Picture this: An environmentalist movement campaigning for their goals of reducing fossil fuel consumption. Annually, the movement asks its supporters to congregate and meet up in order to listen to speeches, forging connections between different activist groups. While the environmental conference is, by all measures, fruitful, the degree of sustainability at this gathering is, to say the least, dubious: the emissions generated by flights, the unclear guidelines around recycling and single use plastics, and so on and so forth.
On the face of it, this presents a clear contradiction—a gap between the lofty ideals of environmentalism the group espouses and the methods of activism that so often fall short of this. The sort of contradiction, this discrepancy between ideal and practice, in the eyes of many, is deceptive and jarring. For critics, this lapse presents a gotcha moment, an opportunity to expose a fraud.
Bill Maher, commentator and writer, mocked environmentalists, joking “We must do more to stop pouring carbon into the air, except for when I want to go somewhere and then I take a private jet.” He continued empathetically, “People take jets to environmental conferences! If you could run TED Talks on hypocrisy, you wouldn't need coal."
It’s safe to say that most of these arguments have not been made in good faith. That is to suggest that many non-activists who level criticism aimed at exposing the contradiction in movements do so not because they take issue with the unsustainable tactics, but rather because they disagree with the aims of environmentalism as a whole. In other words, these critics exploit the concept of “contradiction” to undermine the legitimacy of movements.
The more interesting question is then, what happens when this criticism of contradiction is truly well-intentioned? What happens when this critique of contradiction is made not by climate change deniers, right wing pundits, and reactionaries but activists themselves or those trying to understand the nature of activism? Once, a friend asked me how those in leftist spaces could argue for prison abolition in favour of restorative forms of justice, while continuing to campaign for incarceration of perpetrators—a white supremacist in her example. It was a genuine question and I was genuinely puzzled.
Thus, even though the examination of contradiction in movements can be dismissed as merely a conservative talking point, I do believe that it warrants a greater investigation. How do we reconcile contradictions? Should we even bother trying?
For activist, writer, and movement meditator, Adrienne Maree Brown, the answer is not really. She writes in a series of essays titled We Will Not Cancel Us, “Contradictions can be handled by widening our perspective, acknowledging that two oppositional truths co-exist.” Brown refers to flawed “current conditions,” (the patriarchy, racism, inequality) that sow the gap between, “what we believe and are fighting for and what we feel we must practise.” I’ll admit, it’s an answer that feels a little like a cop-out at first, but I do think Brown has a point.
Take my friend’s question of the contradiction between restorative justice and carceral punishment. To be certain, it must first be acknowledged that prison abolition is far from a widely held view and that leftist spheres are by no means a monolith. As such, groups that advocate for restorative justice may believe in this principle absolutely and may not call for incarceration of even the most prolific offenders, and vice versa. Yet for groups that uphold these two diametrically opposed outcomes, restorative justice and carceral punishment, we can think of their stance not as muddied and hypocritical, but a pragmatic approach to navigating our current conditions. Sure, Brown argues, it would be ideal to have systems of restorative justice that can adequately respond to perpetrators, yet it would hardly be practical to bulldoze prisons tomorrow, and thus reforms to the prison system and the factors that promote interpersonal violence must be made gradually before reaching the horizon of abolition. It is not impossible, she contends, to dismantle a system while engaging in it. Restorative justice and carceral punishment, existing side by side.
If you find this rationalisation of contradiction unsatisfying, Brown would remind you that the human condition is rife with contradiction, of discrepancies between principle and practice. Think: the animal lover who also happens to be a meat lover, those who support fast fashion while condemning child labour and environmental degredation, investors who care deeply about poverty, humankind’s capcity for great kindness yet also shocking brutality throughout history. In these terms, with contradiction being inherent to the human condition, it is only natural that it emerges in our movements, in our activism. And perhaps that’s okay.
But let’s entertain, for a moment, the idea that Brown’s rationale might be wrong or incomplete. Perhaps, accepting contradiction while we could otherwise make changes, if not fully renounce contradiction, is taking the easy way out. Maybe we have to set limits when it comes to contradiction in movements. Maybe there comes a point where the misaligned practices of a movement twist the moral and ideological rudder of the movement so far that it undermines its legitimacy completely.
Whatever your perspective, wherever you draw the line, we have to acknowledge the role of contradiction in our own lives, in our movements. Let’s not forget that the UWC movement is not unique in this respect: it is, and particularly the place we navigate in it, tense with contradiction. There is the tension (contradiction) between the culture of wellness and balance we purport and the reality of academic competition we create and inhabit. Then, there is the central contradiction of learning about pressing global issues—poverty, inequality, the climate crisis—while being tucked away in the insular bubble of our wealthy international school environment. Whether inevitable or dangerous, the role of contradiction in our movements remains to be decoded.
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