One of the fundamental problems that humans lack is that we can't know everything. People are wrong all the time; I'm wrong all the time. But the great problem arises when you are so stuck in your ways that you refuse to accept that you were wrong. Injustices are created by selfishness and, as we've learned, can come in at least three dimensions:
Distributional (inequality in access to resources/benefits/harmful impacts)
Procedural (inequality in inclusion in decision making)
Recognitional (imbalance in appreciation and representation of everyone's perspectives)
To me, focusing on recognitional injustices is the true key to not only solving but preventing future injustices. Some values and worldviews don't have numbers, stats, or economic relevance, and they get ignored.
So how do we let everyone's values be heard? Increasing the appreciation and representation of people with different views than you requires treating everyone with kindness. Not seeing someone as right and someone else as wrong, but seeing all opinions as valid, even if they are intangible. When you see your values and someone else as equal, you take a huge step towards tackling injustice. And it all begins with kindness, compassion, and patience. Approaching difficult conversations with a level head and openness to learn. Appreciating our world full of diversity. Then, the other two dimensions fall into place.
You respect someone's opinion -> You include them in the decision-making process -> The distribution of outcomes begins to spread out.
Thank you for this beautiful post, Katie! I very much agree. Especially when tackling difficult issues, such as climate change and injustice, it's critical that we are kind, create room and ask for input!
Hello Katie! I really appreciated this post and how you noted that we shouldn't view one opinion as right and another as wrong, but rather as two valid opinions. I hope one day that we can all have this open-minded view :)
Hi Katie! I agree that we should respect and approach everyone's opinion with an open mind if we're going to solve this issue of injustice! Great post!
I think we need to be really cognizant of ideology when speaking about opinions.
Realistically, not all opinions are valid. Some opinions are built out of pure hatred and ignorance, and ignoring that can create dangerous environments for the people targeted by those opinions. This is a hard conversation because it begs the question, where do I draw the line between opinion and hatred? Where do I draw the line between an opinion that endangers people in the conversation and a respectful opinion? These questions need to be constantly evaluated as we evolve sociologically to ensure that these open conversations do not endanger people.
This is really important for conversations about marginalized people and identities, we need to ensure that these people who have been systematically targeted get actual justice and are not retraumatized by people presenting hateful opinions that they have to fight against.
Great point, acknowledging that there is a lot out there that we don't understand (yet), is a feature that I think a lot of our political leaders are missing. Being humble and willing to learn should be a course here at UBC ;)
Thank you for sharing your ideas! I particularly liked how you took a step back and looked at basic things like kindness and selfishness and how they relate to these larger issues.