[Updated 4-4-23]

“I’ve never understood what’s the point of supporting gay rights and nobody’s else’s rights, you know? Or workers rights but not women’s rights? It’s, I don’t know, illogical.”

-Mark Ashton to Dai in Pride (2014)

Beginning a genealogy of privileging forces: racism, classism, and colonialism/paternalism

Overview
Below is a largely conjectural and theoretical beginning to a conversation about the history of privilege. I build on and then expand the work pioneered by critical race theorists in attempting to describe and explain how false consciousness plays a key role in establishing and maintaining unjust social structures.

Deepening critical Hydra theory
Effectively confronting toxic othering means deepening our use of critical hydra theory (CHT). One way this can be done is by looking at how all of the privileging forces represented by heads of the hydra are embedded into all contemporary cultural structures.

This means looking deeply into our past nationally, regionally, and globally, making attempts to more fully understand the origins of these privileging forces and how they are intertwined in various ways. Critical hydra theory (CHT) builds on critical race theory (CRT) by examining the intersectionality of the many privileging forces and how these are manifested in many policies, practices, norms, and, perhaps most importantly, laws at all levels, local, national, and international.

Important considerations
As I begin this discussion a few points need to be made clear:

• Engaging in a thorough genealogy of privileging forces (the heads of the Hydra) is well beyond the scope of a short essay or, for that matter, even a short book. The level of detail necessary to trace the history of even one privileging force is immense. Below are only the very preliminary thoughts of one academic.
• Driven by mass media and especially social media, our world in many ways is increasingly interconnected politically, economically, legally, linguistically, and culturally to the point that it is not out of the question to talk about a global consciousness. The lines between the local, national and global are blurred as multinational corporations penetrate markets in every corner of our world making a thorough genealogy of privileging forces up to the present a task which demands a keen understanding of the processes driving globalization and how we are becoming one global culture. This is a key point when we apply CHT in an effort to confront toxic othering in any specific context since, quite literally, the fabric of any one culture now includes threads from the growing fabric of our global culture; social structures in any one culture have connections to social structures in multiple other cultures around the globe; everything is connected to everything else, culturally speaking. Addressing any one privileging force in isolation must be done with caution and with an awareness that this isolation is likely an illusion.
• Doing genealogies effectively, especially of privileging forces, means using a variety of written (and oral) sources. An ironic fact is that many sources were/are authored by those with privilege and hence may have inherent bias and thus must be read and employed with caution. The irony that a relatively privileged white  male is writing this is noted.
• Perhaps most importantly, doing a thorough genealogy of privileging forces means questioning established power structures and social institutions, i.e., ‘ruffling lots of feathers.’ There is considerable resistance to Critical Race Theory in the United States and this kind of push back can be expected to any critical examination of all privileging forces. Researching, describing, and teaching about privileging forces is both subversive and radical because it means going to the foundations of these social forces and necessarily interrogating and even challenging the status quo.
• Explicitly acknowledging, studying, and learning from the array of data sources used and the research methodologies employed by those engaged in Critical Race Theory (CRT) is critical.

Why ‘genealogy’?
In his books Beyond Good and Evil and  On the Genealogy of Morals Friedrich Nietzsche uses the methodology of looking at the roots of words, the origins of their meanings, and how these meanings were reinforced by the words and actions primarily of those in power. Nietzsche argues that many of the moral failings of modern civilization are connected to the efforts of ‘blond beasts of prey’, i.e., the elites controlling power. These books, though he may not have seen it at the time, reinforce a central idea from Marx, namely that “The ideas of the ruling class are, in any age, the ruling ideas”.

Both thinkers are shedding light on the pivotal transition from normal othering to toxic othering, the universal mechanism underlying all privileging forces. This transition to toxic othering is slow and subtle, and those in power are able to normalize and even glorify the processes and structures that create and support marginalization, using their privileged positions to ossifying these justifications into policies and laws.

Here, a second thought from Marx is very important. He says, “[religion] is the opium of the people.” Religion has been used by those in power to justify and normalize their superior positions long before Marx was writing in the mid-1800s, certainly ever since we adopted an agricultural foundation for human societies over 5,000 years ago. Connecting the dots, religion has been used as a force in maintaining false consciousness in those without power for a very long time. More on that below.

This normalization serves to entrench a false consciousness within both the oppressors and the oppressed. In this case I am taking the liberty to expand Marx’ original and narrow use of this term specifically referencing class differences and the plight of the proletariat. Critical Hydra Theory reframes false consciousness to now include all instances where humans become blinded to the inherent injustices of transitioning from ‘normal othering’ to ‘toxic othering’.

‘Baked-in’ racism
When explaining how racism is structured into our US culture I often use the colloquial phrase that racism is ‘baked into’ our society not only in laws and policies but into the very consciousness of most people. Daniel Quinn in his book Ishmael offers us the term ‘Mother Culture’:

“Mother Culture, whose voice has been in your ear since the day of your birth, has given you an explanation of how things came to be this way.”

In the way I am using these terms, Mother Culture and false consciousness are interconnected. Mother Culture, for example, whisper’s the lies about the legitimacy of racist ideas and structures and brainwashes the minds of both the oppressor and those oppressed. The oppressed, though, are more facile at deconstructing the lies of Mother Culture and are the first to see through these lies. Most oppressors, benefiting from these lies, from this false consciousness, tend to cling on to these illusions and help to perpetuate the normalization of marginalization.

This illustration with Jesus and a young African-American girl tells an important story and reinforces the idea that we need to be aware of micro-aggressions and how they can (1) be both communicated and received subliminally and (2) tend to accumulate over time to leave a deep impression. That Jesus is portrayed as white by itself is not ‘fatal’, but a steady stream of these kinds of messages can indeed be the ‘thousand cuts’ which act as an oppressive force.

The beginning assumption of critical Hydra theory (CHT) is that all privileging forces have been ‘baked into’ not just the US culture but also all cultures across the globe. A genealogy of privileging forces demands examining (1) how false consciousness(s) developed and were normalized and (2) the deeply complex intersectional and synergistic connections between and among these forces.

It is with a nod to Nietzsche, Marx, and Daniel Quinn that below I begin a discussion about a genealogy of the various privileging forces represented by the heads of the Hydra. Critical to note is that this journey is deeply informed by and builds on the more contemporary work of Paulo Freire, Kimberlé Crenshaw (among the first to develop CRT), Anna Julia Cooper, Patricia Hill Collins, and Audre Lorde.

Whiteness was invented
A recent Guardian article by Robert Baird “The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea.” is a good, quick read for those who may be new to this concept. In this essay Baird outlines the history of the concept of race and how it is entwined with other privileging ideas and forces. Much to his credit, it is obvious that Baird listened to and learned from the voices of those most directly affected by structural racism. As I have noted elsewhere, critical Hydra theory must be informed and driven by the voices of those historically marginalized. Baird is certainly not the first writer to make his points but he gives us a very quick and readable summary of the how colonialism, capitalism, and classism all have a part in ‘the invention of whiteness.’

Baird’s core argument is anticipated by commentator Guy Emerson Mount in a 2015 article reviewing Eric William’s very influential 1944 book Capitalism and Slavery. Mount says,

“The thing we call slavery and the thing we call capitalism both continue to provoke scholars with their incestuous relationship (emphasis added).“

Williams is just one of many writers and historians who point out that “slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery.”

In a recorded interview Baird noted,

“Certainly in the United States, whiteness has very often defined itself against blackness. To be white was not to be black. Everyone else was left in between and there was room for tactical accommodations. If you go back to the 1910s and 1920s, you see a series of legal cases that reached the Supreme Court where, in quick succession, you have a Japanese person say ‘well I count as white’ and the Supreme Court says you have to be Caucasian to count as white. Then a person from India sues and says ‘I count as white because I come from Caucasian stock’ and the Supreme Court says ‘no we don’t mean Caucasian in that sense, we mean what an ordinary person would think of as Caucasian.’ You get this circular logic that defines whiteness from the very beginning.”

Though he may be off in his genealogical assertion by a couple centuries, in his essay The Souls of White Folk sociologist WEB Du Bois argues that “The discovery of personal whiteness among the world’s peoples is a very modern thing – a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed.” He is just one of many voices from people of color pointing out the ‘invention of whiteness’ and its impacts. Du Bois does give us a picture of how the idea of whiteness did not appear full blown and universally accepted but rather spread, virus like, slowly and insidiously into the minds of those newly willing to cast themselves as ‘white.’ Mother Culture whispering lies.

In a 2019 article titled “A Global Critical Race and Racism Framework: Racial Entanglements and Deep Malleable Whiteness“ sociologist Michelle Christian expands on the idea that “…the processes of deep and malleable global whiteness that has sustained global white supremacy.” She argues for a Global Critical Race and Racism (GCRR) framework which helps us understand how race and racism have emerged from and been sustained and deepened by colonialism and post-colonial entanglements.  She writes,

“…racism is always ‘transforming’ (Goldberg 2009) and ‘on the move’ (Wade 2015), embedded in historical moments, geographies, and other markers of difference while still being entrenched in a continuum of white dominance and racial subordination (Weiner 2012).”

In essence, Christian’s GCRR framework provides support the argument that racism is deeply embedded into global culture and tied to the colonial past. Along these lines it may be useful to think in terms of dividing the world into those nations who were colonizers and those who we colonized, the Global North and Global South, in other words. As globalization has given rise to a world interconnected economically, politically, and culturally, describing the world broken down by the terms Global North and Global North in some cases can be seen as simply code for ‘white’ or ‘non-white’.

But the full story goes back much further.

Proto racism
To be clear, slavery has a long history predating the trans-Atlantic slave trade and still exists today. In terms of raw numbers, there are as many slaves world wide now in 2022 –over 40,000,000– as there were at any time in world history. This is nearly four times more than during the entire period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade era.

Of note is that the justification for slavery in antiquity began as a spoil of war, with this justification changing to racism during the colonization era. Now, in the 21st century, the objectification and commodification of human bodies can be best explained by the simple functioning of an ‘amoral’ global capitalism where anything -or any one- can be commodified and then used to earn a profit and where numerous manifestations of toxic othering based on race, ethnicity, gender, class, and ability allow those responsible to ease their guilt.

Arguments for what has been called ‘proto-racism’ have been made by several researchers. Benjamin Isaac in his essay “Slavery and Proto-racism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity” argues that,

“…prototypes of racism were common in the Graeco-Roman world… In antiquity, as in modern times, we constantly encounter the unquestioned assumption that it is possible and reasonable to relate to entire peoples as if they were a single or collective individual. The conceptual means employed to this end were not the same in antiquity as in modern history, although they are still quite familiar.”

Ethnocentrism -viewing and judging other cultures through the lens of your own culture- has been a human trait since perhaps even before we split from our Proto-human ancestors. Normal othering, as in ‘that other group is not our group’ can lead to toxic othering when there is competition for resources (such as territory or food) and this toxic othering can lead to war and even to genocide. In response to questions about the Gombe Chimpanzee War, noted primatologist Jane Goodall laments that, “We used to think it was only humans that waged war but we find that chimpanzees like humans have this rather unpleasant ability to create an in-group and an out-group.”

In antiquity, as in modern times, we constantly encounter the unquestioned assumption that it is possible and reasonable to generalize about entire groups of peoples, to create ‘out-groups.’ The conceptual and semantic means employed to this end were not the same in antiquity as in modern history, although they are still quite familiar.

It is typical for normal othering to transform into to toxic othering whenever there is an asymmetry of power, with the ‘out-group’ serving as victim. The chances of this transformation happening increase exponentially when there is competition for scare resources. Evidence of inter group conflict leading to extreme toxic othering (i.e., mass deaths) has been found in pre-agricultural human groups as long ago as 10,000 years ago.

Proto racism across the globe set the stage for the forces of capitalism and colonialism to create and then ossify the concepts of race and white supremacy in Western thought. The evil trifecta of racism, classism, and colonialism/paternalism share an intersecting past, each amplifying the other two.

To reemphasize, the transition from normal othering (A≠B therefore A≠B)  to toxic othering (A≠B therefore A>B) is essentially an act of ethnocentrism, and ethnocentrism taken to its logical end yields racism. To toxically other is necessarily to dehumanize, to counter anthropomorphize.

Sociological views on the rise of classism
The discussion of ‘proto-racism’ above raises the question of what forces underlie the changing nature of how slavery has been justified. The relationship between slavery and capitalism is key, of course.

I suggest beginning with a broad theoretical approach, looking at cultural evolution and examining how capitalism drove the fundamental restructuring of social life. This restructuring can be seen in the emergence of state societies which, through the actions and example of those in power, legitimized the rise of stratified societies characterized by structured social inequality, beginning the long process of normalizing and then glorifying gluttony and greed. Like the proverbial frog put into a pot of cold water and slowly raising the temperature to boiling and killing the frog, human cultures have accepted the core myth embedded in classism -some ‘deserve’ great power. The slow rate of sociocultural change allowed for this assumption to be steadily perpetuated by those in power, ‘baked into’ norms, policies, laws, and traditions. I don’t think this transition was the result of any one group of leaders but rather an organic process that happened over time as those in power created and sustained the illusion of superiority. Humans invented social stratification -structured social inequality based on power and wealth- and classism just as much later they invented race and ‘whiteness.’

Sociologists view the stages of sociocultural evolution as having a major turning point that occurred between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago. As human cultures transitioned from nomadic and semi-nomadic ways of making a living to agriculture when, for the first time in human history, we had permanent homes. The key to this transition was the higher efficiency of using a plow to till soil using domesticated animals and, simultaneously, ‘domesticating’ various plants, most notably corn, rice, wheat, millet, and barley. This domestication of plants and animals led to the existence of long term stability and, critically, surplus. We could accumulate and store grains, and thus the permanent -and ultimately toxic- transition from Mother Culture whispering egalitarian messages to now ideas and ideologies that justified some having much more than others: classism was born as structured social inequality emerged full blown in agricultural societies. In subsequent stages of sociocultural evolution (industrial, post-industrial, etc.) the messages from Mother Culture remained the same as when they emerged in the first stratified agricultural societies, the only difference is that in early state cultures the leaders were seen as gods or god like (think ancient Egyptian culture and the pharaohs), but in modern cultures the ultra rich and powerful only act as if they were gods. To paraphrase how George Orwell put it in his classic Animal Farm, ‘we’re all equal but some of us are more equal than others.’ The transition from ‘normal othering’ to ‘toxic othering’ relative to classism thus being structurally ‘baked into’ cultures around the globe.

To be clear, the rise of agriculture and state societies (large, permanent settlements) inevitably led to status and power differences. In preagricultural human societies the Hydra existed, but in embryonic form. The toxic Hydra we see today was born again and again all around the world -independently- as the transition to agriculture and hence structured social inequalities happened at locations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Mesoamerica, and in the Andes.

“Agriculture led directly to the emergence of hierarchical societies. … Two major consequences of this transition, common to both humans ands social insects, that adopted agriculture, are the subjugation of individuals to the needs of the superorganism and the domination of ecosystems. A third, unique to humans, is the emergence of rigid, hierarchical social systems, dominant castes that are able to exploit humans and nature for their own benefit.“( pgs. 76-77, Ultrasocial)

The broadly accepted lie that some humans are inherently superior to other humans becomes part of Mother Culture. Understanding this rise of false consciousness can be made sense of by employing one of the main theoretical perspectives in sociology, namely symbolic interactionism. This tool can effectively be summarized by the so-called Thomas Theorem which states,

“It is not important whether or not the interpretation is correct — if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

The key phrase in this theorem is ‘define situations to be real’. In modern vernacular we talk about ‘spin doctors’ who are used to ‘control the narrative’. Telling lies, all the better big lies, is a key weapon of any type of propaganda machine. Here in the United States we are still in the throes of the ‘big lie’ that the 2016 election was ‘stolen’. What happened on January 6th, 2021 is a key testament to the validity of the Thomas Theorem given the consequences of that day are still being felt. We see that those in power have the ability of perpetuate narratives that serve their needs (see discussions of Rupert Murdock’s media dynasty), and that W. I. Thomas offers an additional theoretical explanation of how (as quoted above from Marx) “The ideas of the ruling class are, in any age, the ruling ideas.”

And thus the central wisdom driving a thorough genealogy of all privileging forces is that the truth is what those in power say it is. Normal othering turns into toxic othering but this marginalization is not seen as toxic or pathological but rather as normal and natural. Critical Hydra theory is an examination of how power has been used to normalize and justify the  structuring in all of the injustices represented by each head of the Hydra.

See here for a quick overview of colonialism/paternalism.

Beyond racism, classism, and colonialism/paternalism
Although anthropologists are not unanimous on this point, most would argue that the lives of humans before the rise of agriculture, that is 95% of our existence as a species, was marked by an egalitarian life style. Sharing and inclusiveness were strongly reinforced norms in hunting and gathering cultures, and through there was some degree of gender differentiation (women did more of the early childcare and gathering and men did more of the hunting), gender stratification appears non-existent. The mysogny and homophobia found in agricultural societies and in modern cultures was slowly ‘baked’ into these cultures during the rise of agriculture. Similarly, there is ample evidence that those differently abled (mentally, physically, cognitively) were cared for and accepted, just as with those nearing the end of their lives. Respect for the environment and other species is part of the ideologies and cosmologies found in hunting and gathering cultures.

Of note is the fact that agriculture emerged independently in at least six very different parts of the globe, including in the Americas, the Middle East, China, and sub-Saharan Africa. Jarring to note is that these agriculturally-based cultures all ended up in the same place: marked by vast and increasing wealth and power differences, gender stratification, and indeed all manner of toxic othering.

And so we have now hit on each head of the Hydra as we begin exploring a genealogy of these privileging forces. There is much more work to be done, of course. We can’t turn the clock back to our more egalitarian past, but understanding how toxic othering in all its forms came to be in the last 5,000 years can perhaps inform how we best mover forward toward our goal in understanding and then confronting the forces of toxic othering.

As pointed out by the quote from Mark Ashton at the beginning of this post, fighting for one justice means, logically, fighting for justice related to all privileging forces.

 

 

Updated 3-28-22

What the war in Ukraine says about humanity

Some thoughts from two people who know about war
All through time, writers, philosophers, and social scientists have brooded about human nature; most have concluded that as a species we are full of contradictions. We are quite capable of both astounding acts of beautiful compassion but at the same time -and even by the same people- grotesquely cruel behaviors.

Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn tells us about the universality of evil in the human psyche. His words offer little optimism; evil will always be with us. Though now deceased, I am sure were he to be alive today he would not be surprised at Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine.

“(T)he line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years…. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” 

In her diary containing wisdom far beyond her years, Anne Frank reaffirms Solzhenitsyn but offers a solution, albeit one which she infers is stillborn.

“I don’t believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists. Oh no, the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise, people and nations would have rebelled long ago! There’s a destructive urge in people, the urge to rage, murder and kill. And until all of humanity, without exception, undergoes a metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that has been carefully built up, cultivated and grown will be cut down and destroyed, only to start all over again! [emphasis added]”

Indeed, how can humanity undergo a ‘metamorphosis’?

In short
What war says about humanity is that we have failed as a species to cultivate both individual and global cultural norms which are consistently able to fend off the darker sides of our human nature. In agreement, at least in part, with both Solzhenitsyn and Frank, Freud, using his study of Roman history wrote in Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) about agreeing with the wisdom that ‘homo homini lupus est‘, ‘man is wolf to man.’ He was right at the time and appears to be right now.

Confronting toxic othering means bending the moral arc toward justice. It means denormalizing and delegitimizing the urge to respond to the ‘other’ with suspicion, fear and then, ultimately, marginalization and even genocide. (See here for a blog post detailing this idea.)

Perhaps even more importantly, confronting toxic othering means addressing the fact that throughout history we have increasingly normalized and even glorified the ‘sins’ of gluttony and greed, these being fueled by unchecked capitalism and more recently neoliberalism. Social stratification, at least in its more extreme and malignant forms, only became a feature of human cultures after we transitioned to an agriculturally based economy beginning about 10,000 years ago. Social classes, and hence classism, became now a normal feature of state societies, with the gap between the richest and poorest members of society getting more and more extreme as the centuries wear on, this gap growing at an astoundingly rapid rate in the last 50-100 years. This structured social inequality matters on many levels, but fundamentally so because when people have their basic needs met -they’re ‘fat and happy’ there is less of a tendency to get angry at (to ‘other’) people and groups around them. Plug scarcity into the equation and humans are quite capable to anger and hate. By normalizing gluttony and greed we tend to applaud those who seek more wealth and power just for the sake of massaging their egos. Perhaps ‘homo homini lupus est’ is true only when we are pitted against each other in as fight for scare resources. One eloquent assessment of the impact of social stratification come s from anthropologist Miles Richardson who argued that, “The problem of the poor is not the problem, the problem is the rich.”

Many point out that we cannot change human nature. But what we can -and must- do is to continually work for a world where we institute local, state, national, and international norms, laws, policies, and practices which tamp down our inner urges to engage in toxic othering and, perhaps more importantly, inhibit pathways which encourage or make possible these negative acts. We can’t change human nature, but we can work for more just human social structures, policies, and laws.¹

War in Ukraine
Are we now seeing a glimmer of hope from the world community as it responds to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine? By an overwhelming vote of 141-5 UN member nations voted for a resolution demanding that Russia end their unjust war. This does not represent an even partial ‘metamorphosis’ of humanity, of course, but it does indicate that as a global community we are able to collectively manifest the good in human hearts by condemning what is evil. Said differently, we -humans- though not able to ‘reboot’ humanity, are able to slowly bend the moral arc toward justice thus allowing the ‘better angels’ of our nature to rule the day.

But the news is not all good. Like many, I have noted with dismay (though not surprise) at the overt and ugly acts of xenophobia displayed by, for example, the Poles as non-‘white’ refugees were blocked from entry at the borders. These acts of toxic othering -racism- are clearly horrible, but that this behavior has been called out by many is an indication that the process of ‘denormalizing’ racist actions is happening, though slowly.

The list of peoples who are yet to benefit from this slow denormalization of toxic othering and racism is far too long and includes the Rohingya, Palestinians, and Uyghurs, to name a few. Perhaps a positive latent function of the global rejection of Russia’s war will be that the rising tide of humanity will lift up all- eventually.

What does the war in Ukraine say about humanity? It says that we are species still figuring out what to do with what nature has produced with us, a paradoxical species wired with contradictions.² We are slowly showing signs of being able and perhaps now willing to embrace love and reason over hate and irrationality. The future, though, is yet to be determined. As I write this, an escalation of war efforts, including a nuclear exchange, is not ‘off the table’ in the Kremlin.

---

¹ This idea is not new. In this speech at American University President John F. Kennedy notes, “Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions — on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned.”

²I am indebted to my muse and mentor anthropologist Miles Richardson for this insight.

 

 

 

Video materials related to toxic othering and the Hydra

Inspiration from the Rohingya and Bangladeshi learners
As I wrote in the last chapters of Confronting Toxic Othering, it was the inspiration I got from the Rohingya and Bangladeshi learners I co-taught in the summer of 2021 that helped me to more clearly understand the many (and still developing) nuances of what I am calling ‘critical Hydra theory’ (CHT).

Over the course of our 3 month class I produced scores of short, subtitled videos intended as ‘mini-lectures’, augmenting both our text and the weekly meetings we had via GoogleMeet and Zoom. My teaching assistant, Elon student Trevor Molin, helped me to put these videos together, most combined into same-themed longer videos. Those interested will find all this material linked below.

Videos made for our Rohingya and Bangladeshi learners in the summer of 2021:

Culture #1
Culture #2
Socialization
Self and Society
Groups and Organizations
Deviance
Social Stratification
Equation on poverty
The Hydra
False consciousness and more Hydra
Final summary message

Here is a short video introduction to Confronting Toxic Othering.

 

[updated 2-21-22]

Additional section and/or chapter ideas for Confronting Toxic Othering

An ongoing project
Though I published Confronting Toxic Othering (CTO) in late September 2021, I never considered the project done. In presentations to several audiences here in the US I have found myself explaining and expanding the concept of the Hydra, each time finding new and useful wrinkles to add. In the preface I invite the reader to provide feedback and I constantly seek same from my current and past students.

As of this writing I am in communication with several colleagues here at Elon University but also with (the soon to be Dr). Tanishia Williams at the African-American Policy Forum, co-founded by Kimberle Crenshaw, and with Anton Treuer, Professor of Ojibwe at Minnesota’s Bemidji State University. My hope is that from each I will gain deeper insight about the forces of oppression which dominate our world.

Perhaps most importantly I remain in constant contact with staff at the Centre for Peace and Justice at BracU and with the Rohingya and Bangladeshi learners who were in my online course last summer. They continue to provide amazing insight and inspiration. In a six-month post class GoogleMeet recently, each learner spoke in detail about the conceptual tools we created together. It was in conversation with these learners I first used the phrase ‘toxic othering.’

Since publishing the first edition of CTO I found and re-read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I read this work as a young graduate student in the mid 1970’s, but many ideas were lost on me at the time. My second reading of Freire’s book has provided me with additional support for some of my core ideas, and a video lecture by Anton Treuer profoundly impacted my views.

An additional chapter has already been added in draft form and I have several others in varying forms of development. The current version of CTO has many student contributions and a full chapter from my colleague in Bangladesh, Azizul Hoque. My intention is that many more additional voices will appear in this next edition.

New sections and chapters
Below is a listing of some additional sections and/or chapters which will appear in a revised edition.

• An instructor’s guide at the end which will provide thought questions based on both specific chapters and general concepts contained in the book.
• An extended chapter outlining specific examples of how toxic othering has been challenged at by both individuals, organizations, and governments at the local, national, and global level. This will be a ‘suggestions on how to tame the Hydra’ chapter.
• None of the privileging forces that make up the Hydra are binary; each is more accurately on a spectrum. This new chapter will expand on each head of the Hydra detailing how too think about each in a much more nuanced -and hence accurate and productive- fashion.
• A section on how one can apply insights from Freire to understanding toxic othering, false consciousness, socialization for disadvantage, and how the language of oppression permeates all of our social institutions.
• A section on the concept of positionality, explaining how one’s status set and master status are situation dependent and hence fluid even from moment to moment.
• In my sociology classes I have always presently ascribed status as something assigned at birth (gender, race, age) or assigned later in life. I now more consciously very aware that one must as the question ‘assigned by who or what’ and interrogate how through history culture’s have normalized and legitimized the creation of most (if not all) marginalized and oppressed statuses. Gender, race, and ability, just to name a few, are concepts reified and ossified through the actions of those in power with the purpose of marginalization. All heads of the heads of the Hydra must be examined through this lens.
• The term ‘white privilege’ has now become a powerful phrase in our vocabulary. Expanding this term and exploring male, cis, class, Global North, able, youthful, and human privilege may be fruitful. Employing the concept of intersectionality, how these privileges mutually reinforce each other can be described.

I am sure there are other sections to consider, and I will be listening closely to feedback from all those mentioned above in the coming weeks. If you have any thoughts of feedback, please contact me at arcaro@elon.edu.

Here is a short video I made last September as an introduction to the book.

“In contrast to those who suggest that we act as soon as the whistle blows, I suggest that, even before the whistle blows, we ceaselessly try to know the world in which we live — and act. Even if we must act on imperfect knowledge, we must never act as if knowing is no longer relevant.”
– Mahmood Mamdani, Saviors and Survivors (p. 6)

 

 

More on Confronting Toxic Othering and Critical Hydra Theory (CHT)

[Note: Content from this post may be updated regularly to be used in a revised edition of my recent book Confronting Toxic Othering.]

Ethnocentrism
In conversation with a veteran humanitarian worker, I listened to her vent about a recent deployment to a major conflict zone. She noted that ‘ethnocentrism be damned’ there are some fundamental wrongs embedded into the local culture, using as an example the grotesque mistreatment of women and the use of rape as a weapon of war. Social scientists tend to preach that ethnocentrism – viewing and then judging one culture through the lens of your own- is inherently wrong, and in most cases it is.

But there is nuance to add as we consider using critical Hydra theory (CHT). Through this lens virtually every modern culture has norms, laws, policies, and even ideologies that justify and normalize the systemic marginalization of various groups within the culture. CHT demands a systematic and rigorous interrogation of all forms of marginalization made possible by the many privileging forces used by those in power to justify this marginalization.

Employing the encompassing tool of CHT, to look closely at any culture is to identify multiple and egregious ‘baked in’ cultural practices that defines some of the members of that culture as inferior.¹  The CHT thinker must be able to take a ‘long view’, realizing the process whereby marginalization has been ‘baking in’ to a culture goes back not decades but more likely centuries or even millennia.

The normalization of marginalization
Sociologist Diane Vaughn coined the phrase “the normalization of deviance” in order to help her describe in great depth the series of acts of deviance which ultimately led to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. The phrase is explained here:

“The normalization of deviance occurs when actors in an organizational setting, such as a corporation or a government agency, come to define their deviant acts as normal and acceptable because they fit with and conform to the cultural norms of the organization within which they work. Even though their actions may violate some outside legal or social standard and be labeled as criminal or deviant by people outside the organization, organizational offenders do not see these actions as wrong because they are conforming to the cultural mandates that exist within the workgroup culture and environment where they carry out their occupational roles.”

Understanding the task of Critical Hydra Theory
In modern cultures, false consciousness -a lack of a clear understanding of the forces of oppression and marginalization at play in the culture- tends to be endemic and, by definition, unrecognized by most. Outsiders, e.g., expat humanitarian workers, can see these forces of oppression and marginalization more clearly. Ironically though, most of these outsiders would be unable (or unwilling?) to clearly identify these same forces at play in their own culture.

Just as with critical race theory (CRT), to employ CHT most effectively and legitimately one must

• be clear about their own positionality relative to all eight heads of the Hydra/privileging forces and, importantly, the shifting nature of this positionality in various social settings
• understand the fact that most -especially those (like me!) who are objectively privileged in terms of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, nationality- must make extra efforts regarding their positionality
• must embrace the constant journey toward a deeper understanding of their own levels of false consciousness and about their role as oppressors and contributors to the continued normalization of the marginalization of others
• be capable of seeing the world as a whole using a perspective that is both global and also deeply historical
• understand that in an increasingly globalized world economies and even ideologies are seamlessly interwoven and critiquing one culture necessarily means commenting on an emerging pan-cultural reality we all share; ‘fixing’ one culture in isolation is a misguided goal
• seek ways to confront toxic othering at both the personal and cultural levels

Grappling with these challenges, we can all learn from thinkers like Paulo Freire who in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) uses the term ‘decolonizing the self’ as a way of addressing the phenomenon of false consciousness and goes further to argue for the comprehensive decolonization of all oppressed cultures, a theme expanded on in detail more recently by many writers e.g., post-colonial theorist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o in his Decolonizing the Mind.

Perhaps most importantly, those who would embrace CHT need understand and learn from the methodologies of critical race theory (CRT), particularly as employed by thinkers such as bell hooks and of course Kimberlé  Crenshaw, co-founder of the African American Policy Forum.

Being a deviant
We must all remain ever vigilant regarding our tendencies toward toxic othering, however unintended or culturally accepted. Make no mistake, using CHT properly involves the courage to deconstruct one’s past cultural learning and socialization and to look critically at oneself and one’s culture. This means, almost by definition, acting and even being an outsider to one’s own culture, that is, being a deviant. In this case though, the role deviant is positive, modeling behavior for others how to confront toxic othering in all its manifestations. Recalling the Latin proverb that says ‘in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king‘, just the opposite, those who see more clearly cultural faults may more likely to be seen as pariahs, and carry the burden of unfair stigmatization that those who seek true justice have always endured.

As anthropologist Jules Henry put it so long ago, “To look closely at our culture is to grow angry and to anger others.”²

Always seeking to know the world more clearly
In the end, many will make the lazy mistake of being just ethnocentric -critiquing other cultures- without doing the work of more clearly understanding the history behind deeply embedded norms, policies, laws, and cultural practices that gave rise to and continue to support marginalizing forces. Having the intellectual energy and time to engage with CHT is in itself a privilege, a luxury. But it is also our duty as humans -as students, teachers, humanitarians, etc.- to always seek ways to know the world in which we live and act more clearly and to recognize our own place vis-a-vis forces of oppression rooted in toxic othering.

---

¹I wrote about this general idea many years ago; see here for my essay ‘Humanism, Feminism, and Cultural Relativity: Contradictions and Ambiguities”.

²See Henry’s 1963 book Culture Against Man, an ethnography of his own American culture.

Confronting Toxic Othering now on Kindle and Amazon

A long journey
My book Confronting Toxic Othering: Understanding and Taming the Hydra is now available on Kindle and as a paper back on Amazon.

Publishing this book was a more than two year journey. It began with an email from a humanitarian worker by the name of Leah Campbell at ALNAP who had the who had read some of my blogs and thought that I would be a good fit for a session at this organizations semi annual meeting in Berlin. When I got her email about contributing to a panel on privileging forces, almost immediately I saw the connection between the the five social forces mentioned. I connected all of these privileging forces together in an image of a hydra, and for the last two years I have been presenting this idea to every one of my sociology classes.

My students seem to resonate with the concept fairly quickly, and tend to reference the idea throughout the course. Each cohort of students adds another layer of depth and complexity to the ideas.

The project of putting the series of blog posts into a book languished late last year, but I was very fortunate to be connected with the Centre for Peace and Justice in Bangladesh and was partnered with an amazing young man named Azizul Hoque. He and I along with a student assistant from Elon, Trevor Molin taught an online class  ‘introduction to sociology’ to a mixture of Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals. This class was one of the biggest challenges I have ever had as an educator. I was determined to move through the course with the same pedagogical style I had always used in my career, that is  try to understand where my students are and reach them in ways that will be personally meaningful. Though in this case that was a stretch, it is absolutely because of my partnership with Aziz that we were able to have what I think was a fairly successful class.

We started with 20 learners, lost two for logistical reasons but fairly early but those two were immediately replaced so that we ended up our 10 week ‘short course’ with 20 students. I remain in contact with those learners via WhatsApp, and think about them frequently. I make mention of these learners because it was their ideas, questions, and participation in our weekly classes that pushed the book project over the finish line.  It is to these 20 learners that the book is dedicated, and all net profits will go to supporting educational initiatives in the refugee camps.

Waiting for critiques
I have a fear that some people will read this book and critique it for its lack of academic rigor, but I hope most quickly realize that this is a compilation of blog posts, bursts of thoughts related to privileging forces put into short essays, and now arranged into chapters of a book. I will continue presenting the idea in my classes and I very likely will begin a revised edition of the book almost immediately. One fantasy I have is that I may be able to organize another edition of the book written at a more serious level, with authors who are interested in one or more heads of the hydra doing deep dives into the history of the various privileging forces and talk about how these forces have been confronted over the years both locally, nationally, and internationally.

That I am a hetero/cisgender, able, white male from the Global North talking about ‘privileging forces’ may raise some eyebrows, and I address my perspective in the book. I welcome discussion about this point.

One issue that I think some people might have with the image of the Hydra is that it makes it appear that the various privileging forces are all equal in terms of their impact. That is demonstratively not the case, of course, and I believe that the privileging forces of patriarchy, racism, and classism are definitely more at the root of most social problems as opposed to for example ageism which is actually a fairly new -ism. Anthropocentrism, our toxic othering of the natural world, looms as a major factor to be sure. All these privileging forces are fueled by unchecked global capitalism and neoliberalism, and addessing this fact accents the inherent intersectionality of all eight privileging forces.

There are many topics that could have been addressed in the book, but aren’t in this edition. For example, exploring the intersection between liberation theology, critical race theory (CRT) and critical Hydra theory (CHT) would be useful, mapping out how many of the privileging forces discussed in CRT and CHT are explicitly addressed by liberation theology, advocating confronting oppression in many forms.

You can contact me here if you have any feedback.

 

 

Updated 11-26-21

 

“If I die, I’m fine. I will give my life.”

 -Mohib Ullah

Protecting civil society in Cox’s Bazar and beyond

The death of a civicv leader
The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the Rohingya as “one of, if not the, most discriminated people in the world”. An ethnic and religious minority in Myanmar, the Rohingya people have been persecuted for generations, and in August of 2017 the genocide perpetrated by the Myanmar military reached a fever pitch, and nearly 750,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh. Life in the sprawling refugee camps is not easy, and maintaining a transplanted civil society is a massive challenge.

The Government of Bangladesh and nearly 100 humanitarian agencies including UN, IFRC, IOM, UNHCR, etc. are responding to the humanitarian crisis of Rohingya. The Bangladeshi Government has deployed police and Armed-police Battalion (APBN) in the camps to protect the Rohingya.

On September 29, 2021 Mohib Ullah, a 48-year-old Rohingya leader and activist, was assassinated by gunmen in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Mohib Ullah devoted his life to human rights, fighting against violence in the refugee camps and working closely with community organizers and INGO staff. He served as chairperson of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace & Human Rights, working hard to document the Myanmar military’s genocidal crimes against the Rohingya. With an impact far beyond the refugee camp where he lived, Ullah advocated for Rohingya and refugees’ rights in international forums, traveling to Geneva, Switzerland making a speech for the United Nations Human Rights Council and Washington DC representing the Rohingya people in a meeting with then President Donald Trump.

Here in the US, I continue reading followup reports of this horrible assassination and have now talked with several Rohingya and others close to Mohib Ullah. In the last couple years, I have grown close to many Rohingya and feel a deep connection to their plight. What I am hearing from my contacts is that Ullah’s death was not unexpected since he posed a threat to those who seek control of the camps through violence.

One of my contacts (who wishes to remain anonymous) said,

“Nevertheless, there is a lack of active and sincere response to protect Civil Society leaders. Humanitarian agencies also seem to be callous to ensure appropriate security measures for Mohib Ullah and other human rights activists. Camp residents said that, since Mohib was receiving the threats, no remarkable measures were taken to protect him.“

I have learned that though humanitarian organizations like UNHCR, IOM, World Vision, Danish Refugee Council, MSF, and others control most of the daylight hours, the night is ruled by darker forces. Armed and highly organized gangs  extort money, intimidate whole neighborhoods, kidnap, and even kill those who test their control. There is a recognized leadership structure in this sprawling camp complex, and Camp-in-Charge (CIC) officials from the Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC) perform administrative and coordination duties regarding the delivery of humanitarian services to each of the camp residents in their respective neighborhoods. The CIC work closely with the UN and INGO organizations and a great deal gets accomplished during the daytime. The horrible fact is that many of those gains, for example confronting sex and gender based violence (SGBV), are reversed during the night times when the  organized gangs rule.

More violence
I have just learned of another violent attack in the camps with 7 dead and many more wounded in a night time attack at an Islamic seminary. A culture of fear is taking over, eroding any sense of peace and safety.

Here is how one camp resident describes the situation,

“This is the time that knowledge is not working righteously. Ya Allah, we get stuck in the chaos and disorder situation with trauma and PTSD every day. There is no end of challenge in our lives. It feels like the calamity never ends. We live through one crisis after another.”

Questions
I am saddened and upset by this horrible assassination. Just like others, I have questions about who did this and why, having my own suspicions based on conversations I’ve had about the power some groups have in the camp. And make no mistake, the perpetrators of this vicious crime wield great power in the camp. The question is the legitimacy of that power and how their group’s irresponsible and grotesque use of power can be challenged.

I have no pretensions that mere words can make a massive difference in this moment, but in solidarity I feel compelled to respond in the only way I know how, with words and questions.

The sad fact is that it only takes a small group to cause such harm. A fully functioning civil society takes work, time, and cooperation, but creating disorder and social chaos can be done in seconds with just a few bullets. Perhaps the key question is how leadership voices who champion moderation and help strengthen the civil society within the refugee camps can be better protected.

I remember vividly the year 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and then, soon after, Bobby Kennedy. Each in their own way was a beacon of light, representing what is good about humanity. I was about the same age then as many of the Rohingya in the refugee camp are now. Young adults with their world torn apart, an icon of peace, justice, and righteous activism has been slain in their midst. I remember the feeling I had when King and then Kennedy were assassinated. I felt a sense of betrayal, bewilderment, and confusion mixed with a deep sense of foreboding, a loss of hope. I am imagining that these are the kind of feelings going through the minds of young Rohingya men and women in the camp right now. They are searching for answers and for something to fill the void in their hearts. The vast majority of Rohingya want a strong and legitimate civil society and leaders who act on their behalf, but who now will have the courage to fill the void left by Muhibullah’s murder?  Can another leader step forward, knowing that doing so may mean their own death?

And more questions
I have so many questions as I reflect on Muhibullah’s death.  Which types of behaviors have been culturally normalized the camps? Which cultural and behavioral pathways (toward the light or darkness; building or destroying) are more clear, accessible, and viable to the young women and men in the camps? How does toxic masculinity play into the choice to destroy rather than build?  To what degree is toxic masculinity normalized and embedded into the camp culture? How can those who choose positive pathways have their actions supported and normalized within the camp communities? How can those who choose negative pathways have their actions condemned and delegitimized within the camp communities? To what extent does the very existence of civil society and social cohesion in general depend upon support for building rather than destroying? What role can the humanitarian organizations working within the camps take to seize back control of the nighttime? How can security during the night time be enhanced so provide more protection? What role should the international community take in supporting and protecting those who build a positive civil society? How does life in the refugee camps, fraught with fear, struggle, anxiety, and general emotional fragility lead to the choice to destroy? Does living in constant fear (etc.) compromise one’s ability to build and to love?

Frustratingly, I have no clear answers to these questions, and, like many, I am waiting for the passage of time to produce a calmer atmosphere in the camps. In the meantime, there are many voices calling for the arrest and punishment of those responsible for Muhibullah’s death, but even if that does happen what of the larger more persistent problem of who rules the night in the camps. Swatting a few mosquitos [arresting the known killers] is necessary, but draining the swamp so that more don’t breed must be the longer term goal. But how can that be done?

I have a fantasy the international community will take more direct action protecting vulnerable people everywhere and also supporting civil society efforts and specifically leaders in the camps by using the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). But if these efforts failed during the actual genocide in Myanmar there is little hope that any such action will take place now in the context of this ‘small’ event in Cox’s Bazar. With this gapping inaction by the UN, we once again we see respect for national sovereignty taking precedence over respect for human rights. Yes, I understand that there are complex and highly nuanced regional and global politics at play, but that does little to respond to the plight of the 900,000 Rohingya who simply want to go home.

Social philosophy excursus
In conversation with a close contact in Bangladesh we discussed the inherent human need for some degree of power and control. I am reminded of Erich Fromm when he points out in his book The Sane Society that the impulse to agency can be directed toward building or destroying; I can impact the world -and therefore exist- with either type of action, positive or negative.  Fromm was heavily influenced by Freud, and there is no surprise we see here clearly Freud’s drives of Eros and Thanatos appearing. Eros, the positive drive toward life, love, and preservation representing the impulse to build, and Thanatos, death, the drive toward aggression and violence leading to destruction. We can find an even more ancient version of Freud and Fromm’s understanding of human drives in Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the transformer/destroyer, the Hindu trinity.

Setting our gaze on yet another major thinker, Nietzsche in Will to Power asserts that human agency is focused on an innate will to have mastery over oneself, the surrounding environment, or others. This quest for mastery, of course, can lead to positive behaviors like deeper self awareness but also to negative behaviors like domination over others. Again, for me the question is which cultural pathways -negative or positive- are visible and attractive to most people. Nietzsche anticipates ‘critical Hydra theory’ (discussed in several previous blog posts) in his Beyond Good and Evil and then later in On the Genealogy of Morals by arguing that we must look deep into history to discover how our commonly accepted ideas about culturally approved values and behavior have been perpetuated by those in power, hence normalizing various kinds of marginalization and toxic othering through the creation and then control of various privileging forces. Marx, for his part, told us that, “The ruling ideas of any age are always the ideas of the ruling class.” Perhaps the question isn’t are people basically good or bad, but rather whether there are culturally encouraged and available pathways for people to manifest their inherent need for agency in a positive or negative way.

In sum, humans crave agency, but it is those in power who present and reinforce pathways to express one’s agency. We must address the question of power in the refugee camps, who has it and how are they maintaining this power. Those who killed Ullah crave power, maintaining their hold through the use of violence. Those, like Ullah, who sought peace and civility embrace legitimate power, based on compassion, understanding, and speaking truth to sources of illegitimate power are on a different path. Both groups seek agency, but their pathways are diametrically opposed, one seeking to create and the other working to destroy.

Not inconsequentially, we now know that Facebook algorithms prioritizing conflict helped incite the genocidal actions against the Rohingya in Myanmar. The quest for power through the maximization of profit by the leaders of Facebook contributed to the genocide, and we are reminded that an unchecked system of global capitalism contributes to pathways of destructive power.

Strong civil society is the antidote to corruption
As a final theory point, I must mention Emile Durkheim and his focus on the necessity of social forces that engender social cohesion. One of his key concepts is anomie, a state of social disintegration that can occur when social cohesion -as embodied in a strong civil society- is threatened. Events like the murder of a major leader such as
Mohib Ullah cause major tears in the social fabric and cause anomie and unfortunately those who seek and use illegitimate power thrive in this environment. There are many guards against social disintegration found in the basic institutions that form the core of any society.

Perhaps one of the most important social institutions that needs to be robust is that of the political system and, as a subset of that, a judicial system that works and is trusted. Other key social institutions which support social cohesion and civil society include the family, religion, education, and media of all sorts, including social media.

The family needs to be strong, supported, and parents need to pass on to their children positive values and support. This includes of course both male and female children. Religion is critical as an institution creating social cohesion, and Durkheim saw that is perhaps the most important institution creating  a strong civil society. The messages conveyed by religion must be consistent, compassionate, inclusive, and emphasize a true adherence to religious doctrine, making sure to avoid support for any extremist kinds of interpretation of the Koran, the Bible, or other religious scriptures.

A solid and well supported educational institution is absolutely key. As an educator myself, I have a deep faith in the power of education to transform not just individual lives but the fabric of the entire society. A strong educational system that gives good guidance, good information, and solid critical thinking skills is essential to the construction of a civil society.  It goes without saying education must be equally available to everyone, males and females alike.

The mass media, and all media including social media can send positive messages that emphasize social cohesion and social integration. It should be the role of the government to monitor social media so as to  tamp down negative messages and ones that are for size aggression or distraction.

Recovering from the assassination of Mohib Ullah
Only those who seek control for nefarious reasons are against the formation of a strong civil society in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. Every UN or humanitarian INGO active in refugee camps is working to create, support, and insure a strong civil society. Their work, in partnership with Bangladeshi NGOs, cannot -and will not- must remain focused on building strong social institutions which will serve to rid the camps of the cancer within, the organized bands who, as of now, control the night. I believe in the human spirit and that there will be a recovery from the assassination of Mohib Ullah. Let us all work toward that goal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Until the lion learns to speak, tales of hunting will always favor the hunter.”

African proverb

 

Applying Critical Hydra Theory on Tuesday morning

 

Paris, 2021
Later this fall I will take part in a panel session at the 6th meeting of the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) meeting in Paris. As co-organizer of this panel, I will have the duty of opening our session with some remarks intended to frame our discussions related to the panel’s theme “Privileging Forces in the Humanitarian System: Power and Marginalization”. It seems fitting that this next phase of talking about what I have called ‘critical Hydra theory’ will take place in the context of a conference since this conceptual journey had its beginning at the ALNAP meeting in Berlin in 2019.

My goal will be to introduce the Hydra model and urge those listening to embrace this conceptual tool. Though having a longer history, the commonly heard phrase, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail” is attributed to American psychologist Abraham Maslow. Although disparaged as cognitive bias, I will argue that in this case the tool that I will encourage people to use has broad application, especially regarding the topic for our panel. The Hydra model is all about shining a light on ‘power and marginalization.’

Critical Hydra Theory
Specifically, I will be explaining ‘Critical Hydra Theory’ (CHT), pointing out that the phrase has its origins in ‘Critical Race Theory‘ (CRT) but that it is more comprehensive, interrogating not just race and ethnicity but all of the privileging forces which have historically served to marginalize the majority of humans, both past and present. Like Critical Race Theory, this new perspective has a heavy emphasis on history, the phenomena of intersectionality, and how each of the privileging forces are structured into cultural systems. Using the illustration of the Hydra, I’ll briefly introduce and explain each head.

Critical Hydra Theory is a powerful metaphor for engaging critically with intersectionality and reflexively with privilege; is a novel packaging of an old idea, namely that in many -perhaps most- cases those in power will seek to normalize and justify the marginalization of the ‘other’. These processes of normalization and justification serve to weave marginalization into the very fabric of each culture leading to various levels of ‘false consciousness.’ Both those being marginalized and those doing the marginalization may come believe the falsehood that, for example, women are inferior to men or that ‘white’ people are superior to non-white people.

Critical Hydra Theory demands taking a very controversial stance, questioning how power has been misused in the formation of nearly all cultural institutions, but especially those of family, religion, politics, law, education, and the media. Embracing CHT means interrogating all cultural assumptions, norms, policies, laws, and structures which support toxic othering in any form.

I am reminded -and cautioned by -the phrase from Hermann Hesse, “The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world.” Acting on lessons learned from CHT means being sober to the fact that cultures are integrated and complex fabrics, and that pulling on one string may unravel essential parts of the whole. Worlds can be changed without wholesale destruction, indeed most social change is slow and organic. The fact remains, though, hard questions must be asked regarding all forms of culturally entrenched marginalization, and this means questioning basic assumptions about each major social institution. The emphasis should not be on ‘destroying a world’ but rather a systematic, measured, but at the same time radical -meaning at the root- cultural transformation.

Basic tenets of Critical Hydra Theory
Embracing CHT means understanding it’s basic tenets including

• CHT is based on and inspired by Critical Race Theory (CRT) and as such it demands that an aggressive, deep, thorough interrogation of all social structures is necessary.
• Listening to the voices of and taking the lead from those who are marginalized, and especially those who are marginalized by multiple privileging forces, is a primary tool for those using CHT. This means taking to heart the aphorism, “Until the lion learns to speak, tales of hunting will always favor the hunter” and actively listening to the ‘lion.’
• All humans see each other in terms of our various -mostly ascribed- statuses.
• ‘Normal othering’ will tend to degenerate into ‘toxic othering’ whenever there is an asymmetry of power between one status group and another.
• ‘Toxic othering’ leads to the normalization of marginalization, entrenching itself deeply into cultural norms, rules, policies, laws, and religious and political dogma.
• All privileging forces are driven by ‘toxic othering’ and throughout history these forces have impacted the life chances of those marginalized.
• The intersectionality inherent between all of the privileging forces must be recognized and addressed. Each privileging force can be seen separately, of course, but probing into how each force reinforces and amplifies the others is essential.
• Critical to CHT is understanding that ‘false consciousness’ exists and that there can be a cultural blindness as to the existence of various privileging forces afflicting both the group in power and those being marginalized.
• The desired end goal is for ‘toxic othering’ to be replaced by ‘normal othering’ where differences are recognized, honored, and respected by all. This goal can be reached by addressing abuses of power and finding ways to emphasize the importance of using the positive forces of non-violence, love, and compassion to affect structural change.

Tuesday morning
Humanitarian workers, especially those involved in getting aid to victims of natural or human made disasters, do critical work impacting countless lives. A typical work day is spent ‘putting out the closest fire’, with tasks prioritized based on the immediacy of the action(s) needed. The luxury of stepping back to look at a ‘bigger picture’ is exactly that, a luxury for which not many have the time or energy to invest. The few who have the good (?) fortune to attend the occasional workshop or conference sit in sessions knowing that next Tuesday morning they’ll be back at their desk/cubicle/work site with a load of work to do, the conference ‘take away points’ already forgotten.

So, what can they do in response to learning about ‘critical Hydra theory’? Here’s two concrete steps, the first more time consuming than the second.

1.  Print a copy of the Hydra image (I’ll send high resolution copies to anyone who asks in either black and white or color) and tape it to your wall, right next to your personal photos, etc. Then forget about it. Or not. Pretend you’re an eager undergraduate for a moment and be inspired to look more deeply at yourself and the world around you through the lens of CHT. Look at the image and then in the mirror, taking ‘a privilege inventory’, asking yourself how you can be a better ally and/or accept offers of allyship from those with whom you work or interact with on a daily basis. Seek to understand power. Be unafraid to cause ‘good trouble’ once in a while. Be the change (there, I said it).
2. Copy and send the following email to your organization’s leadership, cc’ing any others you deem relevant, i.e., in a position to affect change.

Subject line: Big picture questions

Body of email:

I hope this email finds you well. Recently I attended a workshop [read a book] which used the metaphor of a Hydra to frame various chronic social justice issues (see attached illustration). We were introduced to “Critical Hydra Theory” (CHT) which is like Critical Race Theory on steroids, hitting on not just one privileging force but eight; it is very inclusive. Using what I understand of CHT, here are some questions about our organization that I would like to raise. These questions are neither simple nor uncontentious, but are very important, perhaps existentially so.

Answering these questions will involve many person-hours, I understand, and will thus necessitate funding. Educating our donors to the fact that such efforts ultimately do directly support our mission is leadership’s job. Keep in mind that this model is very inclusive and by focusing on all eight heads there will be a natural ‘economy of scale’, a cost and time saving feature donors can appreciate.

Each of these questions is important, and each deserves your full measure of attention. Please note also that these questions address our internal functioning, interactions within the local communities where we function, and our outward facing interaction with those affected by the natural disaster or conflict related events to which we respond.

• • All eight privileging forces must be considered. These include patriarchy, race/ethnicity, colonialism/paternalism, hetero/cisnormativity, classism/class privilege, ableism, ageism, and anthropocentrism. Has our organization done a history and/or memory report on race/ethnicity in response to #BLM? Has our organization done a history and/or memory report on race/ethnicity in response to #MeToo? If not, these should be initiated, if so they should be used as a model for similar interrogations regarding all of the other privileging forces. What can we learn from (or teach) our sister organizations in the humanitarian sector about how to do these kinds of reports?
  • Internally, what are some examples of changes in corporate culture, norms, and policies that have addressed any of the heads? Consider making all within our organization aware of these actions and changes so as to further normalize the shedding light on and then rejecting of all manifestations of ‘toxic othering’.
  • How is our organization addressing the #decolonizeaid movement internally, regarding our host communities, and with regard to the affected populations we serve?
  • How ‘green’ are we and what efforts is our organization engaged in to lower our carbon footprint and to encourage those with which we work to do same?
  • Has our organization done its parts to work with our sister organizations to coordinate efforts addressing each of the Hydra-related issues?

Yes, I realize the questions above can seem overwhelming, but to repeat a point I made above, having answers to these questions is mission critical.

Best,

[signed]

Now what?
Those two actions completed you can now precede with your Tuesday morning. My most sincere hope is that you spread the idea of CHT to others and virus-like it can spread, infecting them with the idea that toxic othering is a root cause of most of the social justice issues humanity faces. CHT is a conceptual tool that can be used to understand and address much that is wrong with how we treat each other, so be unafraid to see everything as a nail when you pick up this particular hammer. Let me know about your successes and the challenges you face. Together we can use CHT to create a more just world for all.

 

 

 

 

Talking with Rohingya and Bangladeshi learners about taming the Hydra

 

 “The educator has the duty of not being neutral.”

-Paulo Freire

Taming the Hydra
My experience teaching sociology to Rohingya and Bangladeshi has been deeply rewarding. Introducing the ideas of culturally embedded privileging forces, ascribed statuses, toxic othering, and the image of the Hydra as a way to understand the common sources of various systemic affronts to human dignity has been an amazing and profound experience.

In our final class as we talked about taming the Hydra and false consciousness the learners offered many useful questions, comments, and examples. When we started this journey together several months ago I had no expectation that given the language difficulties we would ever advance this far. That our last class was so engaging is a testament to my colleague Azizul’s ability as a translator and critical thinker and even more so to the deep thirst for knowledge and insight shown by each class member.

The handout we used began with what by now the learners understood to be a rhetorical question, ‘Do we have a duty to use our sociological understanding of ourselves and the world around us for the benefit of humanity?’ Throughout our class and in my writing I have used interchangeably the phrases ‘taming the Hydra’ and ‘bending the moral arc toward justice’, equating them both with the idea that as humanitarians we should be positive agents of social change.

I never explicitly covered the concept of intersectionality with reference to the eight heads of the Hydra in our class. Perhaps in an advanced class I can begin to probe the many possible combinations of marginalized statuses, and how one can -and often is- both in a position of being marginalized and in a status-superior position. That said, I got a clear sense from the males learners they understood that though some were victims of paternalism/colonization while at the same time in a male dominated culture which systematically marginalizes females. Through this and other discussions both Azizul and I sensed that the learners intuitively understood the basic idea of intersectionality, that one’s array of statuses are interrelated and have powerful additive and multiplicative connections deeply impacting their life chances. Here is what one Rohingya learner said,

“Hydra has many facets or aspects, especially difficult or intractable ones. I feel many deep complicated challenges … and difficulties to tame hydra. Privileging forces are all interconnected. In some time, it can in turn create a great amount of toxic synergy. Likewise there are some hydra headed people who dominant many groups to support his acts and interconnected between them close. If we take action and destroy one head, the rest are come up energetically to harm more because they are interconnected.”

Working to reverse false consciousness
We reviewed the argument that all of the heads of the Hydra are powered by the process of toxic othering and that led to introducing the concept of false consciousness. This idea was originated by Karl Marx and has been primarily used to describe classism in action. Other sociologists use the concept in various more broad contexts and in very powerful ways. In my classes I have used the phrase ‘socialization for disadvantage’ to describe how false consciousness develops among various groups, most specifically females. False consciousness is the idea that those who are marginalized, those who are ascribed a lesser status by society, can come to believe that this lower status is just, proper, reasonable, and inevitable. They believe that they are inferior to the group that defines them as being inferior, i.e., they show a lack of an objective awareness of one’s own potentials and abilities.

For example, women believe that they are inferior to men and believe that they are not as smart or as capable as men. Why would they believe that? If all of the agents of socialization (family, peers, religion, media, education) either directly or indirectly are telling young girls that they are inferior they will tend to be believe this culturally perpetuated untruth. False consciousness can be addressed and reversed by education, awareness, and by support from allies, support from, in this example, men treating women as equals.

When a woman alone sees herself as inferior it’s hard for her to act. But when she talks with other women and finds out that many feel the same, that women are being defined as inferior but really are not, when they begin to realize that they have some allies among men, their false consciousness can transition into class consciousness. When this begins to happen, when women in general believe that, yes we are equal, then they begin to move for cultural changes that insure there are norms, laws, and policies that treat women on a more equal basis. Cross culturally we know that many forms of false consciousness exist relative to all of the privileging forces, but they can be reversed and turned into class consciousness through awareness, education, and critical thinking.

Each of the heads of the Hydra, each of the privileging forces encourages various levels of ‘false consciousness’. Marginalized class, gender, and race/ethnicity and religious statuses are more obvious, but clearly the same phenomena happens with all of the other heads. Here are several examples.

• Paternalism, where the colonized feel inferior to those who ‘gave’ them their freedom, is being addressed broadly by many and very intensely in the humanitarian sector where ‘decolonize aid’ has become much more than a hashtag. This movement shows significant synergy with the global #BLM movement and stresses the intersectionality of race and class.
• Non-hetero/cis individuals in many (most?) cultures have historically been forced to hide their identities, their cultures socializing them to believe that they are not normal, defective, and morally sick. Forward movement on LGTBQI issues is uneven throughout the globe, with many in the majority world (Global South) suffering persecution and stigmatization.
• Differently abled persons -physically, cognitively, and emotionally- continue to be marginalized globally, but in this specific case there is both consciousness raising among those impacted by ableism and by the strong and increasingly vocal array of allies, many of them family members.
• Dire news about the climate crisis from respected experts has begun to address our species hubris, directly questioning the assumption that humans are superior to all other life forms and as such have the right to use and abuse the resources of the planet solely for our benefit.

Those that perpetuate false consciousness of any kind fuel the Hydra. Ethnocentrism can lead to racism and racism frequently, though perhaps not always, can lead to dehumanization and counter anthropomorphization. i.e., taking

away the human qualities of some racial, religious, or ethnic group. When you dehumanize another group, when you take away their humanity it is as if you are just killing an animal or sub-human entity. Dehumanization can lead to the justification of genocide.

The Hydra model demands that we also include all other marginalized statuses (e.g., gender) in this logic; toxic othering of any kind can lead to dehumanization and even to genocide.

I will continue to argue that using the Hydra is an effective way to understand the history of the world in terms of all of the marginalizing and privileging forces which create inequalities between groups. All of this toxic othering can spiral down into dehumanization and to genocide or at least into forms of subjugation and slavery. When you combine toxic othering with the concept of false consciousness this creates a situation where the people that are marginalized don’t fight back because they believe that it is just that they are being marginalized. Taming the Hydra means understanding the need to educate people, facilitating the transition from false consciousness  -believing that what is happening to them is right and just- to class consciousness where they reject dehumanization and marginalization. Often this means questioning many long held cultural norms and practices.

Bending the moral arc toward justice means understanding and recognizing how toxic othering has been woven into our cultures, norms, policies, and laws all through history and then finding ways to shine light on these embedded injustices, finding ways to alter these norms laws and policies in such a way that they transition from toxic othering to normal othering. ‘Normal othering’ can be benign; diversity is good, natural, and productive for all human life. We need to find ways to organize social life on this planet such that only normal othering happens. When this state of affairs exists we have tamed the Hydra.

Ascribed status and false consciousness
Every introduction to sociology text published in the last 50 years has a section defining ascribed and achieved statuses. Ascribed statuses are typically defined as those which are given to try at birth, with examples including  race, ethnicity, and gender, among others. Simple, right? But looking through the lens of critical Hydra theory the fact that ‘ascribe’ is a verb and infers a subject, as in ‘she ascribed John’s bad mood to his upset stomach.’ This raises a critically important question, namely when a sociologist says a status is ascribed who is the subject of this verb? Who says this person is ‘Black’ or ‘white’, ‘male’ or female’ (etc.). The answer is that the culture does, tradition and ‘common sense’ does. But in our quest to lay bare the privileging forces, all based on the ascribed statues, we must entertain the idea that those in power throughout past history, collectively and individually, have done the ascribing motivated by a desire to create or maintain a status quo which reinforced the toxic othering that is keeping them in a position of ‘superiority.’ False consciousness is buying into the assumption that ones ascribed statues and permanent, immutable, and ‘natural.’ Rejecting false consciousness and taming the Hydra mean questioning all of our ascribed statuses and rejecting the culturally embedded marginalization and normalized that come with these statuses.

Our class discussed how the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar have the ascribed status ‘refugee’, and how the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission on Refuges) officially certified them as such. Indeed most of the global community accepts this act of labelling. But is embracing this devalued social status an act of false consciousness? I have no glib answer to that question, but I am certain that is a useful question to pose to myself and, more to the point, for the ‘refugees’ themselves to pose to themselves.

‘Good trouble’ and emergent norms
The concept of culture is perhaps the most important of all the social science terms. Unfortunately, many understand culture as something fixed and external to the individual, as a blueprint for living most of us follow most of the time. This model of culture is demonstratively wrong, and most sociologists and anthropologists understand culture to be organic, ever changing and adapting.  As anthropologist Miles Richardson put it long ago culture is creativity, it is what we as humans do everyday. We create culture and, as such, are able to enact social change.

One way this can happen is through changing one’s behavior and creating new norms. Many emergent norms disappear quickly in a culture (think fashion trends that come and go), but those new norms which resonate with others and, I believe, which reflect fundamental human values, can catch on, spreading like a virus from one mind to another and modifying the collective behavior of masses of people.

‘Be the change you want to see in the world;’ can, cynically, be seen as just another vacuous phrase, but I beg to differ. The late Congressperson John Lewis urged us to cause ‘good trouble’, i.e., being positive deviants acting in ways that confront all forms of exploitation. In line with taming the Hydra he urged us to,

“Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.”

Given the intersectionality of the privileging forces represented in the Hydra model ‘building union between movements’ indeed must be our constant goal.

Positive deviants
At first he Rohingya and Bangladeshi learners had trouble with the phrase ‘positive deviance’ but through Azizul’s adept translation skills most finally understood that being a leader in the community and a positive agent of social change means sticking out of the crowd, deviating from the cultural norms that marginalize others. Creating and supporting emergent norms that question embedded marginalizing forces is the job of a humanitarian leader.

Bending the moral arc toward justice and taming the Hydra depends on an infinite number of small acts on each of our parts all geared toward changing social norms, policies in our personal lives, organizations with which we work, in our communities, and in laws at the local, national, and international levels. We need to raise our voices not just as informal agents of social control and social change, but consistently urge those who are formal agents of social change, our politicians and thought leaders in organizations and businesses, to accept and fight for change. We need to urge all of these individuals through our phone calls, texts, emails, and one-on-one conversations to change each and every policy and law which contributes to toxic othering. This path is difficult because some of our cultures and even our laws have demonized and marginalized some statuses. Making ‘good trouble’ is going to be difficult for many.

The way forward is not easy; the forces that want to bend the moral arc in a negative direction are strong, and they are represented in some of the leadership we have around the world right now. Look at what’s happening in Ethiopia. Look at what is happening in Myanmar. Look at what is happening in Palestine. Look what is happening in the United States. There are many who fight this anti toxic othering work because they personally benefit, or they are motivated by hatred and fear, driven by some base impulses, namely got gluttony and greed.

Some changes will be harder than others. Hetero/cisnormativity is a problem, and the acceptance of different sexualities and gender identifications is something that flies in the face of much cultural learning for many people around the world. I understand that hill is a very steep one for many people. Similarly, because race, ethnicity, religion, and politics are so inextricably combined in so many cultures it will be difficult for some to accept all humans as deserving of equality and dignity. Perhaps the biggest issue regarding toxic othering is the issue related to anthropocentrism. We tend to see ourselves as, of course, dominant over nature, and this relationship is clearly one which is toxic both metaphorically and literally.

Taming the Hydra means slowing reconstructing our cultures, purging those norms and structures which perpetuate toxic othering. Change will be difficult and must be done in a measured and sober fashion, always motivated by love and compassion.

A beginning
Our team has now completed the Introduction to Sociology training course for this small group of Rohingya and Bangladeshi learners, and recently we had a ‘graduation’ ceremony. I will be following up with these individuals over to see the lasting value of our class, but at this moment I am confident that this new team of ‘Hydra tamers’ will cause good trouble in the refugee camps and in their local communities. There is much to learn from each other and from applying critical Hydra theory to all of the questions we raised during our months together. In my final comments to the learners I charged them to use the conceptual tools they gained through this course -most prominently the Hydra model- to be leaders in their communities and agents of positive social change. This same charge goes to any who read this book.

Post script
A very special guest at our certificate award ceremony was the Executive Director of the Centre for Peace and Justice at Brac University, the honorable Manzoor Hasan. He addressed the learners, congratulating them on their achievement.  In his comments he observed that the way we had conducted the class reflected these words from Paulo Freire “The educator has the duty of not being neutral.”  Indeed, our conversations about such topics as gender based violence and the oppression of various marginalized groups was anything but neutral.

This particular quotation comes from the book We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change, but Freire is most known for his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In that book he states,

“…the fact that certain members of the oppressor class join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation, thus moving from one pole of the contradiction to the other… Theirs is a fundamental role, and has been throughout the history of this struggle. It happens, however, that as they cease to be exploiters or indifferent spectators or simply the heirs of exploitation and move to the side of the exploited, they almost always bring with them the marks of their origin: their prejudices and their deformations, which include a lack of confidence in the people’s ability to think, to want, and to know. Accordingly, these adherents to the people’s cause constantly run the risk of falling into a type of generosity as malefic as that of the oppressors. The generosity of the oppressors is nourished by an unjust order, which must be maintained in order to justify that generosity. Our converts, on the other hand, truly desire to transform the unjust order; but because of their background they believe that they must be the executors of the transformation. They talk about the people, but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change. A real humanist can be identified more by his trust in the people, which engages him in their struggle, than by a thousand actions in their favor without that trust.”

I was humbled to have my name uttered in the same sentence as Paolo Freire, and it gave me pause. Reflecting now about my experience I can say full throatily that I trusted absolutely my colleague Azizul from the very beginning of our relationship many months ago. Over the weeks of our class I grew to not only trust but to be challenged by the learners in our class. Though I do come from the ‘oppressor class’ I have worked hard to continually identify and address the ‘marks of my origin’ and now see my liberation bound up in the fight for the liberation of all humans. I do believe that a true humanist must trust those with which they partner but also must trust -and walk forward with- humanity as a whole.