Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2003-05-11 12:07 am
azurelunatic) wrote2003-05-11 12:07 am
Humans vs. Asshats
I've come across this phenomenon in two different groups, now, and I have no reason to think it would be any other way in any other group.
Both in paganism, and in polyamory, I've run into situations where people affiliating themselves with a group, perhaps even accepted by the group, turn around and do terrible things. Sometimes they just do this. Sometimes they do this with the excuse of their affiliation. In either case, the affiliation is generally what the media seizes onto, and the group tries to distance themselves from the offender, saying, "That's not real foo; what this idiot did was in no way connected to the real foo; he used the name of foo to perpetrate the awfulness."
They say, "This idiot was a poor excuse for a foo; they claimed foo and used that to go about their horrible ways."
What they mean is: "This idiot was a poor excuse for a human being."
Idiots and asshats show up in all walks of life. This idiot is a poor excuse for a pagan. This idiot is just using the noble claims of polyamory to let his perverse lusts loose. That idiot is a murderer and psychopath who hung their asshat on Christianity, on Islam, on Judaism, on abortion, on Right-for-life, on freedom, on slavery, on communism, capitalism, government, anarchy...
They are all poor excuses for humans.
Especially in minority social groups, I see it. "Zie wasn't a true foo because bar," where bar is the specific infraction. "This guy can't have been a real pagan because he molested little girls, and pagans don't do that." How about a real, decent person? Evil nasty people come from all walks of life. It's not strictly the territory of any one social group, any minority, any religion, any race, any gender. It's a human problem.
And as humans, it's worth our while to collectively figure out how these asshats got separated from the basic idea of being human, rather than individually scramble to kick them out of our ideological treehouse.
Both in paganism, and in polyamory, I've run into situations where people affiliating themselves with a group, perhaps even accepted by the group, turn around and do terrible things. Sometimes they just do this. Sometimes they do this with the excuse of their affiliation. In either case, the affiliation is generally what the media seizes onto, and the group tries to distance themselves from the offender, saying, "That's not real foo; what this idiot did was in no way connected to the real foo; he used the name of foo to perpetrate the awfulness."
They say, "This idiot was a poor excuse for a foo; they claimed foo and used that to go about their horrible ways."
What they mean is: "This idiot was a poor excuse for a human being."
Idiots and asshats show up in all walks of life. This idiot is a poor excuse for a pagan. This idiot is just using the noble claims of polyamory to let his perverse lusts loose. That idiot is a murderer and psychopath who hung their asshat on Christianity, on Islam, on Judaism, on abortion, on Right-for-life, on freedom, on slavery, on communism, capitalism, government, anarchy...
They are all poor excuses for humans.
Especially in minority social groups, I see it. "Zie wasn't a true foo because bar," where bar is the specific infraction. "This guy can't have been a real pagan because he molested little girls, and pagans don't do that." How about a real, decent person? Evil nasty people come from all walks of life. It's not strictly the territory of any one social group, any minority, any religion, any race, any gender. It's a human problem.
And as humans, it's worth our while to collectively figure out how these asshats got separated from the basic idea of being human, rather than individually scramble to kick them out of our ideological treehouse.
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(And much as the "that person's not an x because all xs are good people" meme is a problem with x as a religion or philosophy, it's really, deeply laughable when x is a hobby.)
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I trust you mean some of the knitwits, specifically?
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[1] The criteria tend to be age, gender, and domesticity, but there have been fifty-year-old housewife murderers.
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Oy.