Dogged by Dogma

 I’ve never been the kind of person who likes to be told not to think. 

As a kid, I was sent to a Catholic school, and early on I spent a lot of time worrying about dying when I was not sinless and thus buying myself an eternity in hell. I told myself I should attend church because the nuns said skipping was a surefire way to land you in trouble, but I never quite worked up the resolve to go. Then, one day--and I must have been maybe eight or nine--I thought to myself, “What if I don’t believe in God?” So I tried it out, and, wow, did I feel a lot better! No more worries about hell or skipping church, and--bonus!--I got to tune out everything they told us in religion class, which is probably why most of what I know about Christianity comes from “Godspell” or “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”

Looking back, I can see that decision was the first of many; I spent a lot of my youth doubting and/or quietly rejecting what everyone else said was true. I did not care for Bruce Springsteen’s music, no matter how many copies "Born in the USA" sold; instead, I subscribed to Options magazine, where I learned about Lene Lovich and queercore bands like Pansy Division and Cunts With Attitude. “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” was a tedious cringe, but “Lust to Love” got me on my feet. I played Dungeons & Dragons when geek chic was still far in the future, and read Tolkien before Peter Jackson directed his first film. I remember thinking Frenchie looked great with pink hair--if that’s what dropping out of high school got you, not bad! If the mainstream opinion was to avoid a thing, I took a closer look. I liked that about me then, and I like it about me now.

This predilection carried into my politics and still does. I tend to sympathize not with the accustomed but with the unusual, so I support equality, diversity, empiricism, fairness, and intellectual curiosity. Down with dogma and up with inquiry, that’s me, so obviously I am a liberal, or a progressive, if you insist. If I wanted dogma, I’d be a conservative.

And dogma is what’s on my mind, but not that of conservatives, which I rejected long ago. Over the past ten or fifteen years, I’ve seen the rise of liberal dogma, which can often be as narrow-minded as the most right-wing doctrine, even if it seems kinder. Dogma arises from ideas...ideas like these:

Identitarian deference: Lived experience trumps empiricism.

Believe survivors: All reports of sexual assault are true.

Offense / apology: If my feelings are hurt, someone must apologize.

These are good ideas, but like all ideas, they need some contextualizing. Conversations about race should not be held without the participation of racial minorities, but what if Kamala Harris tells me one thing and Clarence Thomas another? 

Those who claim to have been sexually assaulted should not be summarily dismissed as liars, but there is a long history of white people, men and women, falsely accusing black men of rape, often simply to justify a lynching. Should those accusers have been believed?

We should try not to offend others, but does that mean that any conversation about the uncomfortable topic of institutional racism should be preceded by an apology?

These questions are one way to help put these ideas into context but when they turn into dogma...well, dogma is never contextualized. What is dogmatic is true in every situation for everyone, all of the time. 

How do you have a discussion that honors the ideas but avoids the dogma?

A tell of dogma is that it does not facilitate conversations; it shuts them down. The idea of intersectionality has us consider just how the experiences of minorities can differ; the dogma forces us to value speech in terms of the amount of oppression the speaker has suffered. The idea of class interest provides context for understanding what someone is saying; the dogma requires us to reject out of hand any idea that comes from outside the tribe. Whenever a concept becomes a commandment it has stepped over the line into dogma, and that’s not a place where any liberal should follow. So, the way you have a discussion is to remember that ideas open our minds; dogma, whether from the left or from the right, closes them.

If a closed mind is a necessary precursor for liberal purity, then I’ll stay dirty, thanks. Thinking is something I enjoy, and after all these years, something I do pretty well. Although I won’t claim I am the best thinker, I don’t care to stop. Then, or now.