John Swinburn

A dust-up occurred earlier this year among certain people of influence in the loosely-woven halls of power of a minor religious denomination that I choose not to name. The brouhaha erupted over publication of an essay that recounted a woman’s experience as she attempted to be supportive of her cisgender daughter’s close relationship with a person who was in the midst of transitioning from the male gender assigned at birth to the female gender. The writer apparently had always been a supportive ally of gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, etc., etc. The story is more complex, but I’ll try to simplify it by saying this: the writer expressed the difficulty she found in understanding and engaging in conversations about non-binary sexual identities. She was surprised to be told, when she asked questions to satisfy her curiosity about the journey between the gender a person had been assigned at birth to the gender with which the person identified, “You really can’t ask about that. The only thing you can ask is which pronoun someone prefers.”

The article raised the hackles of some influential people in the non-binary community within the denomination. The editor of the publication wrote, in an apology about the essay, that it became apparent after the fact that “Additionally, it was hurtful to put a straight, cisgender person’s experience in the foreground, especially as one of the first major articles in the magazine on this topic.”

I have read literally dozens of articles asserting it is absolutely wrong to expect Blacks to educate Whites about how to correct the legacy of slavery and racial prejudice (and I understand the legitimacy of that position).  I find it hard to comprehend why our position should be absolutely reversed for a different population (non-binary people). Why should we expect them to educate cisgender people about how to overcome the bigotry of sexual-identity superiority? While I concede that only non-binary people have the personal experience of facing that bigotry and, therefore, their personal experiences alone can lead to complete understanding, I believe the same is true for Blacks and Whites.  The perspective of the oppressors, who are trying to understand the facets of their behaviors that are offensive, can be just as educational, I think, to both parties. But perhaps my perspective as a cisgender male is invalid because…I am a cisgender male? Why, then, is my Whiteness not just as invalid when trying to change the racist behaviors of my fellow White males? Why, in that set of circumstances, must I take responsibility, but when it comes to my sexual orientation and identity, it is wrong for me to write an essay from my own personal perspective?

My confusion here is, I think, legitimate. Frankly, I cannot understand how an essay (an ESSAY, I say) written from the perspective of a cisgender woman who, from all outward  appearances appears to be an ally of non-binary people, can be viewed as hurtful. She wrote from her experience, from her perspective, and asked questions that I certainly understand her having. I would find an essay written by a transgender person about their perspectives in maneuvering a cisgender-biased world to be equally illuminating; and I would not find it hurtful to cisgender people. I would find it educational.

I read the original offending article and the responses by the editor, the church leader, the original essayist, and others (all of whom apologized). Even so, I could not understand why the original essay was considered hurtful. Instead, it seemed to me that the original essay upset some people whose upsets were simply accepted—not necessarily understood, but accepted—and treated as legitimate and deserving of apology. Though an apology is appropriate for an action that unintentional offended another person, I think a much more thorough explanation of the offense is required before simply saying “what we did was wrong.” Why was it wrong? Why is it wrong in this circumstance but not wrong in another circumstance that ultimately led to a civil war and hundreds of thousands of deaths? An automatic “mea culpa” is, in my view, just as damaging as an unintentional offense. An insufficiently explained apology tends to teach others that any offense by one person taken automatically leads to blame of another…even when no offense was intended and when the legitimacy of the offense is open for debate.

A reactive “we did wrong and therefore we apologize” is, in my view, an invitation to close discussion. Rather that acknowledging the very real questions and the legitimacy of dealing with an unfamiliar experience, it says “your perspective doesn’t matter—what matters is someone else’s perspective, so tread carefully…always vet your point of view to ensure that it is innocuous before sharing it.”

My reaction to the brouhaha would have been the same, I think, had the issue not been one of sexual identity but, instead, religious affiliation. I would argue that my questions about religious beliefs should be freely asked without concern that I might cause hurt to someone’s deeply-felt religious convictions. I realize religious convictions are choices, whereas sexual identity is not, of course. But matters about which one feels strongly tend to correspond to fragility. I should be conscious of the potential for fragility, but I should not bury my questions for fear I might crack something.

Finally, I do not advocate (nor do I accept for a moment) that questions on what can be delicate matters should be asked without regard for feelings. Sensitive issues should be approached with sensitivity and regard for the feelings of others. In the matter of the essay mentioned above, it seems to me those issues received ample consideration. Perhaps the honesty of the questions triggered the responses. One can be sensitive but at the end of the day some questions simply cannot be asked without being somewhat blunt. Bluntness should not be viewed as synonymous with insensitivity; it can and should be viewed as honesty on display.

Once a mind is made up, irrevocably, it becomes unbending and brittle. It becomes subject to irreversible rupture when irrefutable, contrary facts present themselves. When evidence—that an immutable decision was based on fallacy—is impossible to ignore, the mind shatters into  shards of sacrosanct debris, scraps of certainty strewn across the mindscape. The certainty that led to such an explosive eruption forever taints future decisions. Yet absolutes continue to grow in the rubble of that friable brain; evidence discordant with its unshakable confidence is ignored or mocked. Facts have no place in a mind crushed into a wet dust, laden with alternative truth. That muck soon becomes quicksand, sucking reality into bubbling pits that drown veracity in viscous pools of deceit and caustic myth.

Question everything. Believe nothing, least of all the stories you tell yourself. Your certainty scorches the thin layer of ice under your feet, that thin layer your only protection from the boiling cauldron of misjudgment beneath you.

Thinking deeply about matters thought cannot change constitutes either wasted energy or vital mental exercise or both. Yet even the assertion that thought cannot bring about change induces change. The contention that any thought is wasted spurs the mind to defend itself against allegations of inertia. That is not clear, is it? No, it is not. And that is precisely why thinking deeply is to be venerated. Not dismissed as an extravagant misuse of mental energy. Harboring ideas that conflict with one another strengthens one’s ability to understand the complexities of life. If not the ability to understand, at least the ability to tolerate. Tolerance is an ability. Like tightrope walking or sword swallowing or singing on key.

Lately, I’ve tried to reduce my distaste for ideas I find repugnant, just to learn whether those ideas can teach me something about the world or about myself that I otherwise would not know. Among those ideas is this: that decent human beings can find human slavery to be acceptable. Even the idea that I might be willing to explore that concept for a moment is abhorrent. It contradicts my beliefs about humanity in so fundamental a way that I question my own decency in being willing to consider it. Yet that is how we get through the odious task of identifying even the most monstrous among us as human. If we insist on seeing the world through the jaundiced eyes of others with whom we disagree at the most basic level, we have the chance of understanding how to change them.

Though I do not and will not accept that human slavery is ever acceptable, forcing myself to think about it did, indeed, lead me to a more complete understanding of the world in which I live. Or, at least, I think it did. My thoughts wandered through oceans of confusion and self-doubt, touching on things I doubt I would ever have considered had I not forced this loathsome task on myself. Somewhere along the line, my mind drifted from the humanity of owning and controlling another human being to owning and controlling another creature: a dog.

Working dogs—like the animals that help shepherds guide their flocks of sheep—are, as I understand it, treated well for several reasons. First among them, I think, is that the dogs provide a valuable service to the shepherds and, therefore, the shepherds want their dogs to be in top form so they can perform their duties as expected. The idea that these dogs are trained to be servants, against their will, probably never enters the shepherds’ minds. The idea that these dogs are not free to leave either doesn’t occur to the shepherds or, if it does occur to them, it doesn’t bother them because the dogs don’t know how much better their lives are than would be the case if they were “free” to forage for themselves. So, keeping the dogs in bondage is beneficial to the shepherd and to the dogs. The occasional dog that runs away is an aberration; its loss is an inconvenience, not a heart-rending experience.

A child who happens upon a sheep-dog during “off-duty” hours might develop an entirely different relationship with the animal. The no-nonsense working dog may become, to the child, a companion. Over a short period of time, the child and the dog can develop a close relationship that has no bearing on the dog’s working life. When the dog is required, on a cold and rainy day, to help corral sheep, the child feels sorry that the dog is suffering through the harshness of the frigid, wet experience. The child and the shepherd have entirely different perspectives about the sheep-dog. The shepherd views the dog as a working asset; the child see it as a friend. While the shepherd doesn’t see the dog as a friend, he treats the dog reasonably well so the dog can serve the shepherd. The child, though, considers it cruel to force the dog to work.

Now, back to slavery. I try to see the world through a slave-owner’s eyes. I can believe either that the slave-owner is fundamentally evil and is perfectly happy with that fact or that he adopts a mindset that protects him from seeing himself as a monster. In the latter case, he must convince himself that, by providing food and shelter to his slaves, he is providing for them in ways they could not provide for themselves. He must convince himself that the slaves are assets that must be cared for but also must be strictly controlled. He cannot permit himself to view slaves as humans like himself; instead, he must convince himself that they are, like sheepdogs, doing jobs they were bred to do.

Maybe the slave owner did not have to convince himself of anything. Perhaps he learned to see the world they way I described simply by growing up in an environment in which slave ownership was simply a natural way of life. I imagine that he learned, either by being taught or by watching what occurred around him, that slaves had to be corrected when they deviated from expectations because, otherwise, they would “lose their training” and become useless assets.

As I said, these thought processes did not change my mind about slavery, nor about the people who owned them. Well, maybe it did change my mind about the owners. The ones who became enlightened and came to understand the inhumanity of the practice of slavery may well have been decent people at their core. I think I may have come to understand some of the people who, even today, do not seem to be compassionate. They learned, somehow, that compassion is a trait reserved for the weak and, therefore, is not a characteristic to which one should aspire. They learned that people who are different from them are to be either hated or feared or ridiculed or otherwise categorized as threats. Perhaps they were taught that “those people,” whatever differences they exhibited, posed dangers to livelihoods and lifestyles. And, so it goes. People who are “different” may not be captured and used as slaves, but they are labeled and targeted for treatments that would be unacceptable is visited upon “my people.”

Now, the question is how to retrain people to be compassionate and to see other humans as simply other human? I haven’t the foggiest idea. My guess is that only time and death will rid us of inhumanity. And even time and death cannot overcome new generations taught to embrace the same old evils their forebears embraced. But maybe if we (the collective we, as in all of civil society) try to view bad behaviors as taught and not inbred, we might try to help others unlearn old ways and learn new ones. Maybe.

But my patience is waning. I’m growing increasingly unwilling to tolerate fear and skepticism and doubt, even though those very traits sometimes seem to guide my thoughts and emotions. Here I am trying to see the world through others’ eyes and, when I think I’ve done it, I have no patience with the brain that processes those other eyes’ visions.

Thinking deeply can result in drowning in conflicting ideas while being dashed against the rocks of an angry coastline. It is, sometimes, incompatible with life. Sometimes, we just have to feel and not think our way out of our anger.

You know who I was, not who I am. I am in a state of flux, a man engaged in constant mutation from one form to another. Every breath I take in leaves a different person’s mouth. The change takes place quietly and without show, but snapshots of my psyche taken days apart could reveal stunning adjustments to my thought processes. On one day, I may be the picture of serenity, a calm and contented fixture in a stable and placid environment. But the next, the fury and fire inside me can consume planets—if the inferno doesn’t engulf me in an inextinguishable conflagration first.

If the energy storms that take place inside me were plotted on an oscillograph, the image would frighten even a seasoned psychic reader. The medium would see heat-driven tornadoes of molten rock incinerating entire galaxies. And then in the lull that followed, ice sheets a thousand frigid lives deep would preserve the seeds of the future, buried in the ashes of time.

The view looking in from outside does not reveal the changes; at least not so vividly. That external scene shows a man in the soft throes of fermentation, stooped a bit as he battles the inevitable decay that comes with age. As the years go by, the image changes in more obvious ways. Thinning, greying hair. A growing midsection, fueled by too much food and drink and too little exercise. Skin growing dry and soft. Sagging, empty sacks of skin that muscles once filled.

So, a contradiction exists between the exterior deterioration and the internal cyclic, saw-toothed, emotional whirlwind. It is in spite of and because of that contradiction that I am unknowable in the present. I can be accurately described only in the past; the present is far too turbulent for either words or understanding to capture. And the person I will become in the future is describable only to the extent that I will bear no resemblance to either the present or the past person I am or was.

Though I speak as if “you” were the one who finds it impossible to know who I am at this moment, that inability extends to me, as well. And the “I” of whom I speak probably describes you, too. We all are in transition from who we were to who we will be. We are never who we are for long enough to know ourselves in the present. Your internal oscillograph may not be as chaotic as mine, but I suspect the zenith and nadir of its cycles do not approximate a flat line, either.

If time would slow down for long enough, we might be able to examine the waves of the plotted lines in sufficient depth and detail to know who we really are; in the big picture, I mean. We might be able to adequately understand the emotional swings, from high to low and back, so we might better control them. But, then again, we might not.

Even in my periods of tranquility, passions of every kind course through me like whitewater rapids. Love, hate, lust, anger, rage, ardor. Those emotions power my life just as surely as food and water.  In various ways, they define who I am, even in those moments of calm and placidity. They shape the route my energy flows, too, when fury guides me across a terrain pockmarked with deep pits of anger.  I picture all these emotions as viscous fluids, each one a different color, spinning in different directions inside a massive vessel. The fluids never mix with one another, but they intersect in thin rivulets as they spin, creating illusions that they have merged into new colors. But when the spinning slows, the thin rivulets join with their uniquely colored flows and congeal into thick rivers.

Reading what I have written frightens me a bit; I can imagine a psychologist recommending institutionalization for a person with my thought patterns. But it would be a short stay, wouldn’t it? I mean, I will no longer be who I am in less than a moment’s time. So my deviance is a thing of the past, never the present.