Dealing With "Isms"

It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group.  A racial group.  Or a language.  Or anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.  Friday Baldwin in Friday. Robert A. Heinlein. 1982.

One of the unfortunate features of social media is that people are sorted out into groups based on one "ism" or another, usually on the basis of what they are against rather that what they are for.  Feminism for example has a package of male behaviors that they rebel against, Paternalism, privilege, Bro networks, sexism, (as defined by feminists) and others.   Many of these are justified, but men are judged by gender rather than whether they actually exhibit any of these behaviors. 

 Once an "ism" gains traction it generally fractionates into groups with agendas that are more important than the overall ideals of the nominally fundamental "ism."  In a few cases a charismatic leader can unify the groups under a larger tent and become a political or socially potent movement.  Charasmatic leaders generally are short lived, frequently literally, and their movement fractures once again into narrow interest groups.

 The most important way of dealing with isms is not to get sucked up into one.  The customs of your ism become a part of your cultural matrix.  

To believe you can live free of your cultural matrix is one of the easiest fallacies and has some of the worst consequences. You are part of your group whether you like it or not, and you are bound by its customs.

Don't belittle customs.  It is easier to change Mendelian characteristics than to change customs.   If you try to ignore them, they bind you when you least expect it.

Don't break them--avoid them.  Take them into your considerations, examine how they work, and make them serve you.

Claude Morden, Beyond This Horizon, Chapter 15, p 147 NAL, Robert A. Heinlein.  

 While I am an ally and active supporter of many isms, I am very selective in how I do so, and am very careful to avoid making the cultural matrix of the ism part of my thinking and behavior.  

 I was brought up by strong, independent women to believe that women were just as capable as men at anything they chose to do, and therefore chose to consider only such women as possible mates.  One would think that Feminism would therefore be a natural cultural matrix for me, but none of the strong, independent women I knew would have anything to do with Feminism as they were too involved in their own ventures to have any interest. I chose to do all that I could to support their ventures, at a high cost due to the cultural matrix of the Paternalistic culture I was part of as a child, and opposition from the cultural matrix of the feminists.  I expected the Paternalist opposition, and knew how to deal with it, the Feminists were a surprise. 
https://jcarlinbl.blogspot.com/2016/03/why-i-am-not-feminist.html