If this post gets a trillion likes, I will transcend to a higher consciousness and upon going viral will use the fame to fund a crypto scheme.
10 years ago, when I made this website, I was searching for a center. Growing disenchanted with the doom and gloom of the early 2000s, I was hoping not to fall into a reactionary loop of the oncoming political chaos. Had I known then that it would last not just four years but was now going on a decade, I probably would have planned accordingly and not been so quick to assume there’d even be a center left. That fear of my art or writing being nothing but a reactionary impulse to the newest wave of imperialist fascism is still a concern, but watching the mental gymnastics of companies and legacy press on social media bending over backwards to not offend their corpo overlords leaves such a bad taste in my mouth, I am left with the urge to do something.
I could change my profile picture to link to a campaign raising money to release a child from a concentration camp, or I could write a strongly worded post that changes the hearts and minds of all the misguided chuds I call my dear (some) friends and (most) family members.
But that in itself is dangerous, yeah? Because you’ve got to get those just right. They have to be powerful, and they have to send a message. They can’t be overly sanctimonious, but you can’t just write some spineless glib-glub. It’s gotta be direct and you can’t be ambiguous or else people won’t know who’s side you’re on.
All women. See how easy that was? I am a champion of “Safe bathrooms for all.” Men’s bathrooms, unisex bathrooms, Women’s bathrooms, port-a-potties, all of them should be safe places. Does a dad need to take his seven year old daughter in the men’s bathroom? I want it to be safe in there for both of them. When did we lose the plot here about being safe in public? Just giving up on trying to make things better, we so quickly adapted to the idea that some places would be safe, while others wouldn’t be. Some neighborhoods would be nice, others will be hellholes. Some people can walk around without being harassed, while the harassment of others is deemed acceptable because they are not living in a manner that a subset of our population deems “acceptable.”
Now, with all that safety talk out of the way, this is a great time to bring up that when I say “all women,” I am including “all women.” I am grateful that I am far along on my personal growth journey to fully embrace my 100% love, admiration, and appreciation for our Queer Community. There is zero need for me to fallback onto any tropes like “I’m not threatened by” or “As a straight, male, cis, man…” None of that shit matters, because I love what Queer American culture means to me as an American and what is has added to the American experience. I want them to feel just as safe as anyone else when using the bathroom.
In the mind-bending game of quantifying tragedy, I will always prioritize starving children over an embryo at six weeks’ gestation. I have been told by multiple Anti-Choice people, “Once you have a child of your own, you’ll feel differently.” But that was the opposite, and we had an almost perfect scenario. Having friends who have gone through difficult pregnancies, it is impossible to think of as something I should choose for someone else. There would be a lot more support for prenatal health in this country if people truly believed in half of the things they wrote on picket signs. I’m not denying it isn’t an incredibly difficult decision, but that is why it should be left between a physician and a family to make that decision.
Having society step in to weigh in on what individuals should do for the benefit of a life only seems to matter when that life is deemed “unable to defend itself”. An excuse so pathetic, I can’t even muster the fucks to give it a proper response. So many people are unable to defend themselves and are left out in the cold, unhoused, and unfed, falling through the ever-widening gaps in the social safety net. By picking a group that cannot advocate for themselves, as David Barnhart brilliantly called out in 2018, anti-choice advocates force their own decisions on others.
The changes that a woman goes through during and after are alone reasons to refrain from even having an opinion here, but if I were to have an opinion, it would be even wider than just abortion. I think the whole choice of having kids is such a personal and staggeringly life-changing decision that nobody else should even get to comment on it, let alone make laws or intervene in reproductive healthcare. If a woman or a couple decides to live a child-free life, that is more than just their right or their choice; it is their chosen destiny. They are not missing out or in any way less compassionate. These personal choices make us who we are, and kids getting free lunches get to make even more choices too.
The pitfalls of socialism, communism, and even capitalism (gasp!) are real. The talking points against them are almost always the most asinine, half-assed, and empty-headed takedowns dressed up as political arguments. Any time a legitimate fear is brought up about the downsides of government ownership of utilities, for example, instead of it being framed as “Well, what about the dangers of a monopolized grid failing its consumers?” we usually get “The government is going to ban ovens!” I am all for scrutinizing the levers of government, but crack open a goddamned book (or at the very least a dictionary) before you start throwing around terms—especially ones ending in “-isms.”
The overarching theme of this piece seems to keep returning to “social media posts can’t capture the nuances of reality.” And none is a bigger offender than commentary on political theory. Much like the old Emo Philips joke, “Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump…,” which moves through stratum after stratum of religious brotherhood connecting each believer, the same pattern applies to any subscriber to a political theory. We find ourselves drawn together by connections until, like Emo and the jumper, we are eventually divided by the semantics of small differences of opinion. Dig deep enough, and you’ll end up disagreeing with everyone.
Back when I would join in with sharing my political opinions through little factoids or infocomic, one of them I shared was about the “Paradox of Tolerance” (Karl Popper). The reaction was expected and it upset those I suspected of harboring borderline fascist beliefs, teetering on the edge into full-blown authoritarianism, by late 2022. In short, it basically states that to maintain a tolerant society, our community must reject (both outwardly and online) intolerance. What looked like a totally normal idea for almost a hundred years became branded a “radical” idea by those in power and people whose biggest fear was someone being “woke.” Now, here, almost at the halfway point, hopefully, of the sequel to this absolute shitshow of a democratic experiment, I’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel of fucks to give on whether or not I offend people who choose to side with Christian white nationalism in any form.
Even in the echo-chamber of social media, most trolls pride themselves on proclaiming that their beliefs go proudly against the vox populi, that they’re the new emerging wave of thought. Being the loudest and smelliest fart in the elevator, they believe themselves to be the best. They have been on a strict diet of dogshit and red pills since they swore allegiance to anti-Woke, so their bowels show no restraint. While all of their horrible treatment of women and minorities is obvious and a centerpiece of their schtick, to actually call them out on their actions is the worst transgression against the freedom fought for since the founding of our country, according to their little snowflake feelings. All the more reason that the tolerance of such intolerance, by allowing them a safe space in our digital world, is a danger to society and their continual absconding from consequences the single most detrimental cancer to us as a healthy nation.
There is a lot about my country that I am proud of. Most of it pertains to my own community. After growing up in a homogeneous, segmented area of southwestern Ohio, I have come to love being surrounded by a mix of races and cultures. Being a bit of an agnostic culturally, I appreciate a heritage that is rich in folklore, family, and celebration. And a lot of those things make up the area where I have chosen to call home for nearly fifteen years. And all of them are equally American. There is not one that is more American than another. In fact, I would argue that all of them combined are what makes America the greatest country on earth. Our grandness is diminished when our focus is on reducing the amount of culture we have in our cache.
All of that glozing aside, history is filled countless atrocities against millions of innocent (and not-so-innocent) peoples. Civil rights, once thought (admittedly by privileged leftist whites) to be a linear road toward a guiding light, are really a swinging pendulum going back and forth on the whims of a lead-paint-poisoned generation of Satanic-panic self-proclaimed Pentecostals and other proles. It is difficult to square that swelling pride with the current, and what looks increasingly likely to be future, violent and damaging devastation our country has chosen to inflict upon the world at large and at home upon the most vulnerable (or to quote directly “…the least of these brothers and sisters of mine…”).
You’re allowed to have an opinion. You’re also allowed to not have one either. It’s actually much easier to not chiming in on every single culturally charged viral event as it occurs or getting pushed to the top of your feed. What’s lost in the mess of response videos, the reactions-to’s, the breakdowns, the analyses, are the nuances of situations are almost always far more complicated than they seem on the surface level. Social media companies fill those gaps with doubt, sowing distrust among classes and creeds, driving wedges between us for clicks and views. The companies themselves don’t hire people to do it; they don’t have to. Instead, they push an army of trolls who do it for them, making them millions of dollars a day by seeding the world with hate and malice.
Of course, we’re going to have opinions about events, large or small that impact our lives. We’ll want to speak out against what we perceive as injustices. I am certainly not questioning our right to do so. Especially since half of my website, fine, “blog,” mostly does that. My point is to remain aware that, in doing so, we are participating in a digital sideshow of sorts. No matter the cogency of our stance, the name of the game is engagement. Doing so on a digital platform, be it Meta or Substack, will be either a bane or a boon to their bottom line. As long as the needle moves, that’s all they care about. Best to have those conversations in person, where the nuances can be explored, the layers revealed, and the onion peeled to the core.
I could write a strongly worded post that changes the hearts and minds of all the misguided chuds I call my dear (some) friends and (most) family members.
I don’t think anything I write will ever change people’s minds. I’m so far beyond thinking that. I’ve read too much, listened to too many people’s ramblings, and read too many biblical passages to believe for one second that life works in that way. All change is gradual; any change that comes in an instant is pain. I also don’t really think any of my friends or family members are chuds or misguided or Nazis. We are not monoliths, political or social classes, or as much as some of them would like: religions. We contain multitudes and are also islands.
A trillion different clicks, a trillion different users, pattering around, searching for meaning where it is only found in the hearts of those who are open to truth, love and compassion.