It’s difficult to write this piece for 2 reasons:
- I don’t know who my audience is and so I don’t know which arguments to cover, or which tone and register to take. There will inevitably be a lot of misses with a scatter-gun approach. Added to this, I would like to promote a discussion and invite people to prove me wrong, highlight holes in my arguments, and interact about these ideas. But, a blog post doesn’t lend itself to those aims, so there will also be an element of me arguing with myself. And as I will go on to claim — shouting at an imagined generalised opposition is not as effective as engaging with individual, nunaced context-dependent situations, ideas and people.
- I don’t have a clear position, except for the idea that we may do better to consider more nuance and move away from a polarised approach to sociocultural hot topics such as equality. My position will seem right-wing to a lot of people who read this. I don’t ressent or mind this, but for the record, I am right-wing in favouring free markets and trying to create a system that rewards talent and hard work, but socially I am left-wing. I am against discrimination and I believe we need to take care of each other and strive to make life better for those who suffering — in the many forms it takes and due to the multitude of reasons that perpetuate hardship and inequality.
So, I’ll start here. You might have realised that I used the 2-point disclaimer to essentially lay out my position and identify my biggest weaknesses. With that done, and to make this…
