advisory council

[Chris Beckwith]

I'm sorry that the "tone" of my message has been taken as offensive by
Megan Crowhurst.  Frankly, I was shocked to read her message, and reread
my own to make sure I did not in fact say what she says I said.  I did not
intend to offend anyone at all; quite to the contrary, I tried to explain
how the establishment of racial, gender-identity, and other quota
positions, and the factors involved in filling these positions, are really
offensive to me and to others (I was not the only one to object to the
idea), and lead by their very nature to polarization and politicization.
Moreover, I did not criticize _anyone_ personally, directly or indirectly.
I also did not say or imply "that base emotion has been gettin' in the way
and befuddlin' the issue."  I said that those who had written in on the
subject--including myself, certainly--have reacted strongly "because this
kind of thing, whatever the intention, is inevitably going to call up many
(all?) members' personal feelings about self-identity," meaning that both
those who are in favor of the positions and those who oppose them have
apparently done so on personal grounds.

I'm sorry that my message seems to have been so unclear as to have caused
so much misunderstanding.  After reading several previous messages, as
well as this reply from Megan, one of the organizers, I have the feeling
that the 'constituency' idea is being steamrolled through:  as she says,
"in any group, when a large number of people who (to a greater or lesser
extent) share a point of view outnumber those present whose view differs,
the people in the larger group tend to collude, whether intentionally or
inadvertently, in overriding the softer voice."  I am sorry that she did
not like my voice, which I think--on rereading my message, including the
parts that offended her--is by far the softer one.  In the last part of
her message, about the last part of my message, she distorts what I say,
and then concludes, "My understanding has been that the policy of this
list is that all members are free to express their opinions and
participate in the creation of this organisation and its structure on an
equal footing, and that we should not expect to be rebuked for this, but
rather, to be treated with courtesy and respect."  I do not think my own
message rebuked anyone or treated anyone with a lack of courtesy and
respect in any way, but I do feel rebuked, at least, by Megan's message.
Reading it makes me feel bad about participating in GALA, and makes me
feel that I don't belong.  Of course, that is also what the constituency
idea itself implies about whoever is put into one of these constituencies
selected out from the membership as a whole--the majority, ordinary,
regular members--who is thus told, in effect, 'you are a minority, not
ordinary, not regular member', because you are "colored," a man (imagine
if this were another organization and there were one position saved for a
woman, thus guaranteeing that there would only be one woman
representative), an Asian, or whatever.  If the idea were really to give
members identified as belonging to one of the proposed constituencies an
"equal footing," there would only be one position for each.  But that is
not the case, is it?  If this is really just an advisory council, and the
really important positions in the organization are--one hopes--open to any
member, then why is it necessary to create inequality of representation
from the outset in an advisory body?  (This is just one more objection to
the proposal as it stands.)  Megan says, "Members of dominant groups who
identify as liberal, however well-meaning, can't be entrusted with the
task of representing the perspective of, or protecting the interests of
members of non-dominant groups.  (For example, Chris Beckwith who I'm
responding to primarily. . . cannot accurately represent the perspective
of a woman.)"  Well, the last I heard, this organization was founded by
pro-woman women and the membership is overwhelmingly female . . .

I'm sorry that I have offended Megan.  Perhaps she previously expressed
support for the constituency idea (unfortunately, I deleted the earlier
messages on the subject and now have no idea who said what), and I
apologize if that is the reason for her reaction.  But I certainly did not
intend to criticize her, nor did I intend to criticize _anyone_
personally.  What criticism my message contains is solely directed at
ideas--intellectual stuff--not at individual people and their identities
or personalities, and it is devoid of sarcasm and personal remarks.
Finally, the intent of my message was not at all political, nor was it
"apolitical"; it was ANTI-political, directed exclusively against
politics, per se, alone.

I'm sorry for writing in and getting involved in GALA.  I am not a
politician, and am not cut out for this.

crs

On Tue, 10 Aug 1999, Chris Beckwith wrote:

> I understand the desire to bridge the disagreements here, but this whole
> discussion is sounding more and more disagreeable, at best.  I think the
> reason is that the problematic parts are purely political in nature.  I do
> not see how the two positions could be moved closer to a compromise
> without compromising the principles underlying them.
>
> The original proposal is to assign representatives for each of the
> selected identity categories, so that the
> person representing the category belongs to the category, presumably by
> self-definition.  (Is anyone really going to challenge a
> candidate's proclamation of a given identity, or is GALA going to set up
> 'litmus tests' for membership in the category?  Doesn't sound very savory
> to me.)  The other proposal is to have a representative--theoretically
> anyone--for the 'interests' of each of these categories of people.
> Merging them will simply increase the pressure for litmus testing, since
> not only would the rep have to BE someone, the rep would have to support
> some (stated?  unstated?) VIEWS ABOUT BEING someone.  I know that some
> organizations have representatives nowadays for such things, but in every
> case I am personally familiar with, the result has been to politicize and
> polarize the membership more than before.  The real problem
> here is one of categorization.  Certainly it is a problem in society,
> wherein people frequently miscategorize, overcategorize, and so on,
> causing the people who are the objects of the categorizing to suffer.  The
> tack taken by several major social movements of this century in the
> English-speaking world has been to promote UNDERcategorization--treating
> members of two or more categories as one (woman and men in the suffrage
> movement and subsequent movements; African-Americans and other Americans
> in the civil rights movement; and so on).  Difficult as this has been,
> there does not seem to be a better way.  Apartheit does not work, and I
> think few good people would want it to.  I thought the goal of GALA was to
> foster the study of the many kinds of categorizations--especially ones
> based on gender--that are connected with language.  The discussion of
> GALA's philosophy included the question of whether the organization should
> be a social movement organization or not, and the consensus, as I recall
> it, was that we should be a scholarly organization and leave the politics
> to the existing social movement organizations.  I have been supporting the
> foundation of GALA, and participating in the discussions, because I
> believed this to be true: that for once there could be an organization of
> people devoted to research and intellectual exchange on all the topics
> involving gender and language.  I think that as long as this remains
> GALA's goal, we will be a successful intellectual organization.  But the
> people who've written in on the current topic seem (not surprisingly) to
> have a very strong sense of self-identity, and have accordingly
> reacted to the original proposal and counter-proposals very strongly-- to
> some extent emotionally-- because this kind of thing, whatever the
> intention, is inevitably going to call up many (all?) members' personal
> feelings about self-identity.  I do not see this as leading anywhere but
> deeper into the cesspool of politics.  I hope this idea is dropped.
>
> Chris