Okay, I’m going to weigh in on the big Brown Bag Controversy. I was on vacation when it blew up, and it was tapering off when I got back.

Chalicechick asked some good questions today. I just dropped off a comment there, but I want to offer a meta comment here.

It feels to me that the subtext for this whole debate is whether or not oppression is the defining fact of human experience, whether all other descriptions of our species’ life together are less important descriptions than oppression. What other descriptions? Descriptions like progress, enlightenment, tragedy, hubris, and more.

Why should oppression count more than than the others?

And then there’s the question of which oppression is worse. Racism? Sexism? Ableism? Heterosexism? The list of ways we’re shitty to each other goes on and on.

But why should oppression—whatever its iteration—count more? Why should oppression be the lens we use settle all debates?

It’s not a matter of fact that oppression should. When Melissa Mummert felt uncomfortable—or awkward or stunned or silenced, etc.—by the faculty member’s announcement about the brown bag lunch name change, there was a room full of people who were being told that oppression was the most important lens for describing human experience. A decision had been made on that basis, for that place and time.

But it is not descriptively true that oppression is the best description of human experience.

To say that it is the best one—however we reason it out, even when done so with great integrity—is an act of faith, and of choice, not of reason. Just like it would be for anyone to choose tragedy or hubris as the best description of human shittiness. Or to choose progress or enlightenment as the best way to solve the problem of human shittiness.

Once you have chosen your lens, every other reason you accept or reject is colored by that choice. We can still reason with each other. We can still change our minds. And we can certainly still learn from each other as we gather new experiences. But there isn’t an obviously true answer to this question.

And that’s what’s been at stake these last two weeks: whether Unitarian Universalism has already made its decision about which lens to use.

As I sat in the bleachers that week, it seemed that we were talking past each other because of this. From the bleachers, it looked like some folks had made a decision that oppression was the final arbiter, at least when it came to this decision. It looked like others felt that oppression wasn’t and brought other values out to front and center.

I don’t think anyone thinks that any of those value are not valuable. But the tension seemed to be about whether anti-oppression work was more valuable than other of our values. And whether or not that decision had already been made.

Not that I haven’t already spent my two cents, but here is my unsolicited advice:

A) When you’ve made a choice about which description of human experience is the best one, own it. Claim your decision. Speak from your experience and reason and story about why you believe that’s true. But be up front that it’s your decision. Don’t force it on anyone else. But do tell them all about it.

B) It can be a brave and courageous thing to make that leap of faith. Take care that your leap of faith is brave and courageous and true to your story, not someone else’s.

C) If you haven’t made a decision about which lens you reach for first, you don’t have to. But a lot of people have, and there’s probably something to learn from that. And vice versa. And maybe you have already made that decision but just haven’t realized it yet. By your fruit you will know yourself.

D) Whether you’ve made that decision or not, understand that when someone prefers a lens, they’ll have a hard time switching lenses on the fly. It’s disorienting. Hell, even if you haven’t picked a certain lens, it’s still hard to switch them out on the fly. So be kind as you offer them a hand with their lenses.