Are You Guilty Of The 'Repugnant Cultural Other'?

I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

Here were comments on social media about gay people: derogatory comments, made by Christians. It was just awful.

Earlier that day a gay friend had confided how painful the postal vote had been for her and her friends. And with comments like these flying around, I could understand why.

Now, I think changing the Marriage Act was a subject worth debating. The truth matters – immensely – and we should discuss it in public. But these particular comments went beyond fair debate. They were just demeaning.

And yet, lest I point the finger at fellow Christians, I need only remember some of my comments in the past (and not so recent past!) toward those I disagreed with.

Well, in God’s providence, I’ve been reading a book addressing this problem. The book is called  How to Think – a Guide for the Perplexed, by Christian author and academic Alan Jacobs.[1]

In it, he describes this phenomenon of looking down on people we disagree with – what he calls the ‘Repugnant Cultural Other’.[2]

And in our social-media fueled outrage culture, it’s worth reflecting on what he says:

1) We All Have People We View As ‘Repugnant Cultural Others’ (RCO's)

Jacobs writes:

Everyone today seems to have an RCO, and everyone's RCO is on social media somewhere. We may be able to avoid listening to our RCO, but we can't avoid the realization that he or she is there, shouting from two rooms away.'[3]

Jacobs writes from a post-Trump US perspective. But much the same phenomena seems to be happening here: each one of us sees a group of other people as ‘repugnant’ to some degree. For example, many gay people might view Evangelical Christians as RCO's. Sadly, the reverse can often be the case. Those on the Left view conservatives as anti-everything-good repugnant. And all too often the favour is repayed by conservatives.[4]

And let’s face it, you don’t exactly write the nicest comments or say the friendliest things about people you see as ‘repugnant’. No wonder there’s so much outrage on social and mainstream media.

2) The Blinding Effect Of Viewing Someone as an RCO

Viewing another person as a ‘Repugnant Cultural Other’ has negative consequences. Jacobs writes:

This is a profoundly unhealthy situation... it prevents us from recognizing others as our neighbors - even when they are quite literally our neighbors. If I'm consumed by this belief that that person over there is both Other and Repugnant, I may never discover that my favorite television program is also his favorite television program; that we like some of the same books, though not for precisely the same reasons; that we both know what it's like to nurse a loved one through a long illness. [5]

In other words, if we judge people mainly by their particular social/political/religious view, we risk de-humanising them. We risk forgetting they’re whole human beings: image bearer’s of God (just like us). And if we see them as less than human, we’ll treat them as less than human.

And the cohesiveness of our society is all the poorer for it.

But as Christians, there’s an even deeper reason why viewing people as RCO’s is wrong.

3) Why God Doesn’t Want Us To View Others As RCO’s

Christ came to earth not to rage against the Repugnant Cultural Other, but to rescue them.

If the New Testament teaches us anything, it’s that we’re to rage against the serpent, not against his prey.[6] Our ultimate battle isn’t against flesh and blood human beings: it’s against the spiritual powers of evil, who have blinded people to the truth of the gospel (Eph 6:12; 2 Cor 4:1-4).

To put this another way, Jesus Christ died for those we see as the ‘Repugnant Cultural Other’: he came to earth not to rage against them, but to rescue them. And if we’re serious about following in the footsteps of the Crucified and Risen King, then we have no option but to build bridges of gracious love even with those we consider RCO’s. Whether they be LGBTI, Muslims, New Atheists, or Socialists.

(Oh, and Jesus did say we shouldn’t expect the same treatment: persecution and misunderstanding is the norm for disciples of the crucified Messiah.)

But it's not just the New Testament that has problems with seeing people as RCO's.

4) Wisdom From a Surprising Quarter

What some LGBTI people can teach us about relating to those we disagree with.

We can learn how to deal with an RCO obsessed culture from some surprising quarters – including prominent members of the LGBTI community.

In April 2014, a group of fifty-eight well-known supporters of same-sex marriage issued a statement titled 'Freedom to Marry, Freedom to Dissent: Why We Must Have Both.' The statement denounced the "deeply illiberal impulse" to mute objectors to same-sex marriage, and called such efforts "both wrong in principle and poor as politics." Referring specifically to the targeting of Mozilla's Brendon Eich for his beliefs, the statement drew an important historical parallel:

We strongly believe that opposition to same-sex marriage is wrong, but the consequence of holding a wrong opinion should not be the loss of a job. Inflicting such consequences on others is sadly ironic in light of our movement's hard-won victory over a social order in which LGBT people were fired, harassed, and socially marginalized for holding unorthodox opinions.'[7]

Seeing people as RCO’s can lead to their marginalisation (as the Christian owners of wedding magazine White found out when they were targeted by pro-SSM activists). But as these LGBTI leaders have pointed out, that pushes our society to a place we shouldn't go.

Update: Fairfax columnist and pro-SSM advocate Duncan Fine made similar comments about the harassment of White magazine:

So we can't nail our (rainbow) colours of pluralism and diversity to the mast and then say to a venture like White magazine that it cannot follow its conscience...The last thing we should be doing is sitting in judgement, angrily shutting down voices that we disagree with.

5) An Important Way Forward:  Understand Your RCO

So, if we all have people we view as ‘Repugnant Cultural Others’, and if viewing them as RCO's is bad on so many levels (socially, and spiritually), how do we move forward?

Jacobs offers a suggestion:

One of the classic ways to [overcome hate towards those we deem 'Repugnant Cultural Others'] is to seek out the best - the smartest, most sensible, most fair-minded - representatives of the positions you disagree with.[8]

At this point you might be thinking: A fairminded person who believes the opposite to me on topic ‘X’ doesn’t exist. They’re all intellectually and morally bankrupt!

In which case, we don’t need to engage, we don’t need to think:  we need only lob verbal hand grenades online (especially if they’re returning the favour).

But as I’ve found out first hand, whenever I engage a (thoughtful) representative of a group I viewed as an RCO, I quickly realise they’re not quite so deficient. They’re full-orbed human beings just like me:  for whom Jesus died. And instead of burning bridges, opportunities are opening up to build them.

And that’s a much better way ahead. Both in terms of honouring God, for whom He sent His Only Son into the world. And socially, where fragmentation and tribalism is increasingly tearing our society apart.   

[1] Alan Jacobs, How To Think – A Guide For the Perplexed (London: Profile Books, 2017).

[2] It’s a term he appropriates from an anthropologist called Susan Friend Harding, who published an essay on this phenomenon of the Repugnant Cultural Other. See Susan Harding, “Representing Fundamentalism: The Problem of the Repugnant Cultural Other,” Social Research 58, no.2 (Summer 1991): 373-93.

[3] Jacobs, How To Think, 27.

[4] I should note that while those on opposite sides of the cultural and political divide might view one another this way, a growing element of the Secular Left is happy to take this repugnance further, and bully/shut down their opponents.

[5] Jacobs, How To Think, 27. Emphasis added.

[6] Many thanks to Christian theologian and commentator Russell Moore for this pity phrase.

[7] This section is taken from John D. Inazu, Confident Pluralism – Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 114.

[8] Jacobs, How To Think, 76.