It's Not Always About That

This post may cost me friends if I don't phrase it just right. So if I don't phrase it perfectly, and you feel defensive, please take a break, take a breath, and try again later. I explain more about this issue later on in the article.

Because this opinion may come across as controversial.

Not that I'm any stranger to that in the past several years.

So here goes...

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It's not always about your pet thing.

Is it often about your pet thing? Yes. If your pet thing is racism, or misogyny, or transphobia, or ableism, or some other actual injustice in the world, then yes. It is often about your pet thing.

Maybe even usually.

But not always.

Certainly not always or usually or even often if your pet thing is about some random conspiracy that has been disproven time and time again but you still believe. Yes, I am talking about "taking our guns" or "we didn't walk on the Moon" or "Covid vaccines would implant something to track me, and never mind that I'm sharing this theory from a handheld pocket computer that already tracks me on a post checking in at a local Wal-Mart."

You may have heard a phrase that goes something like, "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail..." and I think that's a common cognitive bias in play for a lot of us. I include myself; I'm not immune.

And of course, we can try to be intersectional (more about that in this link) but we all still have our pet priorities. Not to mention that with as much injustice as we see and/or experience, especially as interconnected as we are these days, sometimes we need a break from the constant unrelenting outrageous things happening for our own mental health. And that's okay, as long as we get back in there and fight the good fight once we've regrouped.

All the pet things are different, of course. All the -isms and -phobias and miso- this and that... I've talked about this before, just over four years ago, but I like to think that I've refined my views somewhat, grown, and gained more perspective. And I've gotten an inkling into how this seems to other people, especially when speaking with 13yo Liz, because she's, well, thirteen.

So when she makes a blanket statement, like "My teachers should know this thing because they're teachers," she isn't always taking into account that a) teachers are human and therefore fallible, and b) they may have been taught differently themselves and don't know the latest research... but it's developmentally appropriate for her to think that way.

When full-grown adults do it, notsomuch.

This is how we get conspiracy theories of the type that suggest - say - that Apollo 11 never landed on the moon, and if you show evidence that it did, then they say the evidence was planted by shadowy figures whose sole purpose is to confuse the general populace. For an equally shadowy unknown reason, I suppose.

In any case, I'm really really tired of the assertion that all things are a spectrum, except for this one thing which is inviolate (and may change over time to an equally inviolate thing) and if you argue the point you're somehow the enemy.

There is a reason I keep my mouth shut on certain subjects; it's so I don't alienate people with whom I agree on most issues, but I have a more moderate stance on their one pet topic, about which they are often rabid.

There's that protecting-my-own-mental-health thing again, I suppose. I value my relationships with these people overall more than I do "being right."

But it sure is tiring.