Liberal Individualism Subverts Social Responsibilty

To the Editors:

I immensely value the letters of Molly Findley, Jason Clark and Paul Wilczynski over the last two weeks in the Review. All three seriously engage the problem of sexual violence and this alone, quite simply, I appreciate. I am writing to respond to a theme in the articles of Findley and Wilczynski in which both writers seem to openly refute the concept of implication: the idea that a person who is not directly to blame for a pattern of violence can and should be responsible for working to stop it.
I write under the presumption that we all live within a social structure in which a matrix of power relations affects and orders all of our lives in fundamental ways. If you do not share in this assumption, I am not addressing you.
Both sexism and racism, the two forms of oppression vaguely addressed in Findley and Wilczynski’s letters, are social systems of power relations. They affect the larger social structure, the ways in which institutions are structured and most importantly the ways in which people relate to one another. In that, they cannot be explained simply through individual people and/or interactions. Yet consistently people attempt to do so: “I never raped anyone, what does this have to do with me?” “I’m not participating directly in the lynchings, therefore I can’t be blamed for it.” “I must not have realized that because there are others with my skin color who have committed violent acts against people that I too have the capability of such things, despite my pacifist upbringing” (Findley’s letter, two weeks ago), and “I believe that the significance of sexual violence is in violent actions for which individuals must take responsibility” (Wilczynski’s letter, last week). The subtext of these statements reduces systems and patterns of power relations to individual acts of violence and/or discrimination. It leads us to put the responsibility for racism and sexism on the ‘others,’ the ‘crazies,’ the ‘violent ones’ and blinds us from seeing the ways in which racism and sexism affect us all.
Our society operates within an ideology and politic of liberal individualism. This ideology deludes us into believing that a person is not responsible for something unless they are directly to blame for it as an individual. Yet, collective responsibility and individual blame are not the same thing. Jason Clark defended this argument in his outstanding letter, which Paul Wilczynski did not to respond to. In short, he argued that there is a sexist system of violence that endows men with social power and privilege. In that, men have the consequent responsibility to use their social power and it’s attendant privileges to work to end that very system.
In my previous letters, I was not claiming that any one man is to blame for the existence of sexual violence, nor that he created the social structure that promotes and allows its proliferation. Nonetheless, sexist power relations have created a material reality in which the vast majority of sexual violence is committed by men (businessmen, rapists, communists, athletes, presidents and hippies alike). The various ways in which men operate within and help to reproduce sexist power relations are too myriad to cover in a letter. In short, there is a culture and a politics to sexism and sexual violence that men are socialized into, participate in and often unconsciously reproduce. It doesn’t mean you or I are ‘directly to blame’ for any act of rape, it means that as men we are all responsible for allowing the existence of rape as a phenomenon. I did not directly participate in either of the gang rapes that occurred in Oberlin last semester, nor did most of you reading this letter, but we live in the context of a ‘community’ that allowed those rapes to occur. In that, I am arguing (a) that we are all a part of that social structure, (b) as men we get many material, social and political benefits from that structure and (c) in turn we have the responsibility to change it.
Paul Wilczynski’s analogy of arson to rape is instructive of a common sexist ideological weapon: reducing sexual violence to the physical act of using the penis violently. This line of reasoning denies any collective responsibility for what is a social (not individual) problem. In a literal sense, Mr. Wilczynski, you are correct, you have “both a penis and matches.” The reality, though, is that you not only have the penis you have now identified to us all, but a society that culturally and politically makes it quite easy for you to use your said penis as a weapon without much consequence. Further, beyond the power our penises have as potentially violent weapons, our penises are usually associated with immense social power and privilege (although very much dependent on other intersecting social categories such as race and sexuality): a penis usually means I don’t have to worry much about walking home at night. a penis usually means I don’t have to think about the possibility of being violently assaulted when I’m in the process of getting together with a friend of mine. When dressing up to go out or even to work, I don’t think much about my safety. I can do drugs/alcohol around strangers. I can leave a bar and not have to worry every time about being assaulted. I can say no and I know that people will respect it. When I say I was violently assaulted I’m not seen as hysterical and people believe me. I don’t think your little box of matches endows you with the same social power. In that, Mr. Wilczynski, while you’ve acknowledged the existence of sexual violence in the penises of crazy rapists, you’ve used the logic of individualism to remain silent about sexual violence in the context of a widespread sexist system of power relations.
So I ask everyone reading, if you are walking down the street and come across a person being beaten up or raped, is this ‘logic of individualism’ and ‘blame the paradigm’ you plan to use? Silence is a political act. Claiming ‘this has nothing to do with me’ is perhaps the most politically destructive thing a person can say in the larger process of ending systems of violent power relations that affect us all. As men, we have the responsibility to work within our communities to interrogate and challenge the culture and politic of sexism that we all participate in and help to reproduce. Simply talking to one another about our role as men in sexism and sexual violence is a great first step.

–Benjamin Joffe-Walt
College senior