I’m going to say something here that I would never, ever have imagined was radical: there is NOTHING wrong with being nice.  It doesn’t make you a bad feminist, a bad fatty, a bad progressive, or a weak person.  You do NOT have to feel guilty because you give people the benefit of the doubt, assume most people have good hearts and good intentions, and just generally enjoy the company of others–even if those others may be of a different gender or political persuasion.  You are not a sell-out or a puppet, and anybody who makes you feel like there’s something wrong with being nice is either uninformed about the realities of social change or is making a willful attempt to justify their own misanthropy by shaming others who don’t share it.

Feminism is not about being angry, being mean, being snarky, or walking around with a “take no prisoners” attitude.  Can anger be an important part of social justice movements?  Absolutely.  This world is full of terrible wrongs, and as the bumpersticker goes, at times “if you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention.”  But, one thing that feminism and other modern social justice movements have shown us is that, in general, people aren’t the problem; systems are.  And we can and should be angry at unjust systems; to just obediently and quietly go along with them WOULD be oppressive.  But, anger at systems does not need to be translated into anger at persons who we feel represent that system, or even who actively perpetuate that system.  It just doesn’t.  I really wish the idea of hating the sin and loving the sinner hadn’t become the rallying cry of people justifying hatred of people AND actions everywhere, because there really is, I think, something to feeling anger at an action or a system but still loving a person.

And here’s where I’ll come clean: much of my feminism and my politics is informed by my religious beliefs (and vice-versa).  And one of the most central things I try to hold on to is a belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every single person.  Yup, every one, no matter what they’ve done or what they believe.  Just by virtue of being a fellow human being, they are entitled not just to some abstract set of rights, but to a genuine acknowledgement of their worth and dignity as a person.  Honestly, I’m not sure how any social justice movement could be sustained apart from that belief, and I think it’s extremely difficult to write off treating others with kindness, compassion, and, yes, “niceness” if you are going to do so.

The thing is–and I forget this all the time–you do not acknowledge the inherent worth and dignity of another human being by snarking at them or ridiculing them or telling them to shut up or shaming them.  Not even when they are expressing ideas that are incredibly hurtful or harmful or misguided.  Righteous indignation ceases to be righteous when it’s aimed at people rather than systems and behaviors.  After that, you’re just indignant, and I’m not sure that’s every gotten anybody anywhere productive.

I’ve been very troubled for a while now at how prevalent in the blogosphere the idea that somehow being nice–especially if you are female–makes you a traitor to the cause, whether that cause be feminism or fat acceptance or progressive politics.  Yes, there are certain forms of “niceness”–like the kind of overt obsequiousness that is just a cover for resentment and anger–that are repressive and unproductive.  Being nice because good girls are supposed to be nice is not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about being kind and being respectful because that’s what good people do.  I’m not talking about walking on eggshells because you don’t want to rock the boat, but about cultivating a genuine feeling of love and goodwill towards those who you genuinely disagree with and even those who are actively trying to harm your cause, as all of the great 20th century social justice leaders have taught.

Because none of us are finished.  I’m not the person I should be yet.  And if I want to see a world of justice and love and peace and kindness, then I need to realize that my attempts at changing the world must be matched by efforts at internal transformation.  My anger at injustice should stem more and more from a genuine love of all people, who are ALL victims of unjust systems (one of the insights about patriarchy that often gets left out of discussions of feminism I’ve seen online is that, as the “rule of fathers”–NOT “rule of men”–many if not most men do not reap the benefits of it, and even those who do do so at a steep price).

Because in the end feminism is NOT all about me and my annoyance at how some random dude was bugging me, and it shouldn’t be.  It’s about recognizing that our world divvies up power by hierarchies (of which gender is a major part), that that power is usually wielded in destructive and unjust ways, and that the dominant values of our society legitimize that–all of which must be transformed, and all of which can probably only be transformed by a radical change in values, which will not happen as long as we continue to demean the traditionally demeaned virtues of love, nurturing, caring, and kindness as weakness.

And, I can hear the objection: “But if we are just nice to other people, how will they know they are being sexist/racist/wrong?”  Well, for one, I’m not sure when it became any of our jobs to point out to others the places where they are falling short.  I’m a big believer in glass house dwellers not throwing stones, and I know that for sure the glass my house is constructed of is pretty darn thin.  Unless another person has specifically asked me to point out places where they are being less-than-enlightened in their thinking, I’m not sure it’s actually my job to point it out to them.  That doesn’t mean I need to blindly agree, because often polite and respectful disagreement is the loving thing to do, but it does mean that it is not my job to make sure that everybody within earshot is made aware of when they are saying something I think is sexist, racist, classist, or otherwise wrong.

And, I’m not sure people really change because somebody else told them they need to.  I know that’s never worked for me.  Love transforms, relationships transform, heck even time and experience transform, but I can think of very few cases where brow-beatings transform.  So I don’t think declining to berate somebody about how uninformed/regressive/sexist/creepy they are is somehow telling somebody that their ideas or behavior are right and fine and dandy.  Instead, I think that responding to others in a way that acknowledges their inherent dignity and their goodness–rather than focusing on everything they’ve said or done that you don’t like–is far more likely to ultimately impact that person positively than a lecture ever could.

The whole brouhaha over a few fatosphere posts regarding feminism and privilege and all that stuff has got me thinking of blogging again.  Or, actually, blogging again, period.  Since I’m doing it.

The thing is, I need to be honest: I like my social activism without the anger.  That’s not to say that I think there’s no place for anger.  Some anger is justified, and some anger is necessary.  But, I don’t think it should be the primary motivator, and it certainly shouldn’t be the end point.

I am an advocate of nonviolence as the best way to do social change.  And, that doesn’t just mean not taking up arms.  It means trusting that what transforms–the only thing that ever transforms–is love.  Not anger, not hatred, not righteous indignation, not snarky comments, and not even really good arguments, but love.  Somehow the anger at unjust systems and awful situations has to be turned to–or at the very least paired with–love for persons, even as they are complicit with and supportive of those systems and situations.

I’m not there.  I want to be, though.  And I think we can talk about things that matter–and things that are wrong and unfair and unjust–without getting so mired in anger that we end up shutting out the very people who should be part of the conversation.  Because if love transforms, anger generally alienates.

So I think what I’m interested in is exploring feminism and fat acceptance from a position of commitment to the principles of nonviolent resistance, where we may hate systems but we always try to love people (no matter how unlovely they may be or how often we may fail at it).  I think it’s probably far easier to sustain a blog on anger, though!  So, we’ll see how it goes.