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Murmurations of Injustice: Dynamics of Structural Injustice and Epistemic Oppression

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Structural injustice refers to systemic social, political, and economic inequalities that are embedded within institutions and societal structures, disproportionately disadvantaging certain groups while maintaining power imbalances.

Image courtesy of interviewee. November 7, 2024

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This video discusses the concept of structural injustice, characterized as injustices that often manifest more visibly in their consequences rather than through the underlying processes that create them. The author highlights that structural injustices arise from political, economic, and social institutions that allow significant harms, such as famine and climate change, to occur, even though many people recognize these issues as unacceptable.

The metaphor of "murmuration," which refers to the behavior of starlings flocking together to evade predators, is employed to illustrate how individuals are interconnected within these systems of injustice. Just as starlings react to each other’s movements, people respond to the behaviors of those around them in social contexts, which can perpetuate structural injustices.

Furthermore, the text introduces the concept of epistemology, or the study of knowledge and belief, discussing how individuals discern fact from opinion and how societal influences shape these discernments. Political epistemology highlights shared norms and beliefs that guide how people process information.

In discussing feminism and other political theories, the text emphasizes the dynamic nature of societal evolution in confronting injustices and how different ideas can either unify or divide communities. By understanding these dynamics, individuals can potentially foster change within their social contexts. The author encourages a view of political community as one where individuals can engage in constructive dialogue to navigate differing opinions and beliefs, ultimately facilitating progress toward addressing structural injustices.

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Here are five key points from the video discussing structural injustice and its relation to social behavior and epistemology:

1. **Definition of Structural Injustice**: Structural injustice refers to the systemic and institutional frameworks that create and perpetuate injustices, such as famine and climate change. The real injustice lies not in the observable harms, but in the political, economic, and social structures that enable these harms to occur.

2. **Visibility of Consequences vs. Processes**: The video emphasizes that the consequences of structural injustice, like famine and climate change, are often more visible than the underlying processes and institutions that create these conditions. This makes it challenging for individuals to recognize and address the root causes of these injustices.

3. **Metaphor of Murmuration**: The phenomenon of murmuration among starlings is used as a metaphor to illustrate how individuals are embedded in social and institutional structures that influence their behavior. Just as starlings react to the movements of those around them, people also respond to the behaviors and opinions within their social and political communities, often without realizing the extent of this influence.

4. **Epistemology and Political Understanding**: The concept of epistemology, or the way individuals process information and distinguish between facts and opinions, is important in understanding structural injustice. Political epistemology recognizes that people's beliefs and behaviors are influenced by shared social, political, and economic relations, which can shape how they interpret injustice.

5. **Feminism and Political Theory**: The video discusses how feminist thought and other political theories can lead to shifts in understanding structural injustice. It describes how differing opinions and experiences within a community can create divisions (or "clouds"), illustrating that new ideas can either unite or pull apart political communities, impacting collective understanding and action against injustice.

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Here are some key quotes from the video on structural injustice, each emphasizing crucial concepts discussed:

1. **Definition of Structural Injustice**:
- "Structural injustice describes a category of injustice that is... capacious... It's those problems that are the most pressing, because it's hard for many of us to agree on what kind of problem they are, let alone, what the scope and scale is."

2. **Understanding the Harm vs. Injustice**:
- "The famine is a harm, but it's not the injustice. The injustice is the political, economic and social structures of the world that enable that to take place when any given person observing that would say that's not okay."

3. **Visibility of Injustices**:
- "By structural injustice, I mean those kinds of injustices that are more easily seen in their consequences than they are in the processes, the institutions that create them."

4. **Murmuration Metaphor**:
- "I use the metaphor of murmuration... because like those starlings, we also are embedded in those institutions and practices that make structural injustice happen."

5. **Awareness of Influence**:
- "We may not be aware of how our behaviors, our ideas, what we say, influence the seven birds around us, and yet they do."

6. **Epistemology and Its Role**:
- "Epistemology is... my way of taking in information and sorting it... In this political environment, for many people, those facts and opinions go so close together."

7. **Political Epistemology**:
- "Political epistemology is the recognition that a lot of [sharings] influence my behavior, influence how I'm thinking about things."

8. **Feminism and Structural Injustice**:
- "Feminism has had lots of moments throughout the history of political thought... that sparks maybe a shift in our understandings of structural injustice."

9. **Community Dynamics**:
- "Imagine we're sharing a political community and somebody experiences something and they don't say that's sexist, but their resistant behavior makes somebody go in one direction."

10. **Convideoual Variation**:
- "Once you're talking about an idea like feminism, you are no longer in a political theory world. You're in the world of people's concrete struggles."

These quotes encapsulate the core themes of the video, highlighting the complexity of structural injustice, the metaphor of murmuration to illustrate interconnected behaviors, the role of epistemology in understanding and addressing injustice, and the influence of feminist thought in the political landscape.

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Structural injustice describes a category of injustice

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that is, I'm gonna use a big word,

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capacious, right?

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It's those problems that are the most pressing,

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because it's hard as for many of us

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to agree on what kind of problem they are, let alone,

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what the scope and scale is.

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So let me get concrete.

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Um, it's really hard to face,

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and yet we can see famine.

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Um, this week there's new news about climate change.

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We can see climate change.

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Um, we can see a financial crisis.

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We might not see it coming,

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but once we're embedded in it, we can certainly see it.

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Structural injustice, covers the broad category

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of all of the institutions

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and the legal processes

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and the informal, ways that we act with one another

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that create the conditions

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for those big harms to take place.

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The famine is a harm, but it's not the injustice.

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The injustice is the, the political, economic

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and social structures of the world that enable that

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to take place when any given person observing

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that would say that's not okay.

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Likewise, climate change.

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Anybody who knows there's climate change

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does not think it's okay.

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But it is very hard for us to observe the forces

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that have created that conditions that make it very hard

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for us to, to take a different course.

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So by structural injustice, I mean those kinds of injustices

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that are more easily seen in their consequences than they

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are in the processes, the institutions that create them.

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I use the metaphor of murmuration, which is

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that beautiful phenomenon you might see if you're out

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walking in na in nature, when you see a group

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of starlings following each other,

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and you might see one cloud go this way

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and one cloud go that way,

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and then all of a sudden they're all, going together

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where there might be one stray one,

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going off toward the horizon alone.

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Why does that happen? Because for a starling,

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there are too many threatening things,

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and it's too much work for us to, for any given bird to

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track all the potential predators, all the opportunities

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for food, which way the weather is going.

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And so each starling is responding to the behaviors

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of the seven starlings around them.

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And as a result, we, they follow each other.

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Um, though they don't have to.

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And as we know by that one who goes off, they can,

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they can come together, they can go apart.

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Why do I use the meta metaphor of murmuration

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to think about structural injustice?

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Because like those starlings,

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we also are embedded in those institutions and

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Practices that make structural injustice happen.

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And we may or may not be aware of how our behaviors,

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our ideas, what we say, influence the seven birds around us,

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influence the people around us.

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And yet they do. And so what I use this metaphor to,

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help us understand is the fact

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that we are embedded in structural injustice.

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It's not something outside us that we can look at.

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We have the capacity to affect change,

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but we may not be aware of either the injustice that cloud

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that we're in or how we can affect change within it.

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Epistemology is a pretty fancy word.

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Um, and, the first time I introduce it,

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say in a classroom, I might say it's, it's

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how you know what you know is fact

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or opinion, right?

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So my epistemology is my way of taking in information

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and sorting it and thinking, that's your opinion.

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That is an important fact.

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And in this political environment, for many people,

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those facts and opinions go so close together.

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It's hard to tell the difference.

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Um, so I think we can all understand that,

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that there is a difference between fact and opinion,

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but we don't always have a handle

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around what that different is.

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So why do I use epistemology

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to talk about structural injustice?

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That would be a reasonable question.

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Well, because you, I'm in that cloud of responding

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to other people's behaviors, one

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of the things I'm responding

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to is the information they give me.

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Am I following the opinion of somebody I agree with,

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or somebody I respect?

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Or am I taking in new information from somebody I don't

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agree with or I haven't had respect for

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and I'm learning something entirely new?

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Both of those things happen to us in real life, and we may

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or may not respond to them,

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in the same way at every given time.

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But how we sort through that, that's our epistemology.

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They are ways in which you

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and I share some epistemological assumptions.

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We have some things that we would both agree

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or fact versus opinion.

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Um, you might think about a football match

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or a soccer match in which,

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a goal clearly is a good goal.

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And then you can think about moments when you've been

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watching a sporting event, when there's some tension

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around whether the referees will agree that

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that was indeed a goal,

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or everybody was where they were supposed

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to be when that that goal took place.

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So, we can all see epistemology at work,

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in those sorts of examples.

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What we may not be aware of is when we share them,

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when we don't share them.

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So, political epistemology is the recognition that a lot

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of what I use to sort out fact and opinion

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and then influence

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My behavior, influence how I'm thinking about things.

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But a lot of that is shared.

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It's shared, shared through my social political

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and economic relations.

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I'm a political theorist, right?

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I think about how we think we should live together

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and over the history of time.

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I don't generally go back too far before Aris bottle.

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Um, but over time, over millennium, we millennia we have

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as a society thought in different ways about

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how we should live together.

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And over that time, in different cultures, we have lots

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of different opinions about we've, we've developed

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and explored lots of different theories.

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Sometimes they come into contact with each other,

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sometimes they have developed independently,

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and it's quite late in their development

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that they come in contact with one another.

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Feminism has had lots

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of moments throughout the history of political thought.

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And at each of those moments, it is a way

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of thinking about how we should live together.

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That sparks maybe a shift in our understandings

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of structural injustice.

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Often initially. Think about those murmuration.

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They don't always come to together.

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Sometimes a murmuration creates two clouds,

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and you see these birds go off in different directions.

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So one of the things that feminism, one

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of the reasons the, the, lemme start again.

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The metaphor of murmuration can help us think about the

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influence of feminism in any given

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area of political thought.

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So imagine, we're sharing a political community

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and somebody experiences something

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and they don't say that's sexist,

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but they resist

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that resistant behavior makes somebody go in one direction.

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And some others say, me too, and they go along too.

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And others say, no, not that.

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And so now we have these two clouds,

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and they may not be that far apart,

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but instead of following one another,

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what we're experiencing is the pushing.

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So feminism, decolonial, political thought,

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post-colonial political thought,

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indigenous political thought.

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Um, Confucian political thought.

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I mean, throughout, throughout political history,

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there are examples of people trying to think differently

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about what they're experiencing in their political time

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and what that means for how we should live together.

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And feminism is one of the ones that has created rifts,

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but it has also created, what would be the right word?

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Flows. It's shifted in a direction.

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Um, we can talk about that generally,

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but we should also think about how that varies by context.

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Once you're talking about an idea like feminism,

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you are no longer in a political theory world.

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You're in the world of people's concrete struggles and they

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Look different by place

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and by time, and by who's around them.

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I came to this one day actually when my stepmother sent me a

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beautiful video of murmuration taking place at the coast.

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Um, I hadn't been using this metaphor prior to that

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to understand this phenomena.

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I have found it since then. So useful.

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It's useful for helping me see what I'm observing.

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New ideas do push our thinking,

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but are they pushing us or pulling us?

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The metaphor of motivations helps us see

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that both things can be happening at once.

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And we can be involved in a, a shared political community

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and think very differently about the

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direction that we should go.

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We might have a conversation to make that shift in a way

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that neither of us feel pushed.

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We're rather pulling each other,

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we're drawing each other to new ideas.

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Or you can see in political communities

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and maybe, if we're thinking about this particular

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political moment, we might see that it looks more divisive,

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than it has at other moments in history.

Understanding Structural Injustice and Its Impact

00:00:00 - Structural injustice describes a category of injustice that is, I'm gonna use a big word, capacious, right? It's those problems that are the most pressing, because it's hard as for many of us to agree on what kind of problem they are, let alone, what the scope and scale is. So let me get concrete. it's really hard to face, and yet we can see famine.

00:00:34 - We can see climate change. we can see a financial crisis. We might not see it coming, but once we're embedded in it, we can certainly see it. Structural injustice, covers the broad category of all of the institutions and the legal processes and the informal, ways that we act with one another that create the conditions

00:01:06 - The famine is a harm, but it's not the injustice. The injustice is the, the political, economic and social structures of the world that enable that to take place when any given person observing that would say that's not okay. Likewise, climate change. Anybody who knows there's climate change does not think it's okay. But it is very hard for us to observe the forces that have created that conditions that make it very hard

Understanding Structural Injustice Through Murmuration

00:01:37 - So by structural injustice, I mean those kinds of injustices that are more easily seen in their consequences than they are in the processes, the institutions that create them. I use the metaphor of murmuration, which is that beautiful phenomenon you might see if you're out walking in na in nature, when you see a group of starlings following each other, and you might see one cloud go this way and one cloud go that way,

00:02:08 - where there might be one stray one, going off toward the horizon alone. Why does that happen? Because for a starling, there are too many threatening things, and it's too much work for us to, for any given bird to track all the potential predators, all the opportunities for food, which way the weather is going. And so each starling is responding to the behaviors of the seven starlings around them.

00:02:39 - though they don't have to. And as we know by that one who goes off, they can, they can come together, they can go apart. Why do I use the meta metaphor of murmuration to think about structural injustice? Because like those starlings, we also are embedded in those institutions and Practices that make structural injustice happen. And we may or may not be aware of how our behaviors, our ideas, what we say, influence the seven birds around us,

Understanding Structural Injustice and Epistemology

00:03:11 - And yet they do. And so what I use this metaphor to, help us understand is the fact that we are embedded in structural injustice. It's not something outside us that we can look at. We have the capacity to affect change, but we may not be aware of either the injustice that cloud that we're in or how we can affect change within it. Epistemology is a pretty fancy word. and, the first time I introduce it, say in a classroom, I might say it's, it's

00:03:47 - or opinion, right? So my epistemology is my way of taking in information and sorting it and thinking, that's your opinion. That is an important fact. And in this political environment, for many people, those facts and opinions go so close together. It's hard to tell the difference. so I think we can all understand that, that there is a difference between fact and opinion,

00:04:16 - around what that different is. So why do I use epistemology to talk about structural injustice? That would be a reasonable question. Well, because you, I'm in that cloud of responding to other people's behaviors, one of the things I'm responding to is the information they give me. Am I following the opinion of somebody I agree with, or somebody I respect? Or am I taking in new information from somebody I don't

Exploring Epistemology and Shared Understanding

00:04:50 - and I'm learning something entirely new? Both of those things happen to us in real life, and we may or may not respond to them, in the same way at every given time. But how we sort through that, that's our epistemology. They are ways in which you and I share some epistemological assumptions. We have some things that we would both agree or fact versus opinion. you might think about a football match or a soccer match in which,

00:05:20 - And then you can think about moments when you've been watching a sporting event, when there's some tension around whether the referees will agree that that was indeed a goal, or everybody was where they were supposed to be when that that goal took place. So, we can all see epistemology at work, in those sorts of examples. What we may not be aware of is when we share them, when we don't share them. So, political epistemology is the recognition that a lot

00:05:55 - and then influence My behavior, influence how I'm thinking about things. But a lot of that is shared. It's shared, shared through my social political and economic relations. I'm a political theorist, right? I think about how we think we should live together and over the history of time. I don't generally go back too far before Aris bottle. but over time, over millennium, we millennia we have

Feminism and the Dynamics of Political Community

00:06:27 - how we should live together. And over that time, in different cultures, we have lots of different opinions about we've, we've developed and explored lots of different theories. Sometimes they come into contact with each other, sometimes they have developed independently, and it's quite late in their development that they come in contact with one another. Feminism has had lots of moments throughout the history of political thought. And at each of those moments, it is a way

00:06:58 - That sparks maybe a shift in our understandings of structural injustice. Often initially. Think about those murmuration. They don't always come to together. Sometimes a murmuration creates two clouds, and you see these birds go off in different directions. So one of the things that feminism, one of the reasons the, the, lemme start again. The metaphor of murmuration can help us think about the influence of feminism in any given

00:07:29 - So imagine, we're sharing a political community and somebody experiences something and they don't say that's sexist, but they resist that resistant behavior makes somebody go in one direction. And some others say, me too, and they go along too. And others say, no, not that. And so now we have these two clouds, and they may not be that far apart, but instead of following one another, what we're experiencing is the pushing.

Feminism and Diverse Political Thought: Contextual Influences on Social Struggles

00:08:02 - post-colonial political thought, indigenous political thought. Confucian political thought. I mean, throughout, throughout political history, there are examples of people trying to think differently about what they're experiencing in their political time and what that means for how we should live together. And feminism is one of the ones that has created rifts, but it has also created, what would be the right word?

00:08:36 - we can talk about that generally, but we should also think about how that varies by context. Once you're talking about an idea like feminism, you are no longer in a political theory world. You're in the world of people's concrete struggles and they Look different by place and by time, and by who's around them. I came to this one day actually when my stepmother sent me a beautiful video of murmuration taking place at the coast.

00:09:12 - to understand this phenomena. I have found it since then. So useful. It's useful for helping me see what I'm observing. New ideas do push our thinking, but are they pushing us or pulling us? The metaphor of motivations helps us see that both things can be happening at once. And we can be involved in a, a shared political community and think very differently about the

Shifting Perspectives: Nurturing Dialogue in Political Communities

00:10:02 - We might have a conversation to make that shift in a way that neither of us feel pushed. We're rather pulling each other, we're drawing each other to new ideas. Or you can see in political communities and maybe, if we're thinking about this particular political moment, we might see that it looks more divisive, than it has at other moments in history.

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