In praise of going to ground
I think you have to be willing to go to ground whenever you're trying to figure something out and you're at risk of coming to the 'wrong' conclusion (socially speaking).
Among other things, I think the pressure to state a public opinion about a whole bunch of supposedly progressive causes (hashtag fill-in-the-blank...) when one cannot possibly be informed on every progressive cause has been hugely detrimental to free thought. We know from research on cognitive dissonance that small public acts commit us and that our beliefs shift to reduce dissonance.
So you do something small that you don't agree with or just don't see the point of and the very smallness of the act (and the similar scale of the consequences you would have faced for refusing to do it) creates dissonance that is resolved by deciding it was a Correct and Very Important Thing To Do.
So getting progressives to chant along with inanities and commit themselves to causes they don’t understand is potentially highly consequential, not harmless.
It’s hard to think of a social milieu in which these kinds of acts were more expected and more policed than among young, educated, progressive white women. Again, with consequences.
I wasn't exaggerating for poetic effect when I said that "even my silences have become suspect." I had friends ask me in real life and message me on social media many times when I 'failed' to participate in expected public rituals, however trivial those rituals may seem. I can’t even remember how many coworkers and friends (all female, for what it’s worth) asked why I hadn’t posted a black square on Instagram for George Floyd, despite daring to have an Instagram account. I received a steady stream of direct messages about my failures to mention ‘transwomen’ in Facebook posts I made about women’s issues. (“I couldn’t help but notice…” was a favorite lead-in.)
So you have to be willing to defect from the expectation to state a public opinion (and to pay a small social price for that defection), in favor of developing an informed private opinion.
You have to be willing to resist pointless 'niceties,' even when friends insist such things "cost you nothing," especially when measured against the benefits for others (use a pronoun/save a life!).
Going along is not inconsequential.
Going along binds you.
And months or years down the road, you may find you’ve ended up in strange places, wondering how you got there. It started like this.
On occasion, when I feel like I can express myself freely, I do voice my opinion. What I find difficult is that barely anyone in my friendship circles have taken the time to look into subjects in a thorough way. What I mean by that, is them exploring the other point of view. Even those who express a shared view haven't even gone down the rabbit hole. Even after discussions I have had, nobody thought to dig deeper. People in my part of Canada, it seems, take everything they are fed, thinking any other view might be unkind. They think the conservatives here are right wing but they closer to being centrists than the left wing parties, who are truly far left.
The other day, I expressed a view to someone who is hardly an acquaintance. She was a volunteer with the Girl Guides who have decided that they only attend events that are secular. She has been appointed into an administrative position. She was complaining about all the calls she was getting from angry parents who didn't understand why the kids couldn't march in the local Santa Claus parade. So in a nervous, shaky voice due to lack of practice, I told her that the parents had a point, that Christmas is mostly celebrated secularly in Canada and that eventually, we won't have anything fun and traditional left. I said that as a person who has traveled and lived in other countries the best part was the excitement of the new place was the way the place was not like my own. Her argument was that it was 'policy'. Just because something is policy, does not make it the right position. Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if the Girl Guides celebrate sacred indigenous rituals which are not secular. I am not opposed to these events because to me the more culture, the better. Anyway, I am going to ask a girl guide next time if they ever attended a 'smudging'. I do know that they attended the 'Barbie' movie which is secular.
I am going on a tangent now but want to write more. As a child, I attended the French Canadian version of the 'Girl Guides and Beavers'. I probably did it for two years. I am 50 and at the time it was affiliated with the Catholic Church. The reason I dropped put of it, was that it was pretty sports oriented and I was an artsy kid. The women who ran it, seemed obsessed with clean fingernails and looking clean. That was hard for me because I loved making and painting so my nails were always a mess. They also made us play dodgeball which everyone has nightmares about. But the straw that broke the camel's back for me was that the promised camping trip only went to the boys group. The funding went straight to the fellas. I was so angry about it and told my mother never to enroll me in it again.
I am finding very hard to find the words to speak up often resorting to humour or diverting the question most times. I think it's due to lack of practice.
I remember when I thought I needed to make sure to write my pronouns on my Insta. Yeah, took those down once the transgender ideology came to my house...wtf