Jul
11
‘Lived Experience’ and the Prison of Tribes Thinking
“To see every interaction as containing hidden violence is to become a permanent victim, because if all you are is a nail, everything looks like a hammer.” — Conor Barnes, former radical
Even before the extreme radicalization and push for “social justice”, Critical Race Theory and its kin, etc., of recent years, I observed more and more how certain groups within Western society seemed to become increasingly sensitive to the world around them, and not in a good way. As terms like “microaggression”, “triggered”, and “safe spaces” became more widely used, it became (even more) painfully obvious that these people had been taught — formally and/or socially — that there was racism and bigotry around every corner, evidence of a system built by those who hated/feared them and wanted to keep them “down”. And, wonder of wonders, they found it!
It is a phenomenon that evokes a range of emotions not just by those who perceive “systemic racism” and discrimination but by those of us on the receiving end of their resentment and animosity. Fear, sadness, anger, frustration, etc. Some of the reading I’ve been doing lately has helped me to better understand the origins of these feelings and the ideas being advocated to encourage them. For example,…
In his book Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth, Dr. Thaddeus J. Williams defines what he calls “Social Justice A and B”. The former consists of a “broad swath of biblically compatible justice-seeking”, whereas the latter is essentially the anti-biblical thinking and behavior found within the “woke” narrative. In the final section of the book, Williams describes the mental operating system (like a computer) of Social Justice B, which he calls “Tribes”. This comes from an acronym: Theocrats (i.e., right-wing Christians), Racists, Islamophobes, Bigots, Exploiters (i.e., capitalists), Sexists. As per the “standpoint epistemology” view, Tribes thinking pushes “lived experiences” as the definers of reality. “When applied to questions of justice, this means that anyone who claims that theocrats, racists, Islamophobes, bigots, exploiters, or sexists have hurt them must not be merely heard, but taken authoritatively.”
These terms and concepts will help you understand the following excerpt….
“Good psychologists help phobics ungeneralize. Whether through exposure or cognitive therapy, good psychologists help people internalize that specific trauma should not be generalized in a way that the whole world begins to feel more traumatic than it already is. Trauma from this spider does not mean all spiders are out to kill you; trauma from this sickness does not mean the whole microscopic world is plotting your death from every doorknob. Good psychologists help rewire phobic brains to realize the world is not, in fact, as terrifying as their brain’s uh-oh center would have them believe.
Tribes thinking does the exact opposite of what good psychologists do. It generalizes. That spider bit you. Listen to all these other stories of lethal spider bites. Here are some Facebook groups, podcasts, public protests, and college courses to remind you daily that the spiders — or rather the theocrats, racists, Islamophobes, bigots, exploiters, and sexists — are out to get you! The brain’s assessment center is bypassed. People questioning whether the spiders are out to get you are probably spiders themselves! The uh-oh center is ignited, and Tribes thinking allows for nothing that might stop the flames from spreading until the whole brain turns to ash.
This is where “lived experience” comes in. If a little boy, call him Johnny, has been convinced that most if not all spiders are out to get him, then imagine what Johnny will experience the next time he spots a daddy longlegs under his bed. He will experience fear from an arachnid that is clearly an existential threat. He really, truly feels it is out to get him. Johnny’s lived experience is his reality. The only problem is that Johnny’s reality is not reality. Daddy longlegs spiders are harmless to humans.
Next comes the confirmation bias. Imagine I tell my son, “Women in this world will hate you because you’re a boy. Beware the vicious feminists!” What will happen when he hears what virtually every little kid hears from some other kid at some point: “I hate you” or “You’re dumb”? These words sting for any kid. But my son will not hear just that he is hated or dumb. He will hear, You’re hated or dumb because you’re a boy.” That will be his lived experience, even if he is the victim of standard childish jabs and not gender-motivated childish jabs. How can he tell the difference? If he is sufficiently indoctrinated, he can’t. He will deeply feel more boy-hatred in the world than actually exists.
Little Suzy, who has been indoctrinated to believe that an evil patriarchy is out to crush her feminine spirit, is taunted by Billy on the playground. Granted, little Billy is a walking, mudslinging case for original sin. But Suzy will experience his verbal assaults not as a fallen boy doing what fallen boys do, and what fallen boys do to other boys no less. She will experience it as confirmation of her mother’s propaganda to beware the all-pervasive patriarchy. To the extent that ideology takes root in her soul, she will experience Billy as the incarnation of patriarchal oppression, the living, mouth-breathing, snot-nosed, insult-hurling proof that Western culture is indeed a grand conspiracy against her and her XX chromosomes. How can Suzy tell whether she is a victim of sexism — gender-motivated meanness — or run-of-the-mill meanness? Again, if she is sufficiently indoctrinated, she can’t tell the difference. She ends up deeply feeling far more girl-hatred in the world than actually exists. The indoctrination of little Suzys around the world ends up having an ironic effect. More girls than boys will end up bearing the weight of perceived hatred under this ideology, which is a form of male-privilege that the ideology itself brings into reality.
Some will read me as saying there’s no such thing as gender discrimination or racism; they’re a grand illusion, a conspiracy fobbed on us by leftwing media or the Marxist infiltrators. That is not what I’m saying. There are real creepy spiders with venomous bites in the world. There are real misogynists and real racists. When they strike, it is the Christian mandate to listen and love the struck. My point is that to love people well — especially people who bear the wounds of racism, sexism, or any other sinful ism — we must be careful not to inadvertently pour salt in their wounds with an ideology that generalizes their trauma. If we care about people, we shouldn’t turn them into festering balls of suspicion and anxiety.
I have seen it happen and it’s heartbreaking. A twenty-one-year-old is reasonably happy, socially connected, creative, curious, and kind. Her professors fill her head with Tribes thinking, deconstructing Shakespeare as patriarchal propaganda. Before long, every male in her life becomes a conniving power-hungry Iago plotting her demise. Her indoctrinators perhaps believed they were turning a soft “yes-girl” into a fearless warrior woman to join their just cause. I do not see a fearless warrior woman. I see a fear-racked, perpetually triggered, cynical, seething, paranoid, isolated person with the light snuffed out of her beautiful eyes. I’ve seen it happen more times and to more precious souls than I care to recount. As one former Tribes thinker describes his experience, “We… saw insidious oppression and exploitation in all social relationships, stifling our ability to relate to others or ourselves without cynicism. Activists anxiously pore over interactions, looking for ways in which the mundane conceals domination. To see every interaction as containing hidden violence is to become a permanent victim, because if all you are is a nail, everything looks like a hammer.”
If Tribes thinking has us seeing ourselves primarily as oppressed, then most everything around us will look like oppression. What effect did such nail-and-hammer thinking have on this young radical’s soul? It left him “exhausted and misanthropic, because any action or statement can be shown with sufficient effort to hide privilege, a microaggression, or unconscious bias.”
Note his words: “a permanent victim,” “exhausted and misanthropic.” In short, Tribes thinking is mean. It adds psychological oppression to those already suffering. The more we come to think that reality is best understood as the oppression of theocrats, racists, Islamophobes, bigots, exploiters, and sexists, the more our brains are rewired for a chronic state of fear — a kind of “oppressi-phobia.” The oppressi-phobic’s brain can’t stop seeing “every interaction as containing hidden violence.”
They will believe they have been retraumatized by the person who made a thoughtless comment. They will see that person as the embodiment of all the evils of the West. But the true culprits of their daily retraumatization are those who indoctrinated him with Tribes thinking in the first place — professors, journalists, and entertainers who fancy themselves liberators. Rarely do such influencers stop to look behind the bars they have built in your brains to behold their disciples wallowing in self-pity and fear instead of enjoying the world God made. There is such a thing as psychological oppression. If we train brains to see oppression everywhere and never question “lived experience” then we, the self-appointed liberators, have become the oppressors…. [W]e aren’t defending the oppressed; we are adding to their number. We are inadvertently adding to the net anxiety, depression, anger, and fear in the universe.
Psychological oppression is not just a risk for those on the left. For Christians on the right, be careful not to play the same cruel game in reverse, raising generations to live in chronic fear of those evil “secularists,” “liberals,” “Marxists,” “evolutionists,” “immigrants,” “homosexuals,” or whatever. As Christians, we must do better. Fear must never be a prime motivator in any thoroughly Christian justice. We must not teach any ideology — left or right — that pumps enough wattage into people’s uh-oh Centers to light up Times Square. That would be mean. That would not be loving our neighbors. That would be oppressive. Especially in an age of social media, which capitalizes on fear in both directions, Christians must be radically countercultural.”
Oof! That last paragraph hits close to home. It seems to me that it is wise to recognize and have legitimate concerns about social trends, government policies, worldview systems, etc., while also recognizing that God is in control and we can trust Him as He accomplishes His sovereign will. The challenge, as I understand Williams to be saying, is to keep the sense of urgency in our discussions (and teaching of others) from either moving into hysteria or forgetting the human component.
As for the rest of it,… whew! I found it very helpful in understanding how people are falling for the “woke” narrative, despite the fact that it is both incoherent and results in more damage than ever to individuals and to society as a whole. Very sad and, as Williams put it, heartbreaking.
