October 2, 2016 - 03:17
After reading Teju Cole’s The White-Savior Industrial Complex, I start to question the way I set up to define the slipping, in which, first of all I make judgement to a statement by two dimensions: correctness and intentionality. And there are four combinations of correct, incorrect, intentional, and unintentional: correct and intentional, correct but unintentional, incorrect but unintentional, and incorrect and intentional. I name this four: good way of expression, pure slip of tongue, slipping, and let it go. And I view June Jordan’s thinking process in Report froam the Bahamas as a slipping.
But the first dimension, correctness, is a little questionable. What is correct and what is incorrect? Therei is no standard answer to these two question. It’s hard to decide whether a thing is true or false, especially when something is as abstract as a claim or a statement.
“In a different context, John Berger once wrote,’ A singer may be innocent; never the song.’”
There is an important phrase in that sentence, “in a different context”, which means, whether the “singer” and the “song” is innocent or not is depended on the situation, environment and background. So it’s hard to assert the movement that the “singer” sing the “song” is wrong or false. Similarly, whether a statement or a claim is true or not is hard to judge, because people all view the world from different perspectives.
“I write all this from multiple positions. I write as an African, a black man living in America. I am every day subject to the many microaggressions of American racism... I involve myself in this critique of privilege: my own privileges of class, gender, and sexuality are insufficiently examined...I don’t fool myself that I am not implicated in these transnational networks of oppressive practices.”
Maybe just because he is a person with more complicated identity than others, he can combine the way of thinking from various perspectives, which helps him to view the whole “making a difference” thing more objectively. And that’s probably why that he is able to be more rational than others to make a conclusion that “What Africa needs more pressingly than Kony’s indictment is more equitable civil society, more robust democracy, and a fairer system of justice.”
Of course I have no stand to say that because his identity is more comprehensive and maybe he can view the white-savior complex more objectively than white people in the United States and people who came from Africa, his claim must be more likely a correct one. Nothing is correct, even though one day, all people on the earth agree with him except for only one person, we can’t say his claim is correct, because it is not for the only person who does not agree with him. Similarly, nothing in incorrect, because there’s always some people who believes it is correct.
So I think, instead of correctness, the first dimension to judge a statement is, whether it challenges one’s own view. If it does, then it’s a slipping for that person. But the thing is, a statement or any expression that is a slipping to one doesn’t necessarily at all means it’s a slipping to others. It even could be viewed as slipping only by that person.
As I claimed in the third paper, slipping gives people the chance to revise their own thoughts and find the new possibility of their own view of world. So a statement is not necessary to be incorrect for a person, since people themselves can’t even tell whether it’s correct or not. As long as it is challenging their old thoughts or making them feel a little some steady beliefs
Actually it’s not only about the definition of slipping, but the difference brought by different perspectives is always an important factor that could be easily neglected.
“If we want to contend with the possibility that we could be wrong, then the idea of knowledge won't serve us; we need to embrace the idea of belief instead.” ( Kathryn Schulz, “Being Wrong”)
People tend to view their own thought, which is only considered from their own perspective, is a reliable and correct way to judge a thing. And perhaps that’s why there’s so many people who like to make assertions from time to time. Next time when you want to assert something, just remember that there is nothing correct in the world.
(And I start to think about, if “nothing is correct” is only my own view, it’s not necessary to be correct for everybody, but if some people believe that “nothing is correct” is incorrect, it just proves that “nothing is correct” is correct, isn’t that a paradox? I keep struggling with this idea for two days and still feel confused. Is it a philosophy question?)
Work cited:
1. Teju Cole, The White-Savior Industrial Complex. The Atlantic. March 21, 2012. Accessed October 2, 2016 http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/
2. Kathryn Schulz, “Being Wrong”