Good Intentions

The book Good Omens tells us that the road to hell is paved not with good intentions but with frozen used car salesmen. I find this immeasurably reassuring.

Human beings are not perfect. We make mistakes, we don't think things through all the way, we work with an incomplete knowledge of circumstances. We also tend to be pretty quick to jump on the defensive.

I am bothered by the current debate on facebook about the breast cancer awareness campaign that has run viral through the social networking site.

It took me a bit to figure out why. At first I thought it was guilt- I had, after all, posted my non-bra color (I was wearing a tank top that day) as my status, though I hadn't passed the message along about why I'd done so. I'd even thought about going and putting on a bra just so I could post something ridiculous and appropriate to my sexy self. My grandmother and some of my former campers are facebook friends with me, however, so I resisted temptation.

No, I realized, it wasn't guilt. Or even embarrassment. I'm not a particularly private person, though I wish I could be myself and still have my personal life private, and this particular form of activism was something I was comfortable with. I've seen images of the bras decorated by artists to create awareness, I remember the time a Bryn Mawr group filled our campus center with bras for this very reason. Bras are a classic symbol of feminist activism, and have come to have meaning for the fight against breast cancer.

So. I hear the criticism- that breast cancer affects those who do not wear bras. That it's an obnoxiously gender specific campaign enforcing a gender binary we disagree with. That it's perhaps annoying voyeuristic.

Yet in my head what I see is whoever started this campaign. And I wonder. Why? Were they an idealist or being pragmatic (or, let's allow the possibility), obnoxious? They've certainly made people think about breast cancer, and that was supposedly the point. The critiques that have been made are part of an important debate and open the door for meaningful discussion.

Has whoever began this seen the critiques? Are they embarrased and disillusioned, or excited to have been the spark for discourse? What have they said to their friends, and their friends said to them, over the last couple of days? Are they pleased and proud, or angry and hurt?

The anonymity of the internet can be very frustrating, and things can so easily become what they were never meant to be.

I think whoever began this had good intentions, and I don't think anything has gone to hell.

Whoever you are, I salute you.

Oh, and black lace, in case you're curious.