But what if statistical realities aren't real realities?
Insofar as the argument to collect label-centric data doesn't stem from knowledge for knowledge's sake... no more than the collection and statistical aggregation of any data, stems from knowledge for knowledge's sake... the collection and manipulation of any and all data is always motivated by an agenda that benefits someone. (Not to mention that the practice of collecting and manipulating any and all data is also arguably always biased by an overt intention to divide all of us from each other, via the most dramatic illustrations possible, especially as the value and validity of statistical realities overwhelmingly scale with regard to statistical significances of differences not similarities.)
So: who benefits when label-centric data is gathered and aggregated? In other words: who asks for and who receives preferential considerations and differential advantages when label-centric data statistically validates label-centric social causes (ostensibly via statistical realities)?
Is not our insistence on classifying ourselves and our subsequent crusade to martyrize ourselves via the collection and manipulation of label-centric data, merely an elaborate justification for the reinstatement of separate but equal policies and institutions? Is that not what all label-centric causes ultimately advocate -- at all costs -- that we are all equal -- but separate?
Is separate ever equal?
While we ultimately decided, as a country, to eschew our flawed adherence to separate but equal policies for their repugnant institutionalization of inequality... did we also, as a country, ultimately muster the courage to reject separate but equal norms... altogether? What else but these anachronistic ideologies of inequality paved the way for modern social crusaders to unswervingly advocate voluntary separatism via separate but equal agendas vociferously cloaked in self-righteous legitimacy?
No staunch data point nor stridently determined anecdote can obscure the fact that when label-centric data is used to sanction institutional inequity via separate but equal policies and institutions to ostensibly remedy label-centric injustices -- nobody wins and everybody loses.
Isn't an injustice always an injustice, regardless of motive? For motive no more transforms an injustice into justice, than the aggregation and manipulation of label-centric data transforms statistical realities into real realities.
Across time immemorial, tyrants have used this perverse logic, of injustices to redress injustices, to defend the most appalling of villainies. So is not the zealous endorsement of this indefensible logic by label-centric crusades, nothing less than the sanitization of tyranny masquerading as moral superiority and justice?
More
Until we renounce our obdurate insistence on the preeminence of labels over people as humans first -- we will continue to champion voluntary, social, and institutional separatism -- thereby creating a climate anathema to equality for all. For is equality for some, really equality for all -- or is not equality for some, despotism for all?
Until we acknowledge the tyranny inherent to the practice of moralizing the defense of wrongs to remedy wrongs -- we will continue to tyrannize each other -- in the name of righteousness and justice. For if label-centric crusades achieve the moral high ground through deceptions and perversions, are such crusades really on the moral high ground -- or are not such strategies the tell-tale tactics of tyranny?
Until we lay down our arms -- the institutions, the norms, and the labels that we've manipulated and distorted to justify our weaponized war for inequity -- we will continue to harbor the mistaken belief that our label-centric crusades are morally just. For when label-centric crusades silence any and all dissension, including voices that illuminate label-centric distortions of logic and morality -- voices of peace are silenced in service to nothing less than ideological despotism.
Until...
- M.
Addendum
Isn't it ironic that the rationalizations for label-centric remediations of label-centric injustices advocated by the most adamant supporters of label-centric crusades, echo the propaganda of tyrants, despots, and fascists throughout history? Yet, isn't it also ironic, that the mere suggestion of this fitting parallel evokes virulently vehement hostility from label-centric crusaders whose militant fanaticism also rationalizes the suppression of any and all opposition?
Moreover, isn't it possible that hashtags divide us -- more than unite us? For isn't it possible that label-centrism is separatism masked as self-empowerment? In fact, aren't countless label-centric crusades inaccessible to many on the grounds that only select someones possess the inalienable right to wave label-centric flags? Furthermore, aren't such movements inherently exclusive with regard to who benefits from the preferential considerations and differential advantages advanced by label-centric social causes? Which begs the question: isn't this practice of selectively preferential treatment nothing less than the appropriation of unjustly prejudicial practices against which label-centric social causes so vociferously contest?
Therefore, isn't it possible that the equality and unity delineated by label-centric crusades are nothing more than elaborate deceptions? And aren't those of us who propagate label-centric agendas -- complicit in this deception?
- M.
Note
Think the oppressed never usurp the unjust practices of their oppressors? One need only compare the persecution of Christians in Roman times to the Crusades of the Middle Ages. It took less than a thousand years for persecuted Christians who martyred themselves as righteous at the hands of pagan oppressors -- to morally defend their persecution of those whose differing religious beliefs led them to martyr themselves as righteous at the hands of Christian oppressors.
Isn't this still happening... in the name of #race, #socioeconomic status, #age, #gender, #national origin, #religion, #marital status, #educational attainment, #sexual orientation, etc.?
Not to mention: isn't this why we clamor for the ruin of individuals demonized as oppressors for egregious comments that are vilified as oppressive by label-centric activists? Simply Google any profession loses job over comment (i.e. "scientist loses job over comment") and observe how social media maelstroms in favor of public ruin are vociferously upheld as just victories of label-centric crusades to redress social injustices. (Examples of social media character assassinations are highlighted in: The price of public shaming in the Internet age, by Todd Leopold (CNN 4/16/15).)
When equal but separate at all costs agendas ruthlessly rationalize the destruction of livelihoods and protracted public defamations of people who are as human as you and me, such overtly tyrannical misdeeds exemplify the intrinsic hypocrisy of label-centric crusades. For justice gained via persecution and intimidation is tyranny wearing the emperor's new clothes.
On the other hand: 'Children of the aggressor': the Japanese war babies adopted by China by Harumi Ozawa (Yahoo/AFP 8/12/15).
- M.
