Milan Kundera noted in The Unbearable Lightness of Being: “The criminal regimes were not made by criminals, but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise.” Such examples remain commonplace in everyday life today, except that these individuals have not succeeded—or have not yet succeeded—in remaking society and establishing institutions. These people believe that a certain structural injustice exists, while the vast majority remain indifferent to it; consequently, they call for large-scale social engineering and policies aimed at rectifying historical wrongs to resolve this injustice. I term the mindset of these people “structural vanguardism,” defined as follows:
An epistemic posture in which a self-selected minority claims a privileged perception of structural injustice that may be invisible to (or denied by) the very group it claims is subordinated, to the extent that the subordinated group’s own testimony—including assent or dissent—is interpreted as further evidence of the extent of the injustice, rather than evidence against its existence.
Next, let us imagine a quintessential scenario from everyday life: a woman and a feminist (who may be either female or male) are having a conversation; they are friends, and both are heterosexual. The woman expresses her yearning for romantic love and marriage, remarking that gender issues on the Chinese internet have been excessively hyped. The feminist, however, attempts to lecture her: long-term romantic relationships and marriage are patriarchal institutions destined to wither away sooner or later; entering into marriage plunges one into gender oppression; and from there, the feminist expounds at length on how women occupy an unequal status in this society. The woman does not accept this sermon and courageously insists that she has never felt the existence of such oppression in romantic relationships, adding that her parents’ marriage is also happy (note: she by no means denies that oppression may exist for others).
Then, a classic scene unfolds—the feminist responds: Whether you perceive injustice or not, and no matter how happy you are, this does not negate the existence of structural oppression. This happiness of yours is a form of “false consciousness,” which precisely proves the existence of structural oppression; you have become a captive of this oppression, which constitutes an “internalized oppression” that renders the living conditions of other women even worse.
Generally speaking, once the dialogue reaches this juncture, it has collapsed in meaning. Here lies a fundamental divide: Should we take one’s own immediate, personal perception as the benchmark, or a constructed structural injustice, or some higher universal standard? In the feminist’s eyes: “I perceive structural injustice, while you do not; this implies that you are not yet awakened—you are unenlightened—whereas I, on the contrary, am clear-minded, and I possess the right to educate you.” On the Chinese internet, such women are frequently slapped with derogatory epithets by feminists, such as “men-pleasers” (meinan) or “marital work-donkeys” (hunlü).
If we closely scrutinize this feminist dialectic—wherein “I do not feel oppressed” is countered with “this is precisely how internalized oppression manifests”—there are at least three logical fallacies:
First, this is circular reasoning (begging the question), wherein the conclusion already exists in disguise within the premise. The major premise of feminism is: “Women are structurally oppressed by patriarchy.” The minor premise is: “If a woman reports satisfaction or lack of dissatisfaction with this state of affairs, that report is interpreted as internalized oppression.” The conclusion is: “The satisfaction she exhibits cannot refute the claim that she is oppressed.” The issue here is that the major premise and the minor premise do not exist independently of each other; the minor premise is, in truth, merely an extension of the major premise. Thus, the entire argument is essentially self-referential tautology.
Second, it is unfalsifiable. The feminist position is unfalsifiable because, whether others agree or disagree, neither can shake the claim that “this is precisely how internalized oppression manifests.”
Third, it constitutes an indirect ad hominem attack: namely, alleging that the interlocutor is an accomplice or captive of patriarchy, makes the circumstances of other women worse, and lacks the capacity to form independent opinions of her own.
The typical dialogue we just conceived can likewise be applied to every facet of contemporary social justice or wokism. Next, let us continue our discussion by taking “critical gender theory” as an example—a more neutral term I employ in place of “queer theory.”
Now, consider a woman and a man who are colleagues. Recently, the woman discovers that the man’s pronouns are they/them, whereas she believes she does not need to designate pronouns for herself—that is to say, she is simply a woman. Inopportune as it might be, although under normal circumstances others would maintain a distant respect toward this man when encountering such a situation—constrained by the fear of so-called “microaggressions”—this woman courageously yet politely initiates a conversation. She asks him: “Seriously, do you really think a personal pronoun can alter one’s sex?” The man replies: “Your reaction conforms to the gender-binary environment in which you have always lived; this system presents itself as natural rather than constructed.” The woman replies: “I simply believe biological sex is real.” The man proceeds to respond: “That is offensive! The binary gender system in which you are immersed leaves you unable to comprehend the distinction between biological sex and gender.” The woman answers: “Even if gender exists, I do not believe it is more important than biological sex.” The man then attempts to terminate the conversation with this verdict: “This binary mode of thinking is deeply ingrained in you, a cishet woman, far beyond your imagination. It is precisely the existence of people like you that makes our situation so dire. Go read some books!” Not to be outdone, the woman asks: “Then what could prove you wrong?” To which he ultimately replies: “Once you break free from the binary system, you will understand.”
In this conceived dialogue, we observe the exact same pattern—the opposition of heterosexuals and gender binarists to contemporary gender identity politics or critical gender theory is taken as proof of structural oppression. The man’s logical fallacies are equally self-evident. First is the genetic fallacy: having grown up in a gender-binary environment does not mean that a person’s ideas regarding gender are necessarily wrong. Second is “poisoning the well”: by pinning the label of “cishet woman” on the interlocutor, he strips her of her qualification to argue. Finally, there is the most severe problem: unfalsifiability. Whether the woman agrees or disagrees, and whether concrete individuals perceive structural injustice, has no bearing on the man’s conclusion.
Structural disparities certainly exist. Yet whether such disparities constitute injustice, to what degree they exist, and what their causes are—these have been and continue to be thoroughly debated within the social sciences, remaining highly controversial and complex questions for which scholars have uncovered evidence both in support and in refutation. I do not discuss that question here, nor do I intend to refute feminism or critical gender theory. What demands vigilance is the vanguardist tendency within various ideologies. When individuals insist that they have neither felt oppression nor generated oppression, these vanguards assert that these individuals suffer from “internalized oppression” or are perpetrating “unconscious oppression,” thereby demanding that these individuals undergo a revolution in the depths of their souls or engage in profound self-criticism. In 35 Practical Tools for Men to Further Feminist Revolution , Pamela Clark set an example for feminist vanguards. Consider her following statements:
6. When a woman tells you something is sexist, believe her.
34. Get in the habit of treating your maleness as an unearned privilege that you have to actively work to cede rather than femaleness being an unearned disadvantage that women have to work to overcome.
These two propositions accomplish two things: one strips men of the right to think independently and voice their own views while conferring upon women the credential of being perpetually in the right; the other demands that men surrender something they might not actually possess in reality. If a man in fact enjoys no gender privilege, yet one insists that he does and demands he give it up, people today also call this gaslighting.
However, Clark’s most absurd and wild proposal lies in demanding that men donate 23% of their wealth:
33. Walk the walk about income inequality. Women still earn about 77% as much as men. If you are in a position where you are financially able to do so, consider donating a symbolic 23% of your income to social justice-oriented causes. If 23% sounds like a lot to you, that’s because it is a lot and it’s also a lot for women who don’t have a choice whether to forfeit this amount or not.
Even if, in the aggregate, women’s income stands at 77% of men’s, this does not mean that every “financially able” man ought to donate 23%. Clark, as a doctoral candidate in political science, commits an elementary statistical error and logical fallacy—the ecological fallacy—namely, applying macro-level aggregate figures directly to individuals. Moreover, in many instances, the incomes of men and women are already effectively pooled through marriage.
Another comparison worth drawing is that on the eve of the Protestant Reformation, the price of indulgences peddled by the Catholic Church was less than 3% of an ordinary craftsman’s annual income, and the bitterly detested tithe was merely 10%. An ordinary craftsman could purchase the right to enter heaven with 3% of his annual income, yet a man donating 23% of his annual income would still be unable to cleanse his original sin.
Such rhetoric as “suffering from internalized oppression” or “perpetrating unconscious oppression” is exceedingly difficult to argue with intellectual rigor. Recent empirical research on structural injustice has shifted toward so-called “implicit discrimination”—such as whether implicit discrimination exists in the workplace or the policing system—yet the resulting empirical evidence has also been very weak. Philosophical arguments likewise encounter difficulties and are readily refuted. The approach that comes closest to successfully arguing for “suffering from internalized oppression” or “perpetrating unconscious oppression” is the concept of adaptive preferences: that is, a subject exists within an unjust system, but due to long-term exposure, has developed strong adaptation to it and thus feels no dissatisfaction. This human psychology is known to everyone.
Yet the argument from adaptive preferences still has a chasm to cross before arriving at “suffering from internalized oppression” or “perpetrating unconscious oppression,” because these adaptive preferences do not necessarily contain elements that legitimate systemic injustice. Of a woman enjoying a happy marriage and a woman unwilling to declare pronouns, you may say they have adapted, but you can hardly say they are suffering from or perpetrating invisible oppression. When a woman says she chooses to be a housewife, and a feminist claims this preference is the product of social construction that reproduces gender oppression, that woman could well reply: “So what? Does social construction necessarily entail oppression?” If one must leap from adaptive preferences to “suffering from internalized oppression” or “perpetrating unconscious oppression,” it appears one inevitably has to annul first-person subjectivity and slide into structural vanguardism. Although many nineteenth-century forms of structural vanguardism, such as abolitionism and the anti-foot-binding movement, achieved progressive results, it is difficult to imagine that many of the structural vanguardisms in vogue today can achieve the same. The consequences of presuming that the perception of a small clique is not only automatically a correct macro-judgment, but can also supersede the perceptions of individual persons, are all too easy to imagine.
Leave a Reply