No, I don’t think I will ever be able to stand dogma, bigotry, or chauvinism. Every time I hear about religions persecuting homosexuality, every time I encounter somebody blatantly misogynist, every time I come in contact with variations of some kind of supremacist crap, I am slightly angry at the world, and my heart bleeds a little because it doesn’t matter what I say to these people. They are who they are. It will be inaccurate to say that I am completely unaffected by ignorance. I am human. I have my feelings and my ideals. Sometimes they don’t necessarily want to agree with each other.
How can you posit your views to be absolute when it’s so ostensibly wrong? Everybody is entitled to their opinion and their piece of mind, but shouldn’t it be a general rule that anything that violates the basic respect, freedom, and existence of another is utterly intolerable and unforgivable? How can you justify evil, prejudice, violence, or other forms of physical or social atrocities with God? With a seemingly superior argument? With status? With wealth? With whatever absurd reason that prevents you from questioning your ethics? No, you cannot possibly claim your ethics are determined by a higher power–you determine your own ethics and embrace anything that affirms those sets of ethics and rejects anything that denounces it. Persecuting homosexuality can’t be from God. The “inferiority” of women can’t be the will of Nature. In fact, how can anyone claim to understand the forces of nature?
In short, it just makes me so incredibly angry that such people exist. Evildoers who justify their actions in the name of God. Bullies and abusers who justify their crimes in their false sense of righteousness. I don’t think I will ever be able to come to terms with that there are ignorant people in the world. I know it, of course I do. But every time…every single time…I think to myself: Are these people real? How can they even exist?
I call myself an idealist, but is it not sad that wanting basic human rights that we all deserve is considered “idealist”? I want people to stop saying “that’s so gay” when they are describing, thoughtlessly, something negative. I want people quit using the R word and stop saying “hell yeah we raped that team” as if “raping” is such a glorious act of triumph. I want people to stop their “oh I’m not using it in an offensive way” bullshit. I want homophobia gone. I want racism an sexism and classism gone. I want everything shitty gone from this world. On an intellectual and perfectly rational level, I know that will never happen. But those are my idealist sentiments, and I can’t stop having them…but maybe, that’s a good thing. Feeling angry, indignant, makes me feel like I still haven’t given up on this world yet.
Can you be a pessimist and an optimist at the same time?