close-mindedness in all its forms.....a LONG rant
Okay so let me start by saying it turns out that not driving over the holiday, getting to sleep in my own bed and leave anywhere whenever the heck I felt like it was AMAZING. Seriously, nothing said on Thanksgiving Day bothered me and that is saying something cause, jeez, the conversations were tailor-made to make me nuts.
I have told you before that one of my sister in laws is, hmmm nice way to say this, opinionated and vocal and hard. Her husband (K) is turning everyday into the cold rock statued icon of a republican redneck. The other sister in law is sweet but was brought up by a close minded family shielded in a faith that is insanely judgmental and cloistered. Her husband is adopting her "issues" (or been indoctrinated if you wannna be a little more harsh). They had several conversations, which would have set me on fire other times. The first was when my sister in law said that K, her husband (my youngest brother in law) was too old for video games.
Okay I love video games. R and I play them for fun quite often. She was just adamant in her opinion that they were a waste of time and money and had no purpose or value and no one over like 20 should play them. WTF. Seriously, she said it was a waste of $500 (system and games). Uh excuse me but don’t you guys own a COLLECTION guitars and knives? Aren’t they way wacky expensive? Do you actually do anything with them but own them and dust them? That is more of a waste to me than a system that you can do something with.
I guess if R played on his own and I had nothing to do I would like it less. But still. That is way harsh criticism about how others spend their time and money. As long as I am paying my bills and feeding my family and don’t ask you for the dough to fund it BACK OFF. Once again, everyone spends differently.
The point was further made when K brought out his new laptop and commented that his wife thought it was a waste and that they should have used the money to landscape the yard (it was bought with part of HIS bonus and they both work). Best part, HE has asked for $ or gift cards for Christmas to pay for the landscaping….not her, him. I told R I had already got her a gift and I would be hog-tied before I bought him a Christmas gift that was solely for her benefit. F that. I am tempted, oh so tempted (hearing that Squeeze song in my head) to buy him this Atari all in one system for Christmas. That will not only NOT be money for her to buy bushes it will be a gaming system! Hee hee. R said I would only be getting K in trouble. But still I wanna do it.
The other big example from turkey day was they started on The Golden Compass movie. They spouted a bunch of crap they had heard or read on right wing media outlets. NOT ONE OF THEM HAS READ THE BOOK!!!!!
I read it. I wasn't a fan but that wasn't anything having to with the anti-established religion thing, it just didn't hit me right. Mostly it was the parent thing as in the ones in the book SUCKED nails. Also I didn't find the main character to be someone I could identify with in anyway, at the moment I was reading it. Then the things at the end just bummed me out. I am fair certain I was supposed to be incensed and want to read the sequel instead I just didn't want to waste more time reading to get to a crap end.
I tried to talk about the story for real but as they had no real first had information it wasn't possible. Then they were so wound up every movie that seemed to have fantasy theme came under fire like The Water Horse (which is about Nessie and looks to be just your typical kiddie favorite pet story like Andre but with an imaginary creature). Questions abound as to whether it was "that atheist movie" or another one (I loved that they knew so little about Golden Compass that they were unsure of which movie was the one to berate) And they threw around comments about Dumbledore being gay which had nothing to do with the actual topic but was one more place to make random close minded statements (as to that one, why does anyone care? It doesn’t affect to story. There is no sex in his story. It doesn’t make him less of a person or more evil or less well intentioned than before. He could have been a transsexual and it still makes not one lick of difference. It incenses my mother and sister in law who like the book. And just give more ammo for hating the book to K, who of course hasn’t read it)
My cousin A, who I would say has a fairly strong religious background and conviction (she has done mission trips etc) has read all three books in the Golden Compass trilogy. She is Catholic, not that this is important except that Catholics are the ones who started the media blitz in Canada which lead to the media rigmarole that my in laws were spouting. She liked one and two but felt that his message becomes more a pounding sermon then a theme in the third and she wasn’t a fan of the message. But she has read them. She wasn't suddenly atheist. What she is, is informed and interested in other points of view.
To me it is like the Da Vinci Code and the views in it. Reading them was incredibly interesting to me. I found the ideas intriguing and in NO WAY threatening to my actual belief system. The ideas incensed my Mom. She said it was fine as fiction but in no way possible and got hella agitated when anyone said otherwise. She didn’t even want to read “Mary Magdalena” by Margaret George. A book by an author she likes, who has NO attachment to Da Vinci Code other than she released a book about the life of a person who was discussed in Da Vinci Code. I read both. George’s book is more a biography that follows the more widely held biblical beliefs about Mary Magdalena and Jesus. It was interesting to read the story in a time context kind of way. George put a lot of the daily life stuff in the book, which for me was interesting cause you can see how the Bible stories fit in (especially since she wrote them in there).
I don't understand. I don't understand blind following. All the things that are being blindly followed were thought up or interpreted by human beings and last time I checked we were all FALIBLE. How can anyone be aware of the forty seven million different regions and their various takes on The Bible and not think that there is room for human error there? How can you know the book you are following verbatim has been translated (several times) and was originally written forever ago and still think it is ‘perfect’? Anyone taken high school English? Ever hear of things like taking into account the time something was written in, or the mindset of the translators? Also is the main point of the second half of that book to love each other? Isn't it to not be so divisive? Why is this the part most often over looked?
R had a similar experience with his Mom and the 'lost gospels' (the ones that talk about what Jesus did between 12 and 30 and how he wasn't quite as perfect as the Biblical texts would have you believe) He watched a History channel show on them and just wanted to have a conversation, his Mom got all twitchy and said there was no point cause it was all BS.
It seems my mother in law and my mother are both losing flexibility of the mind as they age. Maybe it is like cartilage, it just disintegrates. Leaving behind hard pieces that grind on each other and cause pain and insensitivity. Neither of these women was like this 15 years ago. Now they make broad upsettingly prejudice statements that make me CRAZY and make me feel the need to censor them to my kids, which annoys me. I really don't want to be like this when I am in my 50s and beyond.
I was wondering last night about how this comes about for real. I know that as I age I like less and less to have gory, ugly images in my head. I have always been sensitive to scary, yuckiness. It doesn't bother me in the here and now but in the middle of the night when my mind is allowed out the cage my mind does damaging things with that kind of info.
Anyway, things that before were just violent and uninteresting have become things I actively avoid. Like last night we were watch a show about the cyclic effect of movies on video games and the reverse. But most of the movies and games they spoke of weren't the ones I really get into and I found myself not WATCHING the show only listening as the talked about Resident Evil with lots of screen shots of the movie and the game (a bloody zombie killing thing). And I wondered if this avoidance of yucky isn't the first slippery step down the slope to a land of Disney make believe, where the odd, different or just not like you aren't tolerated.
Can you see it? Today you avoid things that have no real consequence violent movies or video games (well I guess my avoidance of the news could be construed as having consequences) tomorrow you are afraid to drive up to an iffy gas stations cause the "dirty____" hanging around outside.
I always say that saying you will never be like ____ is a huge indicator you are likely to go that route cause you refuse to acknowledge the possibility of having that failing. Like with my Mom and her mothering. I love my Mom. Since I was 16 I have resented the fact she was an enabler to my brother. It drove me nuts. It took me 10 years to realize I did the same thing with him. Cause I refused to see the possibility. It was a good lesson. I watch for it in the way I parent today. Of course it makes me often fear I have gone the other way to uberstrict hypersensitive insane mother. Oh the razor blade we balance on in life.
Speaking of my brother and my insanity as a mother. It occurred to me the other day why it is that him saying I am judgmental and self righteous bothered me so much, other than the obvious which is I try hard not to be that way. And the answer is, because he IS THE BIGGEST MOST PREJUDICE CLOSED MINDED monkey I know. Seriously. He used to be so open minded and had friends of all races, religions and backgrounds. Not so anymore. And spending insane amounts of time with my grandmother hasn’t helped.
A lot of times my brother says things to get a rise out of the listener. He will say things in the most offensive way possible. He loves to rile people up. He loves an argument. The thing is there is no argument against prejudice, except DON’T DO IT. That is all. Stop. Find things about “the others” that are like you. Cause I guarantee if you look long enough you have something in common. He makes me INSANE with his comments about other cultures. The ones that push my buttons the fastest are the ones he says where my kids can hear him about Handy Mandy (a Latino handyman in a cartoon on the Disney channel). Seriously, my kids are blind at this moment to the differences in people and I LOVE THAT ABOUT THEM. I want them to hold on to that innocence for as long as possible. I want them to discover that they dislike someone based on that specific persons attitudes or actions not based on their color or background. It makes me not want to have my brother around my kids. That makes me sad. Cause he is so smart and funny and charming, but his bad habits and mindsets are poisonous. It is not that big a problem as I don’t see him that often. But still, it is sad and a bummer. I guess the positive side is I have to talk to my kids about how people are allowed to have different opinions, not all are right, and you have to think for yourself. I just didn’t want to start having these talks when they are only 5 and 3.