Time for another edition of "Blackjack tries to figure out the nonsense of the world"
Recently it's come to my attention that I seem to have a vastly different system of importance than others seem to. People think it strange that I place so much importance on justice to the point where I'd be willing to endanger myself for it. Yet to me it's only natural. Others talk about "oh well what about your family?" and I think "wow. People would rather live in injustice and never stand up for what they believe in, thus teaching their family to do the same and thus continue the whole process, rather than put themselves at risk for what's right?"
It seems so alien to me that people would choose personal safety over a greater sociatal good. And it also seems alien to me that really the only major form we have of a greater cause over personal safety is armed forces. Which, of course, isn't really for a greater sociatal good anyway, as it takes people away from the everyday life and trains them to kill whoever the government tells them to. Which is pretty much the opposite of what I'm talking about. How odd then that armed services are considered normal, even admirable, while putting yourself at risk over things like social status or discrimination are considered risks not worth taking. Seems to me the priorities are all screwed up.
I remember I talked a while ago about how I don't feel a part of any culture, and someone said that white people tend to feel that way. But the closest cultures I regularly see are Italian and French--both usually white. The whole concept of a culture makes no sense to me. It's common traits, behaviors, clothing, and foods linked together by physical proximity and whatever happens to be around. That doesn't sound like anything all that important to me. That sounds like trying to find meaning in coincidence. These people happened to live in this spot for a while so they developed these things. What meaning does that have? Doesn't sound like anything to me. Why try to cling to it? Why try to keep people from partaking of your coincidence just because they had a different coincidence? We hear that "othering" is bad, but to say "you can take from any culture but ours" is just self-othering. And it confuses even the vague and unspecified concept of "culture" with the somewhat more solid but still vague concept of "race", because apparently I as a white person can take from any European culture, even those I don't belong to. How is me taking from, say, Irish or Finnish any different than me taking from, say, Indian or Japanese or Egyptian? I don't belong to any of those cultures, but it seems so arbitrary that I can take from those if I happen to bear a vague physical resemblance to the majority in them.
Like, ethnically I'm Russian, Romanian, and French. Personally I'm American, specifically Midwesterner. But I don't feel like any of them. I have no connection to Russia, Romania, or France, and I feel the same living on the west coast than I did in Indiana. Which is interesting because I tend to skew extremely liberal, which is what Portland tends towards, but Indiana is incredibly conservative. That ought to indicate different cultures, right? So why do things feel the same to me here as there? Is it because I see through people's rhetoric and just see the same misanthropic world I always have?
And if the issue of taking from other cultures is based on "you can't take from any your cultures have historically oppressed", then I shouldn't be able to take from...well, pretty much anybody in the area surrounding Russia, since they oppressed a LOT of their neighbors. Polish would be right out, as would anything in Scandinavia...and let's not forget internal oppression, in which case all three of those would eliminate themselves and I'd be left with nothing. Heck, if you want to really cut this to the line, I wouldn't even be able to take from American culture because of the Cold War (despite my ancestors having lived in the US for about fifty years before that even started).
I had a runin with the same loon who called me racist before. Now she's calling me sexist because I said that men have a right to feminist safe spaces. Does she think that men can't be feminists? Because that's pretty sexist right there. She's accusing me of "whataboutthemenz" thinking, with a bizarre ability to pull things I never said nor implied out of thin air and disregard anything I *do* say. Frankly, every victim of anything should be able to speak up, and if they feel oppressed and need a safe space to do it in, they should be able to go to any safe space and do so. Man, she would have HATED the womens' resource center at my college, since they had several male employees. Apparently they had no right to be there and they should stay away from anything female! Who knew! (edit later: now she's actually using her disability as a cover! I didn't think people actually DID that! She's insulting me for how DARE I use "idiot" about a disabled person! Despite there being no way for me to know this! Apparently this is some terrible thing despite us having one of the SAME DISABILITIES.)
But that brings me to another topic. Gender feels so incredibly alien to me as well. Hormones don't dictate who we are, do they? Is that really that commonplace that a happenstance of birth will define you? That seems irregular, like it ought to be incredibly uncommon, almost unheard of. And yet almost everybody is. Why? I don't feel like a female. But I know I wouldn't feel like a male either. My body is just there to carry my mind around. It's secondary. It's not who I as a person, as a thinking being, am. It's just a body. Why is that so important? Why is that above experience and deed? Aren't those the true definitions of what makes a person? Why are those considered so remote, away from the primary form? It's just a form. A framework. Something unimportant. To link action to it, to link likes to it, to link personality to it...why? Why connect such distant and unrelated points? Why establish standards based on body? Why divide society into bodies? Bodies aren't people. They're sacks of meat and bone.
I mean sure, from a scientific standpoint, brains are just sacks of neurons, but the brain is the real self. It's where our experiences and personalities are stored. It's where WE are stored. And to base things on the body before the personality even begins to develop is just strange. Just useless, just self-defeating, just divisive.
I've always loved the idea of androgyny, and at first I thought that was just because I grew up in the 1980s, but it goes beyond fashion or music stars. It just makes SENSE, because we *aren't* our bodies, and to define identity on them is such a bizarre concept.
I seem to have moved a long way from my starting point. But I guess it all boils down to "the world sucks and their arbitrary rules are stupid".
Plus I have a meme to post.
It seems so alien to me that people would choose personal safety over a greater sociatal good. And it also seems alien to me that really the only major form we have of a greater cause over personal safety is armed forces. Which, of course, isn't really for a greater sociatal good anyway, as it takes people away from the everyday life and trains them to kill whoever the government tells them to. Which is pretty much the opposite of what I'm talking about. How odd then that armed services are considered normal, even admirable, while putting yourself at risk over things like social status or discrimination are considered risks not worth taking. Seems to me the priorities are all screwed up.
I remember I talked a while ago about how I don't feel a part of any culture, and someone said that white people tend to feel that way. But the closest cultures I regularly see are Italian and French--both usually white. The whole concept of a culture makes no sense to me. It's common traits, behaviors, clothing, and foods linked together by physical proximity and whatever happens to be around. That doesn't sound like anything all that important to me. That sounds like trying to find meaning in coincidence. These people happened to live in this spot for a while so they developed these things. What meaning does that have? Doesn't sound like anything to me. Why try to cling to it? Why try to keep people from partaking of your coincidence just because they had a different coincidence? We hear that "othering" is bad, but to say "you can take from any culture but ours" is just self-othering. And it confuses even the vague and unspecified concept of "culture" with the somewhat more solid but still vague concept of "race", because apparently I as a white person can take from any European culture, even those I don't belong to. How is me taking from, say, Irish or Finnish any different than me taking from, say, Indian or Japanese or Egyptian? I don't belong to any of those cultures, but it seems so arbitrary that I can take from those if I happen to bear a vague physical resemblance to the majority in them.
Like, ethnically I'm Russian, Romanian, and French. Personally I'm American, specifically Midwesterner. But I don't feel like any of them. I have no connection to Russia, Romania, or France, and I feel the same living on the west coast than I did in Indiana. Which is interesting because I tend to skew extremely liberal, which is what Portland tends towards, but Indiana is incredibly conservative. That ought to indicate different cultures, right? So why do things feel the same to me here as there? Is it because I see through people's rhetoric and just see the same misanthropic world I always have?
And if the issue of taking from other cultures is based on "you can't take from any your cultures have historically oppressed", then I shouldn't be able to take from...well, pretty much anybody in the area surrounding Russia, since they oppressed a LOT of their neighbors. Polish would be right out, as would anything in Scandinavia...and let's not forget internal oppression, in which case all three of those would eliminate themselves and I'd be left with nothing. Heck, if you want to really cut this to the line, I wouldn't even be able to take from American culture because of the Cold War (despite my ancestors having lived in the US for about fifty years before that even started).
I had a runin with the same loon who called me racist before. Now she's calling me sexist because I said that men have a right to feminist safe spaces. Does she think that men can't be feminists? Because that's pretty sexist right there. She's accusing me of "whataboutthemenz" thinking, with a bizarre ability to pull things I never said nor implied out of thin air and disregard anything I *do* say. Frankly, every victim of anything should be able to speak up, and if they feel oppressed and need a safe space to do it in, they should be able to go to any safe space and do so. Man, she would have HATED the womens' resource center at my college, since they had several male employees. Apparently they had no right to be there and they should stay away from anything female! Who knew! (edit later: now she's actually using her disability as a cover! I didn't think people actually DID that! She's insulting me for how DARE I use "idiot" about a disabled person! Despite there being no way for me to know this! Apparently this is some terrible thing despite us having one of the SAME DISABILITIES.)
But that brings me to another topic. Gender feels so incredibly alien to me as well. Hormones don't dictate who we are, do they? Is that really that commonplace that a happenstance of birth will define you? That seems irregular, like it ought to be incredibly uncommon, almost unheard of. And yet almost everybody is. Why? I don't feel like a female. But I know I wouldn't feel like a male either. My body is just there to carry my mind around. It's secondary. It's not who I as a person, as a thinking being, am. It's just a body. Why is that so important? Why is that above experience and deed? Aren't those the true definitions of what makes a person? Why are those considered so remote, away from the primary form? It's just a form. A framework. Something unimportant. To link action to it, to link likes to it, to link personality to it...why? Why connect such distant and unrelated points? Why establish standards based on body? Why divide society into bodies? Bodies aren't people. They're sacks of meat and bone.
I mean sure, from a scientific standpoint, brains are just sacks of neurons, but the brain is the real self. It's where our experiences and personalities are stored. It's where WE are stored. And to base things on the body before the personality even begins to develop is just strange. Just useless, just self-defeating, just divisive.
I've always loved the idea of androgyny, and at first I thought that was just because I grew up in the 1980s, but it goes beyond fashion or music stars. It just makes SENSE, because we *aren't* our bodies, and to define identity on them is such a bizarre concept.
I seem to have moved a long way from my starting point. But I guess it all boils down to "the world sucks and their arbitrary rules are stupid".
Plus I have a meme to post.