Exclusion by Assimilation
I'm currently taking a lovely course about Ancient and Medieval World History, only half of the class is actually a survey of that history, because we're spending the second half writing a book (compiling a bunch of essays) about the topic of Exclusion. I didn't even know about this when I signed up, but as you can imagine, I'm rather excited, since I basically just did my senior project about this. Talking about exclusion in a historical context is a very new and very intriguing experience, though, and has been conducive to some lovely conversation. I imagine that the conversation has only barely begun.
The conversation that followed hit on several different points: deliberately include them and prohibit exclusion, being "aggressively kind" to them, and ignoring them while leaving an open invitation to join the "inclusive" circle. The last of these three seemed most appealing, for obvious reasons - it doesn't involve any active, direct exertion of power over the people whose behavior or attitudes have been deemed "exclusive."
One thought that has struck my interest and is very difficult to answer is one that I posted on Facebook last week:
How do you keep from excluding excluders?
The conversation that followed hit on several different points: deliberately include them and prohibit exclusion, being "aggressively kind" to them, and ignoring them while leaving an open invitation to join the "inclusive" circle. The last of these three seemed most appealing, for obvious reasons - it doesn't involve any active, direct exertion of power over the people whose behavior or attitudes have been deemed "exclusive."
Today, we had another lecture and brainstorming period on exclusion in which we outlined clearly the four types of exclusion discussed in a reading we'd been assigned. The outline looks something like this:
1: DIFFERENTIATION: establishing distinctions between things/people/processes; categorization
2: EXCLUSION: creating rigid boundaries between acceptable and shunned things/people/processes
I) Elimination: actively, forcefully, and often lethally removing the excluded group
- Holocaust
- Holy war
- Ethnic cleansing
- Religious persecution
II) Domination: forcefully controlling, but not removing, the excluded group
- Slavery
- Military occupation
- Imprisonment
- POWs
- Imperialism
- Caste system/rigid social hierarchy
III) Abandonment: physically distancing oneself from the excluded person or group, often for the purpose of indirectly killing it
- Chinese/Greek/Roman abandonment of children
- Leapers/diseased
- Poor/economically-disadvantaged
IV) Assimilation: conditional acceptance with the prerequisite of joining the exclusive power
- Colonization: Greeks, Romans, White Man's Burden, Native Americans
- Racial/cultural pressure: anti-black racism in America, anti-semitism in 20th century Europe
What I'm finding ironic throughout this entire lecture is that the way we're framing exclusion is, in and of itself, exclusive. We're thinking of people that exhibit these behaviors as the "bad guys," and when a classmate raises the idea that regular imprisonment of criminals - murderers, robbers, rapists - is exclusive, conversation turns to the unjust imprisonment of the undeserving.
Having just gone through an entire lecture about the different types of exclusion that exists, the natural next step is to apply this categorization on a meta-level: In what way do we exclude excluders? It's not that we go around literally murdering people that are closed-minded or bigoted; it takes violation of some other law (perhaps eliminative excluders would get the death penalty, or such). It's not that we try to have them arrested (barring my previous example) - we have freedom of speech, after all. Dominative excluders have no one but the future to hate on them. It's not that we cut these people off from food or water or healthcare, forcing them to their deaths, either. What we do is leave an open invitation with the prerequisite of an inclusive attitude, or at least the appearance of an inclusive attitude. "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," right? In what way is this not an exclusive mindset?
Clearly, things are not as black and white as we thought.
This is where my mental bookmark has been stuck for the last couple weeks: what does moral exclusion look like? Does "immoral" exclusion transcend practical exclusion to include mental barriers and prejudices we have against those we have labeled as "other"? What does it look like to differentiate between "moral" and "immoral" exclusion without using the emotional tags we've developed with those words that carry so much pressure to shun and disrespect anyone and anything associated with the negative label? What does it mean to "stand up for what's right" if that means excluding by assimilation anyone engaged in activities or tendencies or attitudes we perceive as wrong?
One thought that comes to mind is that one ought to be wary of becoming that which one opposes. The issue is that often attempts to remove exclusion are exclusive by nature. Racism is a typical example, the last 50 years have seen a decline in racist attitudes, at least overtly. Yet during this progression attittudes and actions changed focus the same alienation and diversions in society are just manifested in different manners. The energies to enforce racism, has now been moblized to condemn it. In this transformation, the excluders have become excluders, the alienators have become alienated. In this manner as society progressed, its exclusions transformed into more paletible forms. As such the racists and other excluders have been excluded, as such most, if all of society have become excluders. Therefore, the act of excluding excluders is in essence a paradox. Thus often when there are called to end exclusion, it is only regard a particular form, rather than the act itself. An alternative solution, rather than exclusion to end exclusiveness, is to actively attempt to be inclusive and reconcilitory to the excluders. This takes more work, and can certainly be more painful, but it can also better heal society. The books Cry the Beloved Country, No Future without Forgiveness and Let Justice Roll Down, speak of this type of forgiveness and reconcilation. Let love and compassion roll down rather than judgement and disgust. When you hear racist, other otherwise unsavory words spoken, do not hate or anger, instead find in your heart love, compassion and mercy. Actively include this person, grant him confort without affirming his beliefs. As such exclusing exclusers is a self-defeating dogma, which continues of the cycles of hate and violence suffered in all societies.
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