In a world of conformity and dissent, the middle ground is hard to appreciate and it’s constantly moving one way or the other. People blog their heads off just like people spout out nonsense. Voices include those of the Howard Sterns, diplomats, advocates, thoughtful people, trolls, and all those people on their off days. Opening the browser and looking for opinions will lead quickly to a cause, a voice of a stranger proposing that something in this world could be a little better somehow.
Who doesn’t want babies to be raised in wanted homes? In simple scenarios, the answers are so obvious. Every little human should have the best odds to be a big human. Every ethnic, cultural, or flavor of person should be granted as much leverage as possible to achieve the baseline goals everyone should aspire to: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Of course, there is something greater than humans in the universe: Planets for one. Of course, people should make smart well informed decisions that lead to not only their enlightenment, but the enlightenment of their peers and children as well. All of that is so simple it’s ridiculous.
Then all of the sudden those goals clash. People start thinking for themselves. Sometimes this is great and leads to innovation and epiphanies everyone can benefit from and sometimes there’s a greedy L.Ron Hubbard behind it all leaving the detached observer with a slightly foul taste for freedom of thought. Some people find ways to be inclusive and uplifting all at once, some people focus on inclusiveness to the point that everyone is left out, and some people decide they were better surrounded by homogeneity where the rules were clearly defined. Christopher Hutchens defaces disagreeable propaganda and gets beaten up. Am I to agree with Chris’s reason for being there, the beat down because sometimes Hutchens is intolerable, or cop out with the standard that beat downs are bad and demonstrably worse than writing on propaganda?
So people mix rules with ideal. The constitution gets a bill of rights. People should have freedoms but those freedoms are limited just as the rules are limited. The rules are the rules but there are so many instances where a rule breaker is a bona fide hero or at the very least someone who knows who they are better than I know who I am. There are probably more cases of the rules being broken for selfish and silly reasons.
When the focus is on rules, then the focus seems also to be on conformity. People have to play by the same rules or else the game falls apart. If my neighbors are socially destructive serial killers, then their rights are not very important to me. The people have to be enough like me where I can trust the rules to be upheld. And the rules are adjustable because after inspection some rules just aren’t very good just as others require more detail to get the job done. This job is informed by ideals.
When the focus is on ideals, then the focus seems to be on dissension. In order for you to be yourself, you have to be free to do things I would disapprove of. Because clearly, I do what makes sense for me and you are doing things differently. What do I care if you want to own guns? It’s a waste, but if you play by the rules you won’t shoot anybody. I can’t assume you will kill before you do, it’s not fair. I wouldn’t want that ray of pre-guilt to shine in my direction. Say anything you want including istic language, you’ll pay the price in social currency but you will preserve the essence of the freedoms I enjoy when I disagree with dogmatic practices in other venues such as government, or religion.
That sounds great and simple but then we run into the systematic cumulative effects of rules and ideals. Ideals inform rules. Some ideals suggest blindly following rules and others suggest blind dissension. All the sudden all the ideals and the rules in the world have added up to the created disadvantage of a type of people now relegated to other status. Then people still left in the in crowd spread notions reinforcing why those other people are other. That person is just sensitive.
Then the position is clearly wild. What can I say that will never offend someone and at the same time allow the expression of who I am in a temporal and fluid way? Nothing. This is because some viewpoints are just wrong and offending the holders is a byproduct of discussing the failings of those viewpoints. This is because sometimes I am wrong and I need to have my comfort zone removed along when the appropriate clarity is provided. And this is because I would rather know what my fellow people are thinking than live in the illusion of conformity.
Besides, I like being disagreeable somehow someway. That reinforces my self-perception as being more than willing to think for myself and to stumble through sensitive subjects until they make sense to me. I won’t provide quarter I don’t believe in. I will lie in social circles when I feel fitting in is the bigger purpose or I’ve judged my peers for the moment as being incapable of an intellectual. And I want you to be your gay self, your female self, your self of a different culture. We’ll find ways to handle the ways that we clash. Some jokes will be insensitive and funny because we recognize the characterization as absurd while simultaneously extending unwavering support for the individual. I won’t support your racist language, but I will give you a ride to work if you need one. And I do expect you to be you until the point you realize you need to change. I do expect you to vocalize your dissent because I want a world where dissent is possible and encouraged. I want the best ideas to win even if they aren’t mine.
And I’ll take my belief that all meaning is relative, and all truths are worthy of review and put them against yours any day. I’ll open my mind as wide as I possibly can. I’ll exercise all the freewill that I can even though I can’t prove that I have freewill and I can see clear limits that must exist. It’s not that God doesn’t exist and Islam is wrong, it’s that I can’t see why we jump to conclusions so faithfully because I love to hear the voice of disagreement and discussion. And I can’t help but see the world through my rosy colored glasses, look at my bloodshot eyes; world, you think way too many things for me to just be agreeing and you come up with too many advances for me to ignore them all.
It’s all fun and games until I’m suicide bombed, and until then get your vocalization on.
Word.
