Rex Kerr
2 min readMay 3, 2023

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Yes, absolutely, but only when those things are on the path towards making a better society for people.

Mostly they aren't.

Often they seem like they should be, but aren't for the same general reason that 24/7 coverage of which black person has committed murder today neither helps murder victims nor society as a whole.

In particular, which oppression is named and how vociferously it is named can give a misleading impression of the overall situation in society, and can engender a lot of mutual hatred without actually improving anything whatsoever (and possibly making everything worse by focusing attention without the attention being actionable). If you have a scratchy tag that you can't remove, spending all your time focused on that *(@%&@#* tag is a bad strategy, not because the tag isn't bad (it is), but because the focusing on it makes it seem even worse while doing absolutely nothing to get rid of it. Mostly ignore it until you can get to some good scissors, then get rid of it.

Another reason they aren't is because "fighting violent social structures" contains two euphemisms, "fighting" and "violent", which may be entirely counterproductive because usually social structures are the way they are because they are important to some groups, and thus often compromise is needed when changing them to even achieve a just outcome, and neither of those words suggest that compromise is a tenable option.

So I'm all for a more just society, but I actually want a more just society, not the feeling of urgent revolutionary battle against the dominance hierarchy of the patriarchal establishment.

If I can accomplish a more just society through voting, donating, marching, thinking clearly and sharing my insights, or just plain being a decent friend, I will.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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