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On a topic long dreaded...
There is no way I think I can say this without getting into lots of trouble. Yet I don't think I can keep my mouth shut, another one of my less admirable traits. So feel free to fire away, or hate me forever, or whatever. I think I deserve it.
There are things that you normally do not discuss in polite conversation, whether personally or through the anonymity of the internet. However,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flamingchords posted a long rant which actually managed to touch one of the few nerves I have left, so hence you get an angry, impromptu response. Now, anyone who reads both of these pieces will rapidly come to the conclusion that I am overreacting, and I would like to apologize to flamingchords in advance, since he is the catalyst and not the cause of this reaction, I don't even think you're guilty of doing anything wrong (morally or otherwise). I would also like to apologize to all the readers I am about to send over the edge into outright hatred of me for the stress on your body and mind. But I think this is one of those cases where I need to express an irrelevant, but still perhaps important opinion.
Unfortunately, to do that, I'm first going to have to discuss abortion.
First off, if any of you, for some reason known only to yourselves, had any hope of discovering what my position on abortion is, you will find yourself sadly disappointed by the following. I do not intend to state my position on the vast patchwork quilt of issues we refer to simply as "abortion". I consider my position on the subject to be my position, and hence a private matter that concerns only me.
Unfortunately, unlike other private matters on which I do occasionally hold forth an opinion, the giant carnival of ideas referred to as "abortion" has, despite enough identifiably separate issues to fill up an entire shelf of encyclopedias, only two possible positions in American society. Your years of experience, philosophical views, and your careful weighing of social and biological evidence on the matter are distilled down to a binary declaration, pro-life or pro-choice. You only get to choose one. You are like a light-switch, you are either on or you are off. I refuse to be associated with either group because I find their definitions sufficiently vague, and their particulars sufficiently hidden, that I would be unable to say, where I associated with one or the other, precisely what my faction stood for.
But the split between the two is not only confusing, it is also symptomatic of another, very disturbing trend in American life. Which gets me, of course, to what set me off. A very small, almost offhand comment, as follows:
"A handful of pro-life people are genuinely concerned about the welfare of the unborn... but none of these people with good intentions are the ones in power. The ones in power see women as incubators, not as human beings in their own right, and in their view, the lives of these women are of far less importance than a clump of cells, which is in turn of far less importance than their backward belief that women belong barefoot and pregnant, and let's put them all in the kitchen while we're at it?"
Stop for a moment, before you say whether you agree or disagree with this statement, and let us examine what it actually is. What this is is a statement of fact, an assertion, presented as a matter of record, that those people who refer to themselves as "pro-life" who are in power, as well as a majority (where the inverted phrase to "a handful", "all but a handful", is implied to be not only the majority, but a strong majority), embrace that position for reasons that have nothing to do with the welfare of the unborn, and are highly implied to be taking this position simply because they are against women's rights.
It is unprovable. It is unsupported, almost by definition. And I cannot believe that this is correct.
And this is what sends me totally, screaming off of the edge. Maybe my distance from the argument, and the people I know from both sides, gives me a twisted view, but I cannot agree with even the implication of bad faith on behalf of most of either side. I cannot believe that the motivations for such a widespread movement, on either side, can come from such a simple motivation. I cannot believe that something that a conflict that has aroused such passion and anger could be conducted almost entirely by false pretenses on one side. And there, deep inside, like the sound an engine makes when the oil has run out and it is tottering on its last legs, I can hear the end of democracy. Because I think this is wrong, because I believe that most people on both sides, not just of this argument, but of most of today's major issues, believe in the positions they take.
Take the two abortion positions. I have heard, from the "pro-choice" side, this same argument before. That nobody could possibly believe that a clump of cells, without a brain, without even a developed nervous chain of any sort, could possibly be more alive than, say, a fairly bright cucumber. That the only possible explanation for taking this position is that they are really trying to reduce women's rights.
On the other hand, from the "pro-life" side, I have heard an eerily reversed argument. That there is no way that anybody cannot understand that once a sperm and an egg meet and fertilize that what you have created is a human life; that it may be blind, and dumb, and basically nothing more than a collection of bacteria, but it is still undeniably human. And that the only reason which you would use for wanting to exterminate that life is if you hate the world, hate humanity, or secretly hate yourself, and want to take that anger out on something small and incapable of resistance.
Of course both sides make allowances. There are some people in the opposition who are truly deluded, who are naive and stupid and uneducated, and really believe those words that each side throws out. But, we assure ourselves in the privacy of our own homes, that's only a few, and they really wouldn't do that type of thing if they thought about it for a few minutes. Most of them aren't doing it because they believe. Most of them have an ulterior motive. And here we enter the most dangerous territory of all, where we dream that out enemies have already broken the covenenat of good faith.
And there, buried somewhere in miles of rhetoric and angry history, lie the poison seeds of damnation, from which democracy dies. Because one of the central themes of becoming an adult, especially in a democracy, is the need to understand that not everybody is like you. People can examine the same evidence with the same presentation and come to conclusions completely opposite your own, and do so in good faith. You may believe that they are wrong, you may have evidence that shows, in such a manner as you are convinced would sway any unbiased individual, that you are correct, you may even feel yourself to be validated by events, but you have to accept that some people will not only refuse to agree with you, but will continue to believe in something completely different. And that, at the same time, these people are still forthright, honest, human beings. Without the assumption of good faith we are no longer one nation, but a split one, the saved and the damned struggling for heaven. No longer is the future a journey; now it becomes a fight.
To change the venue, let me point out that I see this attitude mostly from the fellows and cronies of Jack Chick. They seem to hold the position that anybody who looks at the Bible must immediately know that this is true, that all the words in it are true, and that their God, and their interpretation of the Bible, is the One True Way. Anybody who knows anything about the Bible and does not follow this path must, of course, only be doing it because they hate God, or they fear God, or they are directly in league with Satan.
It is the last point that is most worrying. Because if the people who hold positions opposite yours hold them not in good faith, but out of some other reason and purpose, then the only possible explanation is often evil. People who oppose abortion do so, not because they care about what they think is a human life, but because they hate women and want to remove their rights. People who support abortion do so, not because they think that this is really an issue where the mother has precedence, but because they secretly hate, and wish to kill babies. People who believe in evolution do it, not because of a large body of scientific evidence, but because they hate and fear God and wish they could wish him away. People who vote Democrat do so because they secretly hate America and all that it stands for.
There is a tendency to value beliefs that have no benefit to ourselves as somehow more fervent than those that do, but this is not a verdict history would agree with. People may oppose abortion due to social conservatism, due to fear of the new order and new ways of life, due to beliefs that the distance feminism has gone exceeds "the bounds of good taste" (whatever those are), or fear that the family structure that they grew up in and are comfortable with is under threat. That does not mean that they hold a belief in the beauty of human life any less fervently. The workers in Russia in 1917 revolted due to reasons of economics, of poor pay, safety, and salary; and politics, the mismanagement of the war, the bankruptcy of the country, and the lack of their own voice. The inclusion of these contributing factors did not prevent them from believing in notions of equality and equal voice and equal property. Likewise, do not conflate the cause with the effect. If abortion is outlawed, the status of women in America will probably decline. This is a statement I think is true (which is as much as you're getting out of me). Likewise, the Revolution of 1917 led to the Russian Civil War, and the Ukrainian famine. It would be a mistake, though, to believe that even at the highest levels, A was necessarily done to cause B. This goes far beyond assumptions of Post hoc ergo propter hoc, and into a pairing with Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
Because once you do fall down this trap, then democracy is over. Once you begin to believe that the people who disagree with you on a major issue are not just wrong, but actively wrong, maliciously wrong, then the entire civil system we depend on is over. Once the partisan fighting gets to that point it's no longer a matter of how to run the country, but how to chase those other guys out. It becomes a civil war, a fight in which you cannot compromise because you know that the other side is totally, and irredeemably, evil.
And so, given the audience for this, I would like to take a moment to address the "pro-choice" side, which I believe a majority of the readers here would associate themselves with. Do not be afraid to stand up for yourself and your position, do not be afraid to take to the streets and the presses in support of your stance. Celebrate your victories and rally yourself after your defeats, and keep on pushing against all odds, and don't ever be afraid to refuse to compromise on an issue that you believe cannot be compromised on, because that kind of activism is what keeps America going. But always remember at the end of the day that your opponents may be decent people too; there are very few bad people, just good people who do bad things for what they think is the right reason. Pretending they don't mean what they say will get you nowhere.
If you believe that they only stand for false causes, you will find yourself surprised by the resistance they offer, and the offesce they exhibit once you have made that clear. So don't. Beat them openly, beat them soundly, and beat them fairly, but remember, at the end, the rebels are your countrymen once again.
All right, thus endeth the incoherent sermon, or whatever. Let the flamings, hate mail, and mass de-friendings commence.
There are things that you normally do not discuss in polite conversation, whether personally or through the anonymity of the internet. However,
flamingchords posted a long rant which actually managed to touch one of the few nerves I have left, so hence you get an angry, impromptu response. Now, anyone who reads both of these pieces will rapidly come to the conclusion that I am overreacting, and I would like to apologize to flamingchords in advance, since he is the catalyst and not the cause of this reaction, I don't even think you're guilty of doing anything wrong (morally or otherwise). I would also like to apologize to all the readers I am about to send over the edge into outright hatred of me for the stress on your body and mind. But I think this is one of those cases where I need to express an irrelevant, but still perhaps important opinion.Unfortunately, to do that, I'm first going to have to discuss abortion.
First off, if any of you, for some reason known only to yourselves, had any hope of discovering what my position on abortion is, you will find yourself sadly disappointed by the following. I do not intend to state my position on the vast patchwork quilt of issues we refer to simply as "abortion". I consider my position on the subject to be my position, and hence a private matter that concerns only me.
Unfortunately, unlike other private matters on which I do occasionally hold forth an opinion, the giant carnival of ideas referred to as "abortion" has, despite enough identifiably separate issues to fill up an entire shelf of encyclopedias, only two possible positions in American society. Your years of experience, philosophical views, and your careful weighing of social and biological evidence on the matter are distilled down to a binary declaration, pro-life or pro-choice. You only get to choose one. You are like a light-switch, you are either on or you are off. I refuse to be associated with either group because I find their definitions sufficiently vague, and their particulars sufficiently hidden, that I would be unable to say, where I associated with one or the other, precisely what my faction stood for.
But the split between the two is not only confusing, it is also symptomatic of another, very disturbing trend in American life. Which gets me, of course, to what set me off. A very small, almost offhand comment, as follows:
"A handful of pro-life people are genuinely concerned about the welfare of the unborn... but none of these people with good intentions are the ones in power. The ones in power see women as incubators, not as human beings in their own right, and in their view, the lives of these women are of far less importance than a clump of cells, which is in turn of far less importance than their backward belief that women belong barefoot and pregnant, and let's put them all in the kitchen while we're at it?"
Stop for a moment, before you say whether you agree or disagree with this statement, and let us examine what it actually is. What this is is a statement of fact, an assertion, presented as a matter of record, that those people who refer to themselves as "pro-life" who are in power, as well as a majority (where the inverted phrase to "a handful", "all but a handful", is implied to be not only the majority, but a strong majority), embrace that position for reasons that have nothing to do with the welfare of the unborn, and are highly implied to be taking this position simply because they are against women's rights.
It is unprovable. It is unsupported, almost by definition. And I cannot believe that this is correct.
And this is what sends me totally, screaming off of the edge. Maybe my distance from the argument, and the people I know from both sides, gives me a twisted view, but I cannot agree with even the implication of bad faith on behalf of most of either side. I cannot believe that the motivations for such a widespread movement, on either side, can come from such a simple motivation. I cannot believe that something that a conflict that has aroused such passion and anger could be conducted almost entirely by false pretenses on one side. And there, deep inside, like the sound an engine makes when the oil has run out and it is tottering on its last legs, I can hear the end of democracy. Because I think this is wrong, because I believe that most people on both sides, not just of this argument, but of most of today's major issues, believe in the positions they take.
Take the two abortion positions. I have heard, from the "pro-choice" side, this same argument before. That nobody could possibly believe that a clump of cells, without a brain, without even a developed nervous chain of any sort, could possibly be more alive than, say, a fairly bright cucumber. That the only possible explanation for taking this position is that they are really trying to reduce women's rights.
On the other hand, from the "pro-life" side, I have heard an eerily reversed argument. That there is no way that anybody cannot understand that once a sperm and an egg meet and fertilize that what you have created is a human life; that it may be blind, and dumb, and basically nothing more than a collection of bacteria, but it is still undeniably human. And that the only reason which you would use for wanting to exterminate that life is if you hate the world, hate humanity, or secretly hate yourself, and want to take that anger out on something small and incapable of resistance.
Of course both sides make allowances. There are some people in the opposition who are truly deluded, who are naive and stupid and uneducated, and really believe those words that each side throws out. But, we assure ourselves in the privacy of our own homes, that's only a few, and they really wouldn't do that type of thing if they thought about it for a few minutes. Most of them aren't doing it because they believe. Most of them have an ulterior motive. And here we enter the most dangerous territory of all, where we dream that out enemies have already broken the covenenat of good faith.
And there, buried somewhere in miles of rhetoric and angry history, lie the poison seeds of damnation, from which democracy dies. Because one of the central themes of becoming an adult, especially in a democracy, is the need to understand that not everybody is like you. People can examine the same evidence with the same presentation and come to conclusions completely opposite your own, and do so in good faith. You may believe that they are wrong, you may have evidence that shows, in such a manner as you are convinced would sway any unbiased individual, that you are correct, you may even feel yourself to be validated by events, but you have to accept that some people will not only refuse to agree with you, but will continue to believe in something completely different. And that, at the same time, these people are still forthright, honest, human beings. Without the assumption of good faith we are no longer one nation, but a split one, the saved and the damned struggling for heaven. No longer is the future a journey; now it becomes a fight.
To change the venue, let me point out that I see this attitude mostly from the fellows and cronies of Jack Chick. They seem to hold the position that anybody who looks at the Bible must immediately know that this is true, that all the words in it are true, and that their God, and their interpretation of the Bible, is the One True Way. Anybody who knows anything about the Bible and does not follow this path must, of course, only be doing it because they hate God, or they fear God, or they are directly in league with Satan.
It is the last point that is most worrying. Because if the people who hold positions opposite yours hold them not in good faith, but out of some other reason and purpose, then the only possible explanation is often evil. People who oppose abortion do so, not because they care about what they think is a human life, but because they hate women and want to remove their rights. People who support abortion do so, not because they think that this is really an issue where the mother has precedence, but because they secretly hate, and wish to kill babies. People who believe in evolution do it, not because of a large body of scientific evidence, but because they hate and fear God and wish they could wish him away. People who vote Democrat do so because they secretly hate America and all that it stands for.
There is a tendency to value beliefs that have no benefit to ourselves as somehow more fervent than those that do, but this is not a verdict history would agree with. People may oppose abortion due to social conservatism, due to fear of the new order and new ways of life, due to beliefs that the distance feminism has gone exceeds "the bounds of good taste" (whatever those are), or fear that the family structure that they grew up in and are comfortable with is under threat. That does not mean that they hold a belief in the beauty of human life any less fervently. The workers in Russia in 1917 revolted due to reasons of economics, of poor pay, safety, and salary; and politics, the mismanagement of the war, the bankruptcy of the country, and the lack of their own voice. The inclusion of these contributing factors did not prevent them from believing in notions of equality and equal voice and equal property. Likewise, do not conflate the cause with the effect. If abortion is outlawed, the status of women in America will probably decline. This is a statement I think is true (which is as much as you're getting out of me). Likewise, the Revolution of 1917 led to the Russian Civil War, and the Ukrainian famine. It would be a mistake, though, to believe that even at the highest levels, A was necessarily done to cause B. This goes far beyond assumptions of Post hoc ergo propter hoc, and into a pairing with Cum hoc ergo propter hoc.
Because once you do fall down this trap, then democracy is over. Once you begin to believe that the people who disagree with you on a major issue are not just wrong, but actively wrong, maliciously wrong, then the entire civil system we depend on is over. Once the partisan fighting gets to that point it's no longer a matter of how to run the country, but how to chase those other guys out. It becomes a civil war, a fight in which you cannot compromise because you know that the other side is totally, and irredeemably, evil.
And so, given the audience for this, I would like to take a moment to address the "pro-choice" side, which I believe a majority of the readers here would associate themselves with. Do not be afraid to stand up for yourself and your position, do not be afraid to take to the streets and the presses in support of your stance. Celebrate your victories and rally yourself after your defeats, and keep on pushing against all odds, and don't ever be afraid to refuse to compromise on an issue that you believe cannot be compromised on, because that kind of activism is what keeps America going. But always remember at the end of the day that your opponents may be decent people too; there are very few bad people, just good people who do bad things for what they think is the right reason. Pretending they don't mean what they say will get you nowhere.
If you believe that they only stand for false causes, you will find yourself surprised by the resistance they offer, and the offesce they exhibit once you have made that clear. So don't. Beat them openly, beat them soundly, and beat them fairly, but remember, at the end, the rebels are your countrymen once again.
All right, thus endeth the incoherent sermon, or whatever. Let the flamings, hate mail, and mass de-friendings commence.
no subject
But remember that they have their reasons, and most of them, if you could magically sift through their mind and extract them, would claim they were doing it for the child's own good. It doesn't mean that they are really doing the child any good, but it means that they believe they are, and any attempt to pretend the opposite is pretty much doomed to failure.
As I said, good people, or at least well-meaning ones, do bad things all the time. This, however, doesn't make them incurably evil, just people who need to be confronted. The idea that there is a universally accessible and recognizable "morally right" choice is a conceit we would do well to avoid.
no subject
no subject
Given that, I dismiss the rantings of anyone who claims that the great majority of pro-life people are evil as delusional, and usually all claims made by that person after that point. I'll argue that not only is this a foolish tactic, but that it's saying something that's actively wrong, and that losses you more ground than it gains you. I also think that trying to describe a large, complex, political movement as simply "evil" in nature, not that their actions lead to bad things but that they themselves are bad people, is morally wrong. If this were an ethnic divide, they would be the precursors to genocide, but fortunately things are not yet that dire. I just don't want them to become that way.
I'll also point out an analogy: I said much the same thing to the neo-cons. When they said that the terrorists "were evil and hated our freedoms", I warned them that they were oversimplifying the case, that these were people who actually believed in a combination of Islamism and nationalism, and ethnocultural identity. That was seven years ago, and now we're busily involved in two wars that are slowly destroying our nation's ability to compete.
Now I have a lot more faith in the pro-choice movement than I do in the neocons, but it's a good warning. Keep in mind that whatever evil they do, they do with good intentions. You can be as horrified about it as you like, but it adds another layer of complexity to any strategy you're going to undertake to root them out.
You have the right to be as horrified as you want. I'm only warning people about mistaking their justifications. I actually think we agree a lot more than it sounds like we do (although we would pretty much have to).
no subject
But my horror at what the pro-life movement wants to accomplish and my frustration with the hypocrisy and my rage at the attempted infringing of my right to bodily integrity is a deep, visceral, and personal thing, as it is for many pro-choice women. And enough people - usually men - have raised their hands and said in placating tones that we must consider the other side's point lest we become what we fight and yadda yadda, under the apparent assumption that their words are somehow a revelation unto we overemotional females, that the default reaction is snarling and snark. Ye ken?
There's a lot of people out there trying to tell women how we should feel about our lives and our bodies and our choices. You can say whatever you want, but please remember that you ain't the first to say it, and if we don't appreciate your repeating the same old song and dance it's really not personal.
no subject
So no, it's not really that I think this is new. It's that I keep seeing it crop up, and I think it's a really bad idea. Just remember that if the same song and dance doesn't change anything, people may keep giving it to you.
I'm not saying how you should feel, or at least, I did not intend to. I'm just repeating warnings about the dangerous power of self-delusion. Since nobody's really saying anything new on the abortion front (most of what can be said already has), I think we can all be forgiven for being a bit repetitive of old talking points.