Open Season

In a comment, X (is back!) wrote:

I still find it amusing how we can mock people for their politics, their personal habits, the cars they drive, even the food they eat (lutefisk anyone?), but we can't someone's mock [sic] religion.

I understand that mocking a persons ethnicity, sex, age, orientation or any other innate characteristic about them which is beyond their own control is cruel, but when religious belief like politics, low-rise jeans and driving an obnoxious Hummer or a self-righteous Prius is a voluntary endeavor, I see no reason for it not to be fair game for ridicule.

I keep reflecting on this statement, and, as much as I hate to admit it, he's probably on to something.

The counter-argument is that many people don't choose their religion, it's generally foisted upon them. But the same is true about political parties - it's just that most people step out of their parent's shadow faster on politics than on religion. If you're the sort of sheep who does what you're told, you'll likely maintain your parent's politics and religion for life. If you're a self-thinker, you may step away from either or both. One's a little more likely than the other, but it's only a matter of degree, and a fairly trivial degree as well.

The particularly annoying thing for me is that if I acknowledge there's nothing wrong with mocking someone's religion, I pretty much have to admit there's nothing wrong with someone mocking me about being vegetarian.

I know that's a touchy spot for me - if I say it's okay, I'm pretty much consigning myself to never-ending arguments. Part of why I rarely watch TV (other than the fact that most network programming rots your brain) is the ceaseless parade of commercials for restaurants, grocery stores, and meat products. It pisses me off - having dead carcass waved in my face, people telling me that I'm abnormal for not eating what they do.

But I generally don't go off about it, because I generally hold myself to the standard that it's not polite or proper to assail someone about their dietary choices. A person's really got to get my goat in order for me to be provoked into responding about my vegetarianism and their carnivorosity. Lutefisk gets my goat - mostly 'cause I think the only critter that could survive on that lye-soaked fish-flavored jello is the same sort of critter that can survive on a diet of tin-cans and garbage. Dear friends insisting that broccoli screams, or that since I must kill microbes therefore I shouldn't feel guilt about killing anything, gets my goat. My mother-in-law insisting that lobster is a vegetable gets my goat. Frankly, I ain't got much goat left.

So, yeah, I'm on the verge of agreeing that there's nothing wrong with mocking anyone's religion. But religion is much further down the continuum then diet is, so if I move the line past religion, it has to hop past diet and several other issues as well.

Seth Godin recently drew parallels involving religion, technology and fashion. I think I'll take him out of context:

People will recommend something if adoption improves their lives.

Fax machines? Life is better for me if you have one.

Fashion? Life is better for me if I'm not the only one wearing this.

Religious sect? Life is better for me if I'm not the only one in the building.

Vegetarian? Life is better for me if my friends and I can eat the same meals, and blog from the same viewpoint. By that logic, I should be actively recruiting.

To be crystal clear - it's not that I'm afraid you're going to start mocking my vegetarianism. IMHO, that happens every time someone posts a picture of the bunny they killed as a child, or a video that uses hamburgers and bratwurst to explain WW2. You may not mean to insult, tease, or deride me, you may not mean to not-so-subtly imply there's something wrong with me because I don't eat meat, but it's sometimes hard for me to not interpret your actions as doing so. It gets my dander up.

I just know that if I acknowledge it's okay for you (and thus, me) to mock someone's religion, then that means it's also okay for you to mock me about vegetarianism, and thus okay for me to mock you about your meat eating. If it's okay for Dawkins' to call all Christians "Delusional" than it's okay for me to say equally insulting things about meat eaters.

I don't want to go there. I've been a vegetarian for a decade and a half. During that time, I've never told someone else they shouldn't eat meat. I've never tried to convert someone. I don't want to be a radical in-your-face vegetarian, many of the PETA crowd take it way too far.

But at the same time, most meat eaters haven't a clue that they are constantly being radical in-your-face meat eaters, unintentionally insulting and affronting myself and my wife on an almost daily basis. Many a time has someone that knew I was a vegetarian said "you sure you don't want some of this? It's really good!" On more than one occasion people have tried to trick me into eating meat "for my own good", by lying about ingredients. While I've gone off on the second group, I contemptuously tolerate the first.

I've been a smug and silent self-righteous ass, telling myself I'm better than you, because I tolerate your carnivorous boorishness. I've been wallowing in my imagined glory for being above the crass tactics of the rest of society. All that silent contempt has been "justified" by my defining the line of what sort of criticism is proper and fair far to one side, when in reality, it's quite possibly far to the opposite end of the continuum. That dickish self-righteousness has got to stop. On the theoretical level, at least, I'd generally rather be honest than polite. As mentioned a few dozen posts ago, Integrity has negative connotations I'd never understood.

If I go there, it's like I'm declaring "open season" on all the crap I've been grudgingly tolerating, and by extension declaring "open season" on all my idiosyncracies that I wish people would just quietly tolerate. If I go there, I'll be in danger of becoming a militant vegetarian, and that's not gonna be much fun. I'm bitter and cynical enough as is, last thing I need is Carte Blanche to be a vocal asshole about 2 or 3 more topics than I already am.

On the other hand, I'm constantly pissed off about "minor" things that are part of everyday life, and I don't have an outlet to vent that anger. I suspect that bottled frustration is part of what gets me into flame wars on gaming forums and has me stubbornly defending positions that I don't really support in the comment threads of LHC posts. I'm bugged about one thing, and transferring that negative energy to other topics. That's not very healthy or honest.

It's time to think outside the box. I've got an anger management issue, and it's got a few possible solutions:

1. I could just start mocking everyone for everything, and take life a lot less seriously. From time to time, I'll still get upset, but when that happens I can try to diffuse it via humor.
   
2. I could focus on insulting instead of mocking, and just be a petty and hurtful dick. Honestly, scathing cynicism comes more naturally to me than humor does, so this may be the way to go.
   
3. I could ditch the internet entirely. My anger doesn't manifest in my personal life. I could gamble that the net is causing it, instead of being how I vent it off. There's a danger that this could result in me becoming abusive in-person, though, as I used to have temper issues as an adolescent. I'm not yet willing to take that risk.
   
4. I could seek serious psychiatric help. I don't feel that I need it, but maybe I'm in denial.
5. I could self-medicate. Next round's on me.
   
6. I could give up my principles, start eating meat again, learn to drive, support a binary political party, and become a born-again something-something-mainstream, in hopes that this would result in me feeling somehow less persecuted or frustrated.
7. I could go the opposite direction. I could intentionally become an animal-rescuing, arms-stockpiling, orgy-coordinating, treason-fomenting, religion-subverting, vegetable-worshiping, faith-healing, self-imagined messianic half-alien nutjob and establish a commune on an abandoned oil derrick and start producing my own postage stamps for the Sovereign Nation of Rolfelandia.
   
8. I could just delete this post instead of hitting the "publish" button, and forget I ever brought the subject up. That's probably the safest route.
9. I could go ahead and publish, then later delete this post and deny it ever existed, gaslighting anyone who ever called me on it. Naw, that's crazy talk. I'd never do that.
   
10. I could save this post as a draft, not publish it, and know there's a chance that Jake or X will one day stumble across it anyway. If they ever do so, then I can delete it and gaslight just them. That seems much more reasonable.
    

I'm probably gonna try "solution" number 1, and see where that goes. Wish me luck and/or mock me. I may or may not pretend I don't care, and/or mock you back.