I think the question of nuance in activism and social criticism may not be very easily addressed, and require a lot of patience, but the issue of "don't be pointlessly cruel to the people around you" is much simpler and easier to draw a boundary about. I wouldn't say "tone it down," I'd say "the world is full of a lot of misery, and it's unkind to snatch joy from people's hands in order to smash it on the floor. be kind."
Social justice is important. Don't minimize that or brush real outrage as "growing pains." But social justice is not defined as "being a life-ruiner to every single person you meet, because everything is problematic and everyone is complicit.**" Don't allow that redefinition. Maybe start some discussions about punching up (e.g., criticizing movie studios for racist patterns of casting) rather than punching down or sideways (telling people they're not allowed to enjoy anything that you have Canceled For Being Racist, because for some reason you have decided you are the judge, jury, and executioner of their personal joys). Also emphasizing the idea of looking things up and not just outrage-parroting is a good idea. What's real justice? Not something simple, not something you can boil down to a viral soundbyte or a pure/impure divide.
** Everyone *is* complicit and everything *is* problematic, but here we are anyway. Trying to make things and love things and do things, compromised as we are. Does LW's daughter have any room in her worldview for that? For trying, for loving imperfect things, for making things that will inevitably be fucked up but also might be beautiful? It's just so fucking *bleak*, the idea that we have to find total purity or it's all worthless garbage. As an officially depressed person, I literally would not survive that worldview.
IDK maybe I've talked myself around to "maybe what should worry you even more than your daughter being a conversation-dominating downer is the idea that your daughter is setting herself up for an impossible attempt at purity, and the resulting horrifying crash when she finds herself impure as well. maybe you need to talk to her about neg-stimming with All Bad News All The Time and the fundamental human need for joy and start consciously practicing kindness to yourselves as a family, to give your kids better models."
no subject
Social justice is important. Don't minimize that or brush real outrage as "growing pains." But social justice is not defined as "being a life-ruiner to every single person you meet, because everything is problematic and everyone is complicit.**" Don't allow that redefinition. Maybe start some discussions about punching up (e.g., criticizing movie studios for racist patterns of casting) rather than punching down or sideways (telling people they're not allowed to enjoy anything that you have Canceled For Being Racist, because for some reason you have decided you are the judge, jury, and executioner of their personal joys). Also emphasizing the idea of looking things up and not just outrage-parroting is a good idea. What's real justice? Not something simple, not something you can boil down to a viral soundbyte or a pure/impure divide.
** Everyone *is* complicit and everything *is* problematic, but here we are anyway. Trying to make things and love things and do things, compromised as we are. Does LW's daughter have any room in her worldview for that? For trying, for loving imperfect things, for making things that will inevitably be fucked up but also might be beautiful? It's just so fucking *bleak*, the idea that we have to find total purity or it's all worthless garbage. As an officially depressed person, I literally would not survive that worldview.
IDK maybe I've talked myself around to "maybe what should worry you even more than your daughter being a conversation-dominating downer is the idea that your daughter is setting herself up for an impossible attempt at purity, and the resulting horrifying crash when she finds herself impure as well. maybe you need to talk to her about neg-stimming with All Bad News All The Time and the fundamental human need for joy and start consciously practicing kindness to yourselves as a family, to give your kids better models."