Identity and Humanity
The idea that only people from X group can talk about things related to that group, and everyone else has to just shut up, is not a workable or positive one. It seems to be partly based on a weak assumption that everyone from X group is the same... and they have little in common with anyone not in X group.
It's not possible for us to fully and completely understand the range of experiences, situations, views, physical inclinations or habits of all the people from the group we mostly closely identify with. Is there, for an example, a transgender person somewhere who knows EVERYTHING about what every other transgender person feels and thinks and does? Surely not all transgender people or Indian people or black people etc are the exactly the same.
The best that anyone from that group can do is to try to further their understanding, deepen their empathy. and have their voice heard. But this applies to every other human being too, even the ones not identified as being part of X group. We can all be in the process of furthering understanding, deepening empathy. And part of that means being able to talk about it, write about it, give your views... as well as listen, read, observe and reflect.
As 'The Incredible String Band' once sang:
"Back then we made our own entertainment.. by going to the pictures."
Intellectuals
Here is an interesting thing. I had a ‘debate’ on facebook with a guy whose work is:
'Critical Thinking Teacher/ Academic Writing Teacher' at a university.
The title is highly ironic and he displayed precious few of any of the skills he is supposed to be teaching, not in our conversation anyway. He was a supporter of capitalism, which is, in my view, already quite antithetical to being a critical thinker. But not inherently. It’s just that most people who support capitalism blind themselves to various criticism of it, and don’t understand what it is, or what communism is or what anarchism is. Most don’t appear to have applied much critical thinking to the issues. Still, it is possible to be good at critical thinking AND support capitalism.
However, his actual replies to my points about Russia not being ‘really’ communist were very silly and weak. They kind of level of analysis and consideration that would shame a 1st year student, never mind a university teacher. He also ignored my main points which does not seem to be a very academic way to approach writing. Even school essays tell us to make our answer relevant to the question and subject and to cover the issue fully. Ignoring key aspects altogether loses us marks.
It’s disappointing how few people who have PhDs or are university teachers or writers or journalists etc display impressive intellectual habits and attitudes.