The right to be different
A couple of days ago I’ve read this post by Bunny Jo.
Nowadays it seems most of the western world is absolutely concerned with being correct and polite.
Nobody can say anything against anybody else based on race, religion, sex, sexual preferences or political views.
This my friends is not only hypocrisy but it is also very dangerous.
People are different. Usually most people tend to bond to those similar to them and to dislike those who are too different. There is no doing anything about it. Think about yourselves: don’t you make jokes about those who are different from you? Don’t you laugh at cartoons mocking those you think are ridiculous?
Yes we should respect other people’s beliefs and points of view, but not to the point of hiding our own beliefs or to the point of having to obey their rules.
Just the same way we can’t force others to live according to our belief.
All this “forced tolerance” is a dangerous fake, people don’t get tolerant because there are laws forcing them to. What those laws actually do is to force people to hide their hate, that hate starts building up and then it bursts.
In a perfect world laws forcing tolerance would not be needed, that is true. But in the far from perfect world where we live those laws are even worst than intolerance, instead of helping solving the problems and helping people learning how to live together they increase the chasm between them.
Just like the so called positive-discrimination (another concept I hate), placing quotas where merit should be, devaluing the so-called minorities at the same time it is supposed to promote them.
One of the symptoms that lead me to this conclusion is this kind of submission some people are forced to take, having to respect other people’s religion and yet being held from displaying their own beliefs in order not to insult the “minorities”. Or the fact that when faced with someone being rude while working on a public service the tax paying costumer refrains from complaining because the civil servant is of a different race and that could be considered racism. Yes, I’ve been accused time and time again of being a bigot and a fascist and a lot of other things. Yes, I don’t give a damn if the person in front of me is white, black, catholic, budhist, male, female straight or gay or even from Mars.
The fact that I don’t care what other people are, think or do means exactly they can do whatever they want to, as long as it does not affect me. What they can’t do is tell me I can’t do this or that or that I must do something that goes against my own ideas.
Nowadays it seems most of the western world is absolutely concerned with being correct and polite.
Nobody can say anything against anybody else based on race, religion, sex, sexual preferences or political views.
This my friends is not only hypocrisy but it is also very dangerous.
People are different. Usually most people tend to bond to those similar to them and to dislike those who are too different. There is no doing anything about it. Think about yourselves: don’t you make jokes about those who are different from you? Don’t you laugh at cartoons mocking those you think are ridiculous?
Yes we should respect other people’s beliefs and points of view, but not to the point of hiding our own beliefs or to the point of having to obey their rules.
Just the same way we can’t force others to live according to our belief.
All this “forced tolerance” is a dangerous fake, people don’t get tolerant because there are laws forcing them to. What those laws actually do is to force people to hide their hate, that hate starts building up and then it bursts.
In a perfect world laws forcing tolerance would not be needed, that is true. But in the far from perfect world where we live those laws are even worst than intolerance, instead of helping solving the problems and helping people learning how to live together they increase the chasm between them.
Just like the so called positive-discrimination (another concept I hate), placing quotas where merit should be, devaluing the so-called minorities at the same time it is supposed to promote them.
One of the symptoms that lead me to this conclusion is this kind of submission some people are forced to take, having to respect other people’s religion and yet being held from displaying their own beliefs in order not to insult the “minorities”. Or the fact that when faced with someone being rude while working on a public service the tax paying costumer refrains from complaining because the civil servant is of a different race and that could be considered racism. Yes, I’ve been accused time and time again of being a bigot and a fascist and a lot of other things. Yes, I don’t give a damn if the person in front of me is white, black, catholic, budhist, male, female straight or gay or even from Mars.
The fact that I don’t care what other people are, think or do means exactly they can do whatever they want to, as long as it does not affect me. What they can’t do is tell me I can’t do this or that or that I must do something that goes against my own ideas.
posted by DCveR at 1:33 PM
7 Comments:
Very beautifully put DC. We all ARE different, it is up to us to celebrate that difference, rather than fear and shun it.
Well said by both thephoenixnyc and you. I think it's when we pretend we aren't different when we pose the biggest danger to ourselves.
I just finished re-reading "Black Like Me," and it scares me that so many Americans forget just how insidious the condoned hatred in America used to be. One of the worst aspects of intolerance was the "hate stare" where whites would look at blacks with an absolutely withering malignant hate. Tolerance laws became necessary in America because of the community-sanctioned infringement of minority rights. I agree that "tolerance" can be carried into extreme, however gay/lesbian tolerance laws came into being because of the exreme hatred and constant discrimination that was being directed toward them. One thing to keep in mind is that in a land with as much "freedom" as America has, it gives plenty of opportunity for intolerant citizens to begrudge other citizens the basic dignities that we all take for granted. Even worse is that in America, bigotry is coddled and fostered by a twisted sort of religiosity, the same kind which prompted my post. If you don't think intolerance in America is an issue, please re-read "Black Like Me" and then talk to some gay or lesbian people and see if the same kind of discrimination that was practiced as a regular part of American community life isn't being practiced in some places today against the G/L community. While tolerance laws are a pain in the ass, what do you do with Bible-thumping religious bigots like the girl from Georgia Tech?
phoenix: And sad as it may be, even those hateful biggots have the right to an opinion.
nml: And let us hope that extremists will keep themselves from mixing, after all some generations of in-breeding may drive them to extinction. ;)
bunny jo: Basic laws assuring freedom of speech and equal opportunities are needed, that much is fine with me. But those same laws mean we have to put up with idiots like the one from Georgia Tech. My opinion regarding those idiots is that they would have much less influence if they were simply ignored. When I see people petitioning for the removal of religious symbols from historical landmarks it strikes me as a crime, just as much as the destruction of the Banyan Buddhas was a crime: at some point of history those landmarks were built with a religious meaning, regardless of that meaning they are part of history the way they are. I can get your point, I can agree with most of it, but I think even the most despicable radical has the right to an opinion, as long as that opinion can’t be forced upon others who think differently.
Well, as I always tell my children when they complain about my cooking, "Everyone has a right to their opinion." Tolerance laws are more about when opinion bleeds over into infringing on another's rights. What this Georgia Tech girl would be doing WOULD be infringing on another's rights: She wants to silence the gay/lesbian group because she feels their overt presence on campus is invasive and creates an environment hostile to bigoted Christians like herself. Meanwhile she wants to be able to maintain the presence of her Christian group on campus. I smell stinky beans.
Folks should come to Guyana and the West Indies to learn how the different cultures / religions / races mix and mingle. Funny how, in the bigger countries, folks haven't learnt how to respect those differences.
GG: Hard as it may be too believe it now Lebanon used to be one such country where people mingled peacefully.
Post a Comment
<< Home