educator: why do I feel compelled to write this thesis, specifically?  In a nutshell, my teaching profession is a spiritual path for me, and the subject of understanding and alleviating prejudice is a spiritual subject - a subject that allows us to more fully see and understand and support other human beings, a subject that allows us, via witnessing the web of human imperfection, to see deeper into the richness and complexity of humanity.  Understanding prejudice is primarily, for me, an act of care: and it is not as simple as caring both for those who suffer because they hold prejudices and those who suffer because they are oppressed by them; many people are in both positions, including myself.  

While I express this in my spiritual community, I have chosen to not express it in my professional community, despite the fact that my spirituality is at the core of my professional identity and is what inspires me to teach well.  I am sometimes concerned that expressing my spiritual perspective on education will alienate some of my colleagues, and I am also concerned that some of my colleagues may view me skeptically.  However, my spiritual path is what gives me clarity and insight - not only into myself and other people, but into pedagogy.  Increasingly, I feel the obligation to communicate it clearly when the situation is appropriate.  Perhaps people are skeptical of spirituality because it suffers from being communicated poorly.      

I've also increasingly been realizing that people situate me within the social justice tradition of education; to me, the social justice tradition only finds its power when it taps into spiritual realization.  Although clearly everything I do is for the sake of social justice, I don't feel a personal connection either to the term or to the social justice community as I have seen it.  The spirituality - the striving to understand the depth of humanity and of being, and the striving to be ever more supportive and compassionate - is missing from both the term and the community, (in my experience).  

The term has felt polemical to me.  Even the word "justice" just doesn't ring right - the tone of the word is one that is meant to rile the crowd, it serves to motivate, but through anger rather than through understanding, fixing, healing.  As such the term strikes me as unmindful and un-insightful.  I associate the term with the Left, with the raised fist, with a Howard Zinn type of clear-cut, black and white, good and evil presentation of human beings and society that strips away depth, complexity, and thus the ability to understand how human beings and societies actually function.  (I'm not alone in this judgment of Zinn - Zinn is like the Joseph Campbell of leftist history, adored by the public but not taken with any seriousness by scholars.  But these popular figures, much like historical movies, are where we get our popular notions of history!) 

Perhaps this is an unfair judgment of the term "social justice".  The judgment is based on a few conferences attended and a few dozen papers read, both popular and academic... conferences I walked out on and papers I didn't finish.  I didn't walk out because I experienced anger in my own heart, but because I encountered an amateurish and immature polemics of anger and judgement that my time is too precious to waste on, considering there are plenty of means to gain real insight into how injustice functions and how to rectify that. 

I tend to associate anger as coming from an ungrounded place - an angry tone automatically causes me to doubt the wisdom of the speaker or author.  I realize that many people disagree with me on this.  I know that many people working with inequity become rightfully angry (including myself), and know that just because they are angry does not mean they do not see things clearly.  I realize that a tone of anger can even be a tactic to emotionally engage people in the cause for social justice.  Or it can simply be part of how a social milieu speaks.  However, while anger may be legitimate and facilitate engagement and action, it doesn't facilitate clarity, which should be the ground for engagement and action that we strive for.  Even if an angry speaker does see things clearly, anger makes it hard for the audience to understand things clearly.  Politicians use anger all the time for this reason: it is a tool for obfuscation; anger makes it easy to take sides, to form judgments, in other words, it works against clear insight.  

Encountering anger and agitation in social justice and activist contexts doesn't make me upset, but untrusting. Being present to anger is, for me, a beautiful spiritual practice: if I wanted to avoid anger, I wouldn't have entered into social work.  As a spiritual man, when I'm around anger and agitation, I feel that my task is to be fully present with it: can I see the anger clearly?  Where is it coming from?  How can I care for the one who has anger?  How can I care for myself as I receive the anger?  I consider this a mature way to process anger, and when it comes to scholarly work, I feel it should display the same emotional maturity - if it does not, I feel I have good reason to be skeptical.

Despite all this, my work is without a doubt for the sake of social justice.  I want to help my students become insightful, resourceful, caring people.  I believe that history can provide them with insights into what it is to be human, and to how this society functions.  My work right now is about helping students understand prejudice, which is for me, about helping students more fully understand what it is to be human.  Understanding prejudice does not mean, for me, to judge those with the prejudices.  It has nothing to do with good and bad.  It has to do, simply, with understanding how human beings work.  While helping students gain an understanding of prejudice is certainly a political act and a contribution to social justice, it is also a spiritual act, an act which helps students simultaneously understand issues of justice and the complexities of humanity.