Going on Offense
[warning: multiples forms of hostile & derogatory language]
There's a form of knuckle-dragging stubborn refusal to consider other folks' social situations that pretends to be common-sensical and harmless. And tries to portray anyone making a complaint about common widespread behaviors as rigid and rule-oriented, judgmental and humorless.
The problem with intolerance is not limited to the proud jerks who brag about how intolerant they are and who say deliberabely confrontational things to rile people up and make us angry.
But let's start with them anyway. One problem with folks like that nowadays is that such statements are so freaking outrageous that you feel stupid taking them seriously. Someone starts a discussion about how people like their coffee and one of these loud cheerful folks says "Just like my women: black, hot, chained to my bed, and whipped twice a day". Or "Strong and manly, don't pour me none of that faggy fairy flavored stuff, it was probably Evian water before it transitioned and I don't want none of that tranny stuff". They count on you feeling awkward about getting indignant in front of everyone present and saying "THAT WASN'T FUNNY, you asshole". They count on people accepting that it was to be taken as a joke. If confronted, he's going to spread his arms wide, shrug, and say "Yeesh, you don't think I'm being serious, lighten up willya?"
That's a problem if what is being "joked" about is just an extreme form of things said in all seriousness right there in the same social context.
I've been at a dinner table where some people who did beat their kids would say funny things like "I brung you into this world and if you don't watch it I can take you right the hell back out" or "Yeah of course I'm taking him with me when we go out swamp fishin' this Sattiddy... just the right size for trolling for alligators". See, it sets a tone where it sounds huffy and indignant and self-important if you later object to "I'm gonna raise a knot on your head if you interrupt me once more" or the obviously dead-serious affirmation that "A kid DOES need a good lickin' now and then. That's just good parenting. Nobody ever got anything but properly straightened out by a close familiarity with their Daddy's belt".
The bigger problem, though, is the weather people.
Do you know and understand about the weather people? Those are the ones who accept some forms of people-behavior as being Just How Things Are, just like the weather. Complaining about the weather never did make it change, now did it? What you do with the weather is, you adjust, you accept, and you COPE. Anyone who seriously snivels and whines about it is not being an ADULT.
But people are not storm clouds. Storm clouds are not going to listen to your complaints. It would be irrational to expect the storm cloud to ever change its behaviors in response to you. But people have a personal responsibility for their behaviors. So when a behavior is truly egregious and is something you should not have to tolerate, it does not MATTER that the behavior is long established and not likely to go away the first time you complain. It does not MATTER that people will defend such tradition-honored asshole behaviors and argue against you and get annoyed with you for attacking them. If you're pretty solidly sure of your ground and feel strongly enough about it, this is how it's done. They don't have to like it. But they have the capacity to change, and whether by patient explanation or angry call-downs or any other tactic of communication, it is appropriate to make those challenges to those ensconced behavioral patterns.
But here come the weather people, acting all reasonable, saying "OH well it's not that you're WRONG, but c'mon, they always do that, and you're making too big a fuss, and they do not MEAN ANYTHING BAD by it, the most outrageous ones are just being ridiculous and funny and the serious ones aren't saying anything that's all that horrid. I tell you what, let's just lighten up. You can have your opinion and it is OK that you said it out loud, but since no one was intending you any hurt you need to do something about that angry TONE of yours"
Weather people at beer bashes and parties twenty years ago were saying "Yeah so people shouldn't drive home all drunk and stuff, but they're going to do it anyway and you should not be bringing everyone down being all dead serious, and they're grownups and most of them aren't all that drunk so give it a rest, willya?"
And thus it becomes rare and difficult to actually SAY anything about our social issues. No one wants to be tagged as the wet blanket, the ponderously-serious social misfit who doesn't get how inappropriate it is to lecture folks and so on.
But hey, are all these same people going to sit down in a circle tomorrow afternoon and be part of an honest talking and listening space, and we should bring it up with them then instead?
No?
So if it's going to be said at all, it has to be said in the spaces where the offenses occur.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves. Hardback versions to follow, stay tuned for details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
There's a form of knuckle-dragging stubborn refusal to consider other folks' social situations that pretends to be common-sensical and harmless. And tries to portray anyone making a complaint about common widespread behaviors as rigid and rule-oriented, judgmental and humorless.
The problem with intolerance is not limited to the proud jerks who brag about how intolerant they are and who say deliberabely confrontational things to rile people up and make us angry.
But let's start with them anyway. One problem with folks like that nowadays is that such statements are so freaking outrageous that you feel stupid taking them seriously. Someone starts a discussion about how people like their coffee and one of these loud cheerful folks says "Just like my women: black, hot, chained to my bed, and whipped twice a day". Or "Strong and manly, don't pour me none of that faggy fairy flavored stuff, it was probably Evian water before it transitioned and I don't want none of that tranny stuff". They count on you feeling awkward about getting indignant in front of everyone present and saying "THAT WASN'T FUNNY, you asshole". They count on people accepting that it was to be taken as a joke. If confronted, he's going to spread his arms wide, shrug, and say "Yeesh, you don't think I'm being serious, lighten up willya?"
That's a problem if what is being "joked" about is just an extreme form of things said in all seriousness right there in the same social context.
I've been at a dinner table where some people who did beat their kids would say funny things like "I brung you into this world and if you don't watch it I can take you right the hell back out" or "Yeah of course I'm taking him with me when we go out swamp fishin' this Sattiddy... just the right size for trolling for alligators". See, it sets a tone where it sounds huffy and indignant and self-important if you later object to "I'm gonna raise a knot on your head if you interrupt me once more" or the obviously dead-serious affirmation that "A kid DOES need a good lickin' now and then. That's just good parenting. Nobody ever got anything but properly straightened out by a close familiarity with their Daddy's belt".
The bigger problem, though, is the weather people.
Do you know and understand about the weather people? Those are the ones who accept some forms of people-behavior as being Just How Things Are, just like the weather. Complaining about the weather never did make it change, now did it? What you do with the weather is, you adjust, you accept, and you COPE. Anyone who seriously snivels and whines about it is not being an ADULT.
But people are not storm clouds. Storm clouds are not going to listen to your complaints. It would be irrational to expect the storm cloud to ever change its behaviors in response to you. But people have a personal responsibility for their behaviors. So when a behavior is truly egregious and is something you should not have to tolerate, it does not MATTER that the behavior is long established and not likely to go away the first time you complain. It does not MATTER that people will defend such tradition-honored asshole behaviors and argue against you and get annoyed with you for attacking them. If you're pretty solidly sure of your ground and feel strongly enough about it, this is how it's done. They don't have to like it. But they have the capacity to change, and whether by patient explanation or angry call-downs or any other tactic of communication, it is appropriate to make those challenges to those ensconced behavioral patterns.
But here come the weather people, acting all reasonable, saying "OH well it's not that you're WRONG, but c'mon, they always do that, and you're making too big a fuss, and they do not MEAN ANYTHING BAD by it, the most outrageous ones are just being ridiculous and funny and the serious ones aren't saying anything that's all that horrid. I tell you what, let's just lighten up. You can have your opinion and it is OK that you said it out loud, but since no one was intending you any hurt you need to do something about that angry TONE of yours"
Weather people at beer bashes and parties twenty years ago were saying "Yeah so people shouldn't drive home all drunk and stuff, but they're going to do it anyway and you should not be bringing everyone down being all dead serious, and they're grownups and most of them aren't all that drunk so give it a rest, willya?"
And thus it becomes rare and difficult to actually SAY anything about our social issues. No one wants to be tagged as the wet blanket, the ponderously-serious social misfit who doesn't get how inappropriate it is to lecture folks and so on.
But hey, are all these same people going to sit down in a circle tomorrow afternoon and be part of an honest talking and listening space, and we should bring it up with them then instead?
No?
So if it's going to be said at all, it has to be said in the spaces where the offenses occur.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves. Hardback versions to follow, stay tuned for details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts