Hating on Each Other

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's a thoughtful essay about why people with alternative identities hate each other.

Folks, this is not of the good.  People can't help being who and what they are.  Picking on them because you don't like, or don't believe, what they are is mean.  If you're an unusual person yourself, you KNOW it's mean because people do it to you and you don't like it.  So don't do that to other people, even if you think what they are is wrong or stupid.  As long as they're not harming anyone, you don't have grounds to bother them.  It's not even any of your business, any more than what you are is the business of people who pick on you.

Mind your own business.  Don't act like a dick.  Be gentle with people's selves.

Comments

[jewelfox]

That really sums it up, especially the last sentence. >.>b

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad you liked that.

[cmcmck]

Thanks for the pointer.

There's an interesting discussion going on over chez _jewelfox_

I've always been mystified by the tendency of one minority group to bully another. It really is the worst of human nature.

You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm glad I could help.

I think part of the problem is believing that tolerance is finite, and if anyone else gets some, there is less for you. This is not necessarily true, but in practice, it can be. Some people will grudgingly allow one variance, or something that is required by law, but resist adding anything else. That's not actually tolerance, though; it's coerced pretending.

Re: You're welcome!

[aoifes_isle]

And sometimes it's survival at the cost of someone else - I can make myself palatable to society, but I can't make you palatable; you're too outlandish, so I must drive you away from me, so I can be acceptable.

(Witness certain segments of the lgbt movement's tendency to push other members under the bus in the bid for "marriage rights" - including the issue with trans* individuals marriages in the UK even under our "new" legislation. Or the splits that occasionally appear between the respectable-almost-recognised bits of neo-paganism and the other bits for a religious example)

Re: You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yes, that's true too. It's very frustrating.

But what jewelfox said is also true: no matter what you do, the mean people in charge will never like you. They might fake it. You might think that's worthwhile. But nasty intolerant mainstream people won't ever really let anyone else into their Perfect Clique. You're better off making alliances toward a saner world than the one they're building.

Re: You're welcome!

[cmcmck]

Yes to the UK marriage equality legislation faults. I'm trans although het and married but have friends who have personal experience of the awfulness which broke up pre existing marriages that would have been perceived as (whisper it) 'gay marriage' which this so called 'equality' legislation then did nothing to amend.

The so called 'Equality' Act also took rights away from trans folks.

And the LGB community was noteable by its silence on the issue............

Sigh :o(

I've been campaigning for nearly forty years and sometimes get just a little tired of it.

[somuchforendings]

I've noticed something like this in a lot of minority groups, where there's a fair amount of anger between the subsets. By far the most racist person I spend any time (aside from my grandmother*) with is non-white and racist against other types of non-whites. She gets upset when I spend time with a white friend who has a tendency to say really dumb things about her race... and then she gets even more upset when I point out that he's just ignorant and makes changes when his ignorance is pointed out to him whereas she is just full of hate and I still hang out with her even though she constantly uses a racial slur that technically applies to me. And she's not my only non-white friend who does stuff like this while also arguing about the injustice of racism. I think Spike Lee touched on this a bit in one of his movies. It's sad and I wish it would stop.

* Which is kind of another example. She's pretty racist against some non-whites, but she's not full-white AND she married a non-white AND her twin sister married a non-white. ??? !!! WhAt

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Divide and conquer. If the white people can keep people of color fighting amongst themselves, then it's less work to oppress them.

Re: Well...

[somuchforendings]

I don't really buy that. Racism is ingrained into human society, with or without white people, and some of the non-white vs non-white racism I've grown up around (between Native tribes) goes back centuries before white people even got to the Americas. That type of thinking is what I've heard a lot of racist non-white people use as an excuse to be racist against... whoever. Nope. Do not buy it. I don't buy it when it's about sexism, or religionism, or any other -ism. If someone is going to be prejudiced and not allow themselves to learn to accept others, that is entirely on them. It is just extra-sad when that person knows what it feels like to be on the other side and yet they still, idk, hate Asians because they're bad drivers and eat dogs.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Using hope as a weapon. grrrrrrr. And it's not like the Catholics, where it's just *your* problem... the "no empty chairs" thing means *everybody* piles in and enforces the One True Way.

The funny thing is, most Mormons I know, I like. The heirarchy? I'd say they can go straight to hell, but one of the bits I carried over from my previous theology is that one's relationship with deity, be it Heaven or Hell, is both *present*, and yet to be... so they're already there.

</rant>

Wheaton's law should be enforced universally. Don't be a dick. I think if we could get that far in a society, the need for *having* to be gentle would be a lot less. Not that one shouldn't be gentle anyway! but it's an acquired skill... First do no harm....

(but take no shit!)

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> The funny thing is, most Mormons I know, I like. <<

Same here. I also like the option of polyfamilies, although I point out that even Christian privilege has its limits: the Mormons are treated as second-class citizens because they practice a different form of marriage which the state refuses to acknowledge.

Re: Yes...

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Or they did; Congress essentially bullied them into knocking it off in 1904, and polygamy after that will get you excommunicated.

I too think poly should be an option, regardless of one's creed.... but sadly I think that's gonna be a while.

The Mormons were *always* treated as second class; technically from both Catholic and mainstream Protestant viewpoints they're heretics, what with the book of Mormon... And then there's this having more than one wife in a house? Well, that's not FAIR! If we can only have one, you can only have one!

*sigh* The irony is that this country was founded by people who were themselves oppressed... obviously they never bothered breaking the cycle... and neither did anyone else.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> Congress essentially bullied them into knocking it off in 1904, and polygamy after that will get you excommunicated. <<

It's still quite widely practiced; not all branches of Mormonism gave it up.

>> I too think poly should be an option, regardless of one's creed.... but sadly I think that's gonna be a while. <<

Alas.

>> *sigh* The irony is that this country was founded by people who were themselves oppressed... obviously they never bothered breaking the cycle... and neither did anyone else. <<

Almost nobody, after escaping from oppression, can resist the temptation to turn around and abuse someone else.

Re: Yes...

[paka.livejournal.com]

The impression I get of Mormonism (which is this mix of ex-LDS friends and Mormon politics affecting my country and my current state) is that it's not an entirely bad deal. There's a lot of brainwashing, pedophilia, sexism, bigotry and victim-blaming, but there's also a lot of interest in community. Much as I despise the LDS, they make some damn good people.

It still freaks me out how Christians don't consider Mormons to be Christian. Look, they believe that Jesus was a god, they celebrate Christian holidays, sure seems like Christians to me.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> The impression I get of Mormonism (which is this mix of ex-LDS friends and Mormon politics affecting my country and my current state) is that it's not an entirely bad deal. There's a lot of brainwashing, pedophilia, sexism, bigotry and victim-blaming, but there's also a lot of interest in community. Much as I despise the LDS, they make some damn good people. <<

Yes, that matches my observation. Some of them have excellent family skills, far above average for this country. And then there are the ones who think it's okay to marry little girls.

>> It still freaks me out how Christians don't consider Mormons to be Christian. Look, they believe that Jesus was a god, they celebrate Christian holidays, sure seems like Christians to me. <<

Yes, Jesus Christ is the linchpin of the Christian religion. Funny how Christians don't get that. But they've spent 2000 years murdering and oppressing each other over the "right" way to worship him, and the Mormons are actually far from the loopiest version to come along.

[baaing-tree.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is weirdly timely, seeing as elsewhere on the Internet, I spawned a huge fight about religion and atheism by mentioning fictionkin. (No, no, don't ask how one led to the other. I'm not sure myself.)

I don't know WHY that person was so upset that people believed things they didn't, but GODDAMN.

--Rogan

O_O

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> Wow. This is weirdly timely, seeing as elsewhere on the Internet, I spawned a huge fight about religion and atheism by mentioning fictionkin. (No, no, don't ask how one led to the other. I'm not sure myself.) <<

That's just bizarre. Maybe people want to have a particular fight, and just wander around looking for a place to plunk it down?

>> I don't know WHY that person was so upset that people believed things they didn't, but GODDAMN. <<

If it's in your space, step on it and put it out before it starts a flamewar. If it's not in your space, you can just walk away. That falls into the category of shit up with which I will not put.

Re: O_O

[zeeth_kyrah]

Maybe people want to have a particular fight, and just wander around looking for a place to plunk it down?

That's been my experience. It happens with a lot of trolls, too: they deliberately are looking to start a fire, and anywhere that seems reactive will do. And while the first response to a flamewar might be "don't leave brimstone lying around", a LOT of things will burn, especially as the fires get hotter -- even concrete when it starts flaking into powder.

Re: O_O

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

That's why it is important to douse the flames quickly, before they build up to something serious. Create an atmosphere not conducive to trolls, and boot them out when you find them. Then you will have few problems.

[paka.livejournal.com]

I think it's all a perspective game. Ultimately personal mythology is patently ludicrous; it's whatever tools happen to work for you when you go rummaging through the toolbox. I mean yeah, okay, someone thinking they're fictional whatever is just pure language of archetype stuff, and despite knowing a whole batch of dragon Otherkin the dragon thing still makes me snarl a little, but heck, it's at least as unquestionable-nature-of-the-universe as my crap and a lot more humane than the religion I grew up around, so why not go diving for those tools? From a Buddhist perspective (speaking of swiping tools), the most harmful thing you can possibly do to yourself that way is use your personal mythology as a way to keep yourself locked into the past.

We're all so indoctrinated though that there has to be an unquestionable objective reality that we bring it into our spiritual/personal whatever tho. And that's before you go wandering into the way perspective is so damn hard to have given what most of us grow up with. It's taken me freaking decades to get this far.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> Ultimately personal mythology is patently ludicrous; it's whatever tools happen to work for you when you go rummaging through the toolbox. <<

I'm an empiricist and a pragmatist. If model "Robin = man" produces less accurate results and "Robin = woman" produces more accurate results, then I will treat Robin as a woman. If "Jane thinks of herself as a reincarnation of Jane from the Tarzan cycle" makes it easier for me to figure out what she needs and how she will act, then it is more useful to me than ignoring it and treating her as someone else.

>> We're all so indoctrinated though that there has to be an unquestionable objective reality that we bring it into our spiritual/personal whatever tho. <<

Objective reality is that the entire universe is made of infinitesimal bits whizzing around and pretending they are solid. This is not very useful unless you are doing quantum mechanics or magic, and mentioning either half of that practice to the other just makes people wibble. For day to day purposes, one must deal in some layer of practical illusion. We treat the chair as solid because it is pretending very hard to be solid, and we can sit upon it, so the subjective illusion of solidity is more useful than the objective knowledge that most of what we perceive as a chair isn't really there. Objective reality is that souls are patterns of energy bound up with a bunch of whizzing bits. Subjective reality is that people have feelings and beliefs, and will be hurt if you pick on them, so don't.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Thanks.

You're welcome!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I could help.