Humans are insane

in #anarchism6 years ago (edited)

Sometimes, the things we do and the things in which we believe are shocking. Often enough, we normalize even the strangest of things, even the most ghastly of things, the most repulsive of things. We don't do it because we're monsters. We do it because we live in a society, a pack, a tribe, and what the tribe does, we do. More often than not, the power of socialization is stronger than the courage of our convictions. We will fold, we will moderate our views, and we will tend toward the center. The fear of ostracism and/or conflict is enough to push us, ever so momentarily, within the conversation. The longer we hold a belief, the more sure of it we become, the more comfortable with it we become, the more likely we then are to be willing to say: fuck you and fuck your society too.

Within the USA, children are indoctrinated into a statist religion that we so euphamistically call "patriotism". They are taught to stand when the national anthem plays, they are told to put their hands over their hearts and swear their allegiance to the state. The flag is shown everywhere possible in the USA to remind us that we are "Americans". At the beginning of every major sporting event we repeat this ritual of standing for anthem and holding our hands over our hearts in reverence to our god, the state.

Like every religion that's been around long enough, there are those who serve god, and those individuals are "above" the rest of us. The military, the police, the public school teachers, the congress people, the POTUS, the SCOTUS, etc... all of these people are special and above us. The police and the military make "sacrifices" and "risk their lives" for us and for our "freedoms". Of course, the police and the military are paid. The police can and does confiscate our property in "asset forfeiture" and they enjoy their status among us. Police officers, service men and women, and school teachers can breach the public trust, commit atrocities and abuses so grievous that any company having committed them would have been shut down, and they will get paid leave. Why? Because the servants of god cannot be castigated or suffer any obloquy. Were they to, the entirety of the state apparatus may be cast in negative light. That might shake people's faith in their god.

We likewise normalize abuse in our personal lives, and some celebrate it. Being beaten by parents? Well, that "made me the person I am" and some even claim to be thankful. They call it discipline. It's just abuse. Any child cannot be held more accountable for his/her actions than an adult, and were you to beat an adult we call that assault, and we prosecute people for it.

To be on the outside of one's society and to reject normalization of immorality... it leaves a person alone. So very, very alone. It's a shit way to live. Yet, having adopted views that I know to be true, I cannot make myself conform to the level required to be "normal". I reject the theology of the state. I reject any normalization of actions that violate the freedom and self-ownership of another person. I can no more separate these convictions from myself than I could my own heart.

Oddly, even among "my own kind of people," I am often the lonely voice saying something to which others would object. To an ancap, I am some kind of liberal idiot, because I believe that we should accept people on their own terms; they do, after all, own themselves and therefore have the right to define themselves as they so choose. It would seem, however, that this view isn't shared by all. To an ancom, I am some oppressive monster because I cannot agree with violating the property rights of other people. To any mainstream political movement, well... I am an anarchist, and they view that as some dangerous and delusional monster who ought to be treated for mental illness.

Enter the weirdest part of it all: conflicting views. The statists will cry and lament government power when "the wrong person" is in office and celebrate it when "the right person is in office." The standard Republican will cry about government power over life and death when the state interferes in health care, but they will simultaneously advocate for the death penalty. Likewise, the left will allow bodily autonomy as relates to abortion, body modification, gender re-assignment surgery, and pot... but you want to smoke crack? Nah. You want to do heroine? Nah. You want to exist as a cis white male? Nope (while I disagree with hate speech legislation because I disagree with legalism, #KillAllWhiteMen isn't hate speech but "kill all anything else" is, which shows another dichotomy {yes, I understand the beliefs of intersectionality and privilege/power matrices, that doesn't change the hypocrisy}). The insane things people can hold in their minds as true simultaneously is astonishing. Yet, this enforcement is due to the social pressure to conform. It's because we are pushed into the Overton Window lest we suffer the fate of becoming ejecta.

The idea of government, nationhood, race, gender, etc... these only exist in the mind, and yet it is precisely these things that cause the most trouble... the things that aren't real at all. Humans are individuals. Humans are not part of any grouping other than human. Abstract ideas and groupings that humans create are meant to be descriptive and allow communication, not to be prescriptive and cause stratification.