Small Strokes Big Oaks

s.e. smith over at this ain’t livin’ posted an awesome post the other day about the difference between critiquing institutions and critiquing the individuals that are a part of those institutions.  Here’s a brief part from the post:

Yet, somehow, we need to figure out a way to do that. We need to be able to have structural discussions about our society which do not devolve into people complaining about personal attacks and lashing out, or people attacking people simply for being who they are. And a big part of that, quite honestly, is for everyone to get a little bit less self centred in these discussions, to recognise that, well, not everything is about them. Even if it seems like it is. Even if it feels like a personal attack to hear that you have privilege. (Read the full post here.)

This post was great, and said it much better than I could have.  I read this post just after I posted my thoughts on bride-bashing, and I think s.e. smith touches on some of the same issues here.  Attacking an institution should be different than attacking the individuals in that institution, except when those individuals are actively working to uphold said institution.  I’ll stop here because smith’s post says it better than I ever could.  So go read it!