Social Giving, a Popular Practice?

When I first thought of this blog topic, I pictured it as a two-parter, exploring a religious theme and then applying it to real-life examples. It's Remembrance Day themed though, and blogs take time, so we'll streamline those ideas and everyone will be better off for it.

Religious organizations create a strong sense of community, by which I mean people willing to do a lot for one another. As others have noted before me, it's common to require certain practices of members in order to show commitment to the groups and strengthen the community ties. In practice, these requirements fall along a spectrum, but I'm going to divide them into some neat categories to talk about them. I'll focus on things that I might see in a Catholic church, because I think it works well.

1. When congregants meet each other, they might shake hands and ask each other about how the week went. These are social norms. The norms might be different across times and cultures (you might replace hand-shakes with a bow if you live in Southeast Asia, or if there's a pandemic), but within a culture they are very natural and extend beyond the group. Social norms score high in social impact, but low in signalling.

2. Congregants might sing together, and take communion. These are group activities. Group activities are usually easy to differentiate from social norms because they aren't accessible for outgroup members. They are the main purpose of the group, and generally it's only expected for group members to perform them, although it wouldn't be hard for outsiders to follow along. If you don't want to say Hail Mary's, then you don't want to be Catholic. Group activities have medium social impact, and medium signalling.

3. You are expected to cross yourself with holy-water when entering a sanctuary, and bow to the Virgin Mary on approaching the front (apologies if I've forgotten details from my Catholic high school). This is social giving (I'll explain the name later). The difference between social giving and group activities can be much fuzzier. Social giving is "weirder", and tend to be a side note to the actual tasks being performed. They are shibboleths that are harder for outsiders to know. As you might guess, I assign them low social impact, high social signalling.

So that's social norms, group activities, and social giving. The reason I chose the term "social giving" is that I wanted an overtly positive term if I'm assigning low social impact and high signalling. These designations seem bad, but there's a lot of community cohesion that comes around sharing group rituals together. I am often skeptical of such practices, but I don't want my language to colour the conclusion.

Now to the controversial part, assigning real world examples to this rubric.

---

My name is Jasper Woodard, I love trans people, I am not a pacifist and I value the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers.

That summarizes some of my beliefs, but it does seem a little blunt, doesn't it? I want to explore the value of having pronouns in your title/bio and of wearing a poppy for Remembrance Day.

I have observed both to varying degrees. I only have my pronoun in the bio of one discord channel that I very rarely use, but I'll share them gamely in a circle when people ask (I use the twitter derived "bio" for this phrase, but it applies to emails, zoom, etc...). I didn't wear a poppy much, then later I would only wear it to group events. In recent years, though, it's fair to say that I do wear a poppy and I don't have pronouns in my bio. Almost certainly this is because most people similar to me wear a poppy, while those same people mostly don't display their pronouns. I want to do the "correct" thing, though. So what's the answer? Last year I decided that if I didn't but my pronouns anywhere (and I didn't want to) then I should stop wearing a poppy, and I have not worn a poppy this year.

There are two reasons that I immediately think of for not wanting pronouns in my bio. The first is that a lot of gender ideologues seem misguided and "pushy". If you're going to tell me that biological sex isn't real because sea sponges don't have penises and women go through menopause, then I'm not ending my email with he/him. If this is the case, though, I definitely have to stop wearing a poppy. You want to talk about an organization with bad apples and bad arguments, look at military members. This is partly from personal experience and reading military memoirs, but Canada has had specific cases of military sexual harassment and white supremacists filling the news of late. And when I say white supremacist, I don't mean "I like Elvis", I mean "I'm going to convert military members to a fascist organization that literally translates to Al Qaeda".

So that brings me to the main reason why I don't want pronouns in my bio: It just seems so... performative. I dig the idea of asking people's pronouns, and I've done it myself. Most noticeably, there was a mench name "JD" who had abnormally parted hair that was longer on one side. They spoke with a bit of an affect, and wore androgenous clothes. Unsurprisingly they preferred they/them pronouns, but I was legitimately happy to know and unsure beforehand. They were super happy to be asked, and immediately returned the compliment to ask my mine.

And here's where I lose the thread a bit. That's the point where I start to feel like I'm bowing in front of the Virgin Mary so that I can drink human blood that has been prayed to just right. I'm a tall, bearded, short-haired guy with a moderately deep voice and a fairly masculine name. I could prefer "they/them" pronouns, I absolutely could, but I'd be making a political point by doing it. I pretty obviously haven't rejected gender roles in any way that I would describe as "non-conforming". It also doesn't matter that I'm cis. I used to have dinner with a trans friend and I asked her for her pronouns the first time I met her. But she was in very feminine clothes and wearing long hair with too much lipstick. When I get confused by her deep voice and ask for pronouns, I'm being rude, not courteous, as Contrapoints once tweeted to widespread disapproval.

It's worth saying that I know several people who conform to gender pretty straightforwardly and still list "they/them" pronouns. Hot take, but this is at least partially an ideological stance and I'm not even sure if they would disagree. That's A-okay, I actually don't have a problem with Catholics bowing to the Virgin Mary. The weak version of the ideological take might even just be that we should feel comfortable calling everybody "they" and I could even be talked into that in some contexts.

This seems to less obviously track onto poppy wearing. My declaring that people can use he/him pronouns around me is a symbolic gesture masquerading as a political stance. The poppy is at least explicit that it is just a symbol. I think the critique of the poppy as a political stance is best made by the late Robert Fisk, which is worth a read if you haven't yet.

This brings me back to my original groupings. To me, poppy wearing seems like more of a group activity, and sharing my pronouns, especially by my voice coming out of my face, seems like social giving. That doesn't mean that one is good and one is bad. It just means the signalling value of using pronouns is higher than the signalling value of wearing a poppy. That would change if the relative number of people using each were to change, or if the ambiguity of gender were more in question.

Reflecting on what I've written, I think I want to move forward with moderate levels of each signalling technique. i.e. Wear a poppy when it is requested (a Remembrance Day service, singing in a choir), and do likewise with pronouns (before sharing in circle, talking in left-wing places). Be on the lookout for places where gender is ambiguous and pronouns less performative (The first email? Anonymous groups?). Using pronouns there will require some thought, because I'm okay with signalling, but the issue has become so charged that it's hard to control the signal sent. In many cases phrases like "I value the military" or "I love trans people" might actually be better.

---

Finally, I skipped over an earlier argument for the sake of flow. I claimed that some gender activists can be "pushy". That's a subjective term, but I think it describes a commonly described feeling that I also experience. Within my current setting, I absolutely feel that if I push back against a variety of genuinely crazy gender claims my future employment opportunities could suffer. References matter, and for that, the referee's opinions matter.

But the military has long held the cake for that. Opposing the military in the wrong context can get you defenestrated in a nanosecond. True, that's less likely in the university context, but I'm basing my opinion of a movement based on it's impacts on the world and on the discourse in general, not just it's impact on me. In other words, fuck Don Cherry.

When it becomes unacceptable for outsiders to opt out of either group activities or social giving, then I'm out. Someone is always making these dumb arguments, and you can't opt out of everything on this principle, but I will take my best stand when a fringe issue becomes too hegemonic. It's too complicated an issue for the end of this post, because I do think employers should be allowed to mandate that their employees where poppies or display pronouns in certain contexts, but there's still a libertarian principle here to defend.

I realize that's two posts in a row touching at least tangentially on trans issues. What can I say, it's all over the culture and it's an interesting topic.