We’re all a little toxic

Good versus evil. Oppressed versus oppressor. Which are we?

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Good versus evil. Oppressed versus oppressor. Bad versus good. Black versus white.

These are the narratives we become accustomed to through Western pop culture. In every Disney film, we see a hero in a villain. We learn that some things are inherently good and some are bad. When we categorize the world and see things as only good or only bad, we are practising black-and-white thinking. There’s comfort in this. There is comfort in labels and knowing. When we convince ourselves that we are good we feel satisfied about who we are. We learn to look at life through binaries, rarely indulging ourselves in the nuance of heroes with their own internal struggles and pitfalls.

When someone is not acting like a good friend, family member or coworker according to our standards, we label them as toxic. They have become bad and we are the good. And like most Insta-therapy posts will tell us, we do not have to be around toxicity. We should cut the toxic people out of their lives because they are not good and we are.

And in some cases, this may be true. But what happens when the toxic person is your mother, who raised you the best she could, but trauma and patriarchal challenges get in the way of a relationship? What if it’s your best friend of eight years who said something that rubbed you the wrong way and then suddenly their behaviours began to see him as not so good? Is it possible that they just become toxic out of nowhere, or were they always toxic? Or what about the toxic coworker who recently lost their father and suffers from mental illness? Or when the toxic oppressor is the Jewish people fighting for their right to exist?

When we are so hell-bent on defining others as toxic, we often bypass our own toxicity. Isn’t it toxic to cut off without communicating with them? Is it toxic to walk away from someone who is struggling with their mental health so that you can protect yours? Is it toxic to call Jewish Peoples oppressors when history has shown that suffering, genocide and being forced to hide or assimilate are inherent to the Jewish experience? Is it possible that certain combinations of people are toxic?

How do we reconcile with the things we do that are toxic or the people we admire who do something toxic? How do we reconcile with the superheroes that had to commit murder to win? The ugly wars that were fought for freedom? The great artists speakers and researchers, who did great work but maybe weren’t very good family members are friends?

In real life, we all have the capacity to be heroes, but there is also a villainous side inherent to all heroes. Heroes are often villainized at their time. Heroes are often not inherently peaceful. Let’s look at some other examples.

• Most of us can agree that slavery is bad. But when the shirt we ordered from Shein comes in the mail, many in the U.S. cannot see the suffering that transpired to create it, and so we do not see ourselves as bad for buying it. Shein, of course, makes clothing more accessible to people who cannot afford to buy from ethical sustainable shops, and also for plus-size people who have limited options. Does this mean marginalized communities of poor and fat people are bad for buying from Shein, which engages in forced labour of people in internment camps? Are the influencers who do $300 Shein hauls evil? What if they didn’t know? What if they know but do it anyway?

• Most of us believe that nature is inherently all ‘peace and love.’ But nature is filled with thousands of millions of plants and animals that are toxic, literally. The rough-skinned newt is the most poisonous amphibian in B.C. They produce a powerful neurotoxin, which is a very effective defence against predators. When threatened, they will raise their heads, showing off the bright yellow belly as a warning of their toxicity. These newts are toxic, but they’re doing it for self-defence? Pollution, such as herbicides, can be detrimental to newts since toxins are easily absorbed through their skin. Are we the toxic ones for polluting so much that we are killing toxic newts?

• Canada and the United States have gotten rich from exploiting resources mainly located in other countries. This has happened through an overuse of oil and gas. Many in the West have been lifted out of poverty from this resource exploitation. Many countries in the global south need fossil fuels for energy. Is it toxic or unethical for these countries to use fossil fuels, knowing how much damage they have already caused to the planet? Here is one argument.

• In many Jewish stories, the superhero is also the villain. Readers are exposed to greatness, but also fundamental character flaws.

What these toxic situations have in common is that there is nuance. To some of us, there may be a clear answer. To those of us who choose to engage with nuance instead of categorizing things into black and white, there may be a multitude of answers. It’s easy for the masses to buy into the narrative of good vs bad. And glorify the goodness so much that we do not see the toxicity within it.

All of us have moments from our lives that we may not be proud of. Maybe we did them out of obligation self-protection or trauma patterns. But really, it doesn’t matter why. Because at the end of the day, toxic behaviour is toxic behaviour.

Except that we are all toxic. Knowing this, we should come to terms with the things that we have done and learn from them. Only from acceptance can we grow. Only from knowing that most situations are not as simple as good and bad, can we accept that all goodness comes at a cost. And we can also stop fixating on past mistakes and bad things we have done. Because the reality is that we will do toxic things no matter how hard we try to be good people.

Does that mean we should not consider others or care about them? No. But it does mean we should absolve ourselves from trying to be the saviours of society. We must recognize that our narrative of goodness may have some toxicity weaved into it. That the story we are telling ourselves about righteous goodness is not reality, but a narrative. It doesn’t matter what our skin colour is our gender identity what our religion is what we identify as. The reality is that all of us are a little toxic. We are great friends and bad family members great citizens and bad ones. That’s part of the nature of being human.