I’m Not Different. I am.

Posted on June 10, 2003 in Attitudes Courage & Activism Culture

It’s funny: when I preface a remark, an opinion, a value, or a criticism with “I think” or “I feel” some people think it marks me as an arrogant person. I use this phrases for precisely the opposite reason: to identify what I say as my opinion, to be taken or discarded as suits the listener.

In a similar vein, I have tastes. I like classical music. I read poetry. I don’t watch much television. I enjoy hiking. I am agnostic. I read a little James Joyce — a few sentences at a time.

Some of the same people who don’t like the fact that I identify the views that I hold as my own think this means that I am against their tastes. I must hate country music and/or rock and roll. I must dislike popular songs and lyrics. I must hate them because they watch television. I must not like people because I choose solitary activity. I must hate religious people. I must be snotty and arrogant because I have read good books that others haven’t cracked.

I’m secure with being myself in the world. But the fear these critics of mine show when I mention what I like — the way they parody me as a snob and a know-it-all — says a lot about them. And it makes me wonder: do they really like country music and rock and roll? Do they really like popular songs and lyrics? Do they really get satisfaction out of television? Do they really like being around people all the time? Are they comfortable in their faith? Are they afraid of what they might find out about themselves if they read what I have read?

Another type is the one who says “Don’t bring up your differences. Hide them. Don’t talk about anything that might offend someone else.” I am offended every day when I go out and see advertisements shoving silly products and summer fare at me wherever I look. I see bumper stickers promoting the peculiar American variety of hatred and the goodness of George W. Bush. I live every day offended by these things. And yet, I would not stand for a law that prohibited people from doing these things.

The hidden authoritarians — the nasty nice who say that all they are trying to do is keep people from fighting — are a genuine threat to our liberty. The rise of the Right was made possible, in part, by these faux liberals, faux progressives who undermined freedom of speech by telling those whose views contended with the Right to shut up.

I choose not to listen to them. I blog as I blog, I like who I like, and I live as I live. If people can drive huge Bin Laden-enriching Hummers with American flags flying from them, I certainly can drive my little forest green Nissan truck to peace rallies.

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This is partly sparked by a discussion about Gay Freedom Day Parades at Crazy Tracy’s blog. She writes with acid dripping from her keyboard:

I hate the separation of gay vs. straight. When straight people have a parade celebrating their heterosexuality, I’ll feel better about having a parade to celebrate my homosexuality. I remember someone suggested to me that I should put a warning on my blog that it contained “lesbian content” and I said, “When straight people put banners on their blogs warning people of their sexuality, I’ll do the same.”