2024-12-15
Recently my morals have been tested. I think I'm a little too wishy washy with my values. I have a lot of little if-clauses that I tend to insert, which makes my moral ground, shaky. Fuck J.K. Rowling and anyone who is an unabashed fan of Harry Potter in the year 20204, she's a transphobe. A former member of a band I love just passed away who was a transphobe, but I am sad about his death. I boycott Starbucks because they're anti-union and "neutral" on Palestinian genocide, but it's hard for me to give up eating meat, even though that results in the death of millions of animals. I'm generally anti-violence, but I can't help but feel schadenfreude over the recent CEO murder. I could go on.
Some people may say all of the above is performative. I don't think my actions results in a dent in Starbucks's coffers, I just couldn't forgive myself if I gave them a dime. The real acts of solidarity are even harder. Like taking time out of your day to volunteer, to protest, to build community, to start something grassroots. That requires effort.
Bottom line is that being a good person requires sacrifice, foregoing convienence, being okay with discomfort, going against the grain, putting aside your own needs and desires, and being consistent in all of the above. Which is hard.
This post is brought to you by the video "Solidarity is supposed to be hard" by Elliot Sang, the words of my friend Kiwu about goodness which has swirled in my head ever since, and a post on the fediverse by Maya which I may or may not actually get the gist of but probably proves her point entirely.