Back

Say he does it again, so you clear your throat, to make sure he’s aware of you. And again. And so you break your silence, and politely ask him to please take care.

And then he tells you that he didn’t step on your toes, and while he tells you that, he makes eye contact with you, and steps on them again—hard.

And now you yell at him, because you now know it is intentional.

How do you know? Let's circle back to that.

And he loudly protests that he has no intention of stepping on feet, he doesn’t even *see* feet, and that the place where your feet are is *his* area of the car anyway.

He is only expressing his concern about equality in subway cars.

This is a question of integrity in matters of subway floor-plan fairness, and if you’re getting your little toes stepped on—which you aren’t—it’s because you’re where you shouldn’t be, which means you are actually the one infringing on the space of others.

And, having said this, he steps right on your toes.

So you shove him away.

Now let’s say I see this, and come over.

Say I scold you that violence is never appropriate, and explain that you are adding to the overall polarization and division on the subway car.

Say I tell you that while you have the right to your opinion, he has the right to his, because this is a free country, and we all have to exist together on this subway car, and his position is perfectly understandable, if you’ll just listen to it.

And if you won’t, then you are actually, by casting him in the worst possible light, making him step on your toes.

Let's say that while I’m telling you this, from behind me, he kicks you as hard as he can.

Hearing your yelp of pain, I recommend that you stop yelling and start listening, and then I turn my attention to him; letting him know I’d like to have a conversation with him, to understand the nuances of this “subway floor-plan fairness” issue that matters so much to him.

Or let’s say this.

Say I mispronounce your name, and you correct me, and I apologize and then I never mispronounce it again.

You know that I never intend to mispronounce names, but it’s not because I announced my intent. It’s because I accept the correction.

But say instead that I say, “I’m so sorry! I never intend to mispronounce names,” but keep mispronouncing yours.

I give my reasons—everyone else I know with that name pronounces it differently, it’s better my way, I have such a bad memory—but I never, ever pronounce it right.

In that case, you know I don’t actually care about getting your name right. I might believe I do, or I might be maliciously lying, but I definitely don’t care.

And you know this about me because you notice the difference between what I say and what actually happens.

There’s a certain quality that allows you to know this.

It’s a quality that involves not only hearing what is said, but observing what happens.

It’s a quality that understands that repeated abusive outcomes are choices that reveal true intentions.

It’s a quality that understands that people who harm others to profit from an abusive situation always craft reasons for what they are doing, reasons which conveniently elide what has actually happened, is actually happening, & escalating progression that shows what will happen.

These are reasons that the person may have even convinced themselves are true. These reasons are always *understandable.*

By “understandable” I mean they can be understood. For example, if somebody says “the earth is flat,” I understand what they mean.

It is understandable.

The quality I’m speaking of can make a distinction between that which can merely be understood and that which is reasonable, observable, measurable, and true.

It’s a quality that knows that at the heart of abuse is a belief in personal supremacy.

It’s a quality that knows that deciding to listen to the person who did the harming instead of the person being harmed is a deliberate choice to align with supremacy.

This quality is called “discernment.”

When you use discernment, you reject abusive positions not because you don’t understand the position, but because you do.

In my experience it’s a rare quality, these days.

To understand an abusive or enabling rationale with discernment is to reject it, because to fully understand it requires discernment about what it is actually doing.

Discernment doesn’t need to be a rare quality. It’s only rare in practice. Discernment is all over the place if you want to use it.

Let’s use discernment.

Let's talk about Tommy Tuberville, and Moms for Liberty, and other fascists.

Let's talk about the national current in an age of moral cowardice.

https://armoxon.substack.com/p/the-rivers-mouth