[The tone of this post is earnest, not in any way meant to be a complaint. I want to be a better comrade]
I’m someone with a very dense cross-section of privileges. (If i didn’t grow up poor i might win the least oppressed demographic trophy)
This makes me feel as though I cannot speak on anything important without coming across like I’m whitemansplaining, regardless of whether I consider myself knowledgeable on the topic.
Should i just accept that my voice isn’t really needed in most conversations? (A white guy telling an iranian expat that Reza Pahlavi was actually not good for iranians isn’t ever going to accomplish anything, is it?)
Not to say I’m an encyclopedia of theory but i consider myself well enough read to apply dialectical and historical materialist analysis to most topics.
I spend a lot of time around people of all walks of life and I feel as though it’s kinda disrespectful of me to pipe up and correct the record on basically any topic beyond the mundane like videogame strategy.
I guess i don’t even really know what kind of answer I’m looking for here. Maybe just validation that it’s ok for me to be silent when someone is just plain wrong about an important topic? Idk. Thanks for reading
Furthermore, ask yourself: what do I have to gain from this? If you’re in it to just win an argument, save yourself and everyone involved the wasted effort. People rarely change their minds when they have been proven wrong, especially if it’s in public and especially if it is the result of a more confrontational debate.
Arguing for arguing’s sake is peak redditor and obnoxious nerd behavior, and unless someone is willing to spar with you for fun and dialectics, it rarely does anything. Right wingers want people to debate them all the time because they understand this and they don’t believe in the power of words and ideas, they’re just playthings and tools they use to inspire libidinal responses and to look cool
Tim Ingold, a Scottish anthropologist once wrote that there is a huge difference between education and instruction. Education is a relational process, where even if there is a knowledge or power differential, people collaborate to reach an answer that’s satisfying and makes the bond between the people participating in stronger. Instruction is the process through which you seek to implant your knowledge into someone’s head, where that same differential becomes the basis for an unequal and abusive relationship. The former is way more effective at staying with people and activating them for action. I think he was referencing someone else, but I don’t remember who.
For more on how to use your time to help people develop the tools to liberate themselves using your knowledge you can maybe read Pedagogy of the Opressed.