I thought about this recently when I went to a meeting about the coming day of action in April. The meeting was held upstairs in a rather nice old pub, but one of our number couldn't come because she couldn't manage the stairs. She is classed as a disabled person, although I didn't know that until quite recently - I just thought she was a small person with wonky hips.
This led me to wondering what a "disabled person" actually is.
Tai Chi
A couple of years ago I used to teach a beginners' class in Tai Chi. One of my students was also a student activist on disability issues and asked me if I could teach a disabled person to do Tai Chi.
I couldn't answer her.
The reason is that she wanted a simple yes/no answer and there wasn't one I could give. From the point of view involved in teaching Tai Chi there's no such thing as a "disabled person", there's just a person. That person may or may not be able to do certain things, and the teaching would therefore take that into account on an individual basis.
To explain a little more clearly: If a person can't touch their toes, is stone deaf, has only one arm or has balance problems from cerebral palsy then I can probably teach them Tai Chi. If a person is blind or confined to a wheelchair then I probably can't - although I'd give it a good old try first!
Car Parking
I understand the usefulness, from a governmental perspective of considering certain people with certain difficulties as "disabled". It's useful for someone who can't walk very well to have some kind of guaranteed car parking near to where they want to go. It's also useful for a governmental agency to be able to classify people by their ability to earn a living, or need for state benefit. This sort of thing is, though, surely as far as the classification needs to go.
Pigeonholes
Regular readers of my rants will probably have guessed what I'm getting at by now: Pigeonholing! The necessities stated above notwithstanding, I've noticed a tendency amongst people to consider "disabled" as a category of person. This is what my, supposedly politically enlightened, Tai Chi student was doing.
It's probably a linguistic thing - we tend to categorise things into simplistic types so that we don't have to think about them properly. Reactionaries and activists rely on this tendency a lot - it dehumanises the enemy and makes them easier to throw things at. Most people do it. I've heard men talk about women and women talk about men as if they're all the same. I've heard whites talk about blacks, pakistanis talk about jews, and cleaners talk about caretakers - all using that same unthinking group categorisation.
A "Disabled Person"
Is it possible to say, then, that people with a blue parking pass for their car are all the same? My friend who didn't like the thought of the stairs probably would say not, and I think she'd be right.
To think in terms of a "disabled person" (and I'm as guilty as anyone else) as opposed to a person who can't perform a particular activity, or has a bit missing, belittles the person. It puts them into a little box labelled "disabled" - one might as well put them in a box labelled "broken" and have done with it.
I'm thinking about the many, many people I've met over the years and a lot of them have been considered disabled, officially that is. My mother is disabled, as is an ex-lover and my friend mentioned above. I know a deaf artist and a one-handed artist. A good friend has schizophrenia. I've known drug and alcohol addicts and a woman who lost a leg in a motorbike accident.
That's just a select few. The question is what, apart from governmental categorisation, have they all got in common? The answer is, frankly, sod all - except one thing.
They're all people.
Let's keep pigeonholes for pigeons.
Love,
Seán
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Showing posts with label socialization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socialization. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 February 2008
Saturday, 12 January 2008
Who Me?
In my last post I made a statement which I think might need a little working on:
". . . I'm trying to be who I am and not what I've been made."
It seems a pretty glib thing to say at first, but what does it actually mean? I know what I have been made because I am very much the sum of the last 40-odd years of experiences, learning and buggering things up. Everything I have done and everything I have had done to me has resulted so far in the person typing this.
Me
Physically I am the results of two sets of DNA, which has blessed me with wavy hair, bad eyesight and the family nose, and a lot of physical experiences which have had a variety of effects ranging from trained thigh muscles to permanent scars. In other words, I'm just like any other person on average. But this is just the physical side and - even though I believe that a person is not a body or a mind or a soul/spirit but an inter-related, ever-changing combination of all the above - I'm going to discount the body as not who I am.
What I'm getting at here is a question that has plagued religious and spiritual thinkers and philosophers since forever - If I am thinking, who is the I that is doing the thinking. If I am a combination of the primal me and everything else that has made me, who is that primal me and how do I find him? In fact is he a "he"? Maybe he's a "she", an "it" or even a "they"!
Paganism
As a good Pagan boy I try to live by a deceptively complicated guideline known as the Wiccan Rede. I'm not a Wiccan, but then again I'm not really an anything specific - pigeonholes are restrictive and get on my nerves - but the Wiccan Rede is useful. It goes:
"An it harm none, do what you will"
This is open to interpretation, as are all rules and guidelines. My own works something like this: using the proviso that as little unnecessary harm of any kind is caused to everyone and everything around you, including yourself, then do your own will
"Doing your will" is a very Thelemic bit of jargon and not one I like much because it conjures images of some complete and total deadlegs from whom I would prefer to be disassociated. The trouble is that I'm not sure I can think of a better one. As James Curcio has said, Will is synonymous with Identity, but Identity in action. To do your will is to be yourself just as hard as you can manage. This takes us full circle back to the original question: who is the me that I must be to be who I am?
Circles.
So far this article is going round in ever-decreasing circles and will soon disappear in a puff of smoke up it's own arsehole. Before it does, perhaps it's time to look in a different direction.
Pope Tim Leary and Saint RAW the Optimistic, both following others and being followed in their turn, have shown that we can change how we are made. Using various techniques we can alter our socializations, our behaviours, our attitudes and our habits - and we can do it ourselves. Brainwashing techniques have shown that even the most deeply entrenched beliefs can be reversed, and advertising and propaganda show us that new beliefs and attitudes can be injected into the human mind with very little difficulty. How many people with dogs even noticed the smell before the Shake & Vac lady danced backwards across her living room?
When one wants to alter oneself in the ways suggested by Wilson and Leary there is usually an aim in mind, even if it's only to become more open-minded. The aim of finding the True Will is in stripping away the layers of social conditioning and beliefs until all that's left is the pure primal self. This isn't really changing oneself, which is like changing one's mental "clothes" - it is more like stripping completely naked. (Good grief, I'm on nudity again! It's becoming an obsession.)
A Radical Thought
The concepts of primal Self or true Will imply a certain belief - that there is such a thing. It's the assumption that the human being has a single, eternal and unchanging central core which has become known as the Soul. What if this isn't true?
I'm not proposing that we are all soulless automata or that there is no spiritual dimension at all to the human being, only that it's not a separate and eternal thing. If the human soul is as capable of change, growth and deliberate alteration as the mind and body are then how much more wonderful it surely is. It means that I am not some abstract thing distant and separate from my mind and body, but a soul/mind/body gestalt where all the bits blend to become indistinguishable at the edges. It implies that when my body dies and changes its state by becoming part of the soil fertilizing a tree whose buds feed a bird, then so do my mind and soul in their own ways.
It also implies that all creatures must be like this and therefore, by a process of extension, so must groupings of creatures - like families, societies and forests. I am part of my family and a separate individual at the same time; my children are part me, part their mother and individuals in their own right at the same time. Could there be, therefore, a family soul which joins us and is within us in the same way that we form a gestalt as individuals all together under one group concept? If there is it is made of the combined souls and DNA of the parents within the children, but the parents' souls are made of their parent's souls ad infinitum. Extend this far enough and you end up with a universal physical/intelligence/spiritual gestalt which covers and includes everything that exists/does not exist, has/has not existed and will/will not exist - ever!
Big thought!
Have I answered my question, though? Probably not, except to say that I think I'm getting there. Not only can the true I be found, I can decide what I ought to be. I think!
Love,
Seán
". . . I'm trying to be who I am and not what I've been made."
It seems a pretty glib thing to say at first, but what does it actually mean? I know what I have been made because I am very much the sum of the last 40-odd years of experiences, learning and buggering things up. Everything I have done and everything I have had done to me has resulted so far in the person typing this.
Me
Physically I am the results of two sets of DNA, which has blessed me with wavy hair, bad eyesight and the family nose, and a lot of physical experiences which have had a variety of effects ranging from trained thigh muscles to permanent scars. In other words, I'm just like any other person on average. But this is just the physical side and - even though I believe that a person is not a body or a mind or a soul/spirit but an inter-related, ever-changing combination of all the above - I'm going to discount the body as not who I am.
What I'm getting at here is a question that has plagued religious and spiritual thinkers and philosophers since forever - If I am thinking, who is the I that is doing the thinking. If I am a combination of the primal me and everything else that has made me, who is that primal me and how do I find him? In fact is he a "he"? Maybe he's a "she", an "it" or even a "they"!
Paganism
As a good Pagan boy I try to live by a deceptively complicated guideline known as the Wiccan Rede. I'm not a Wiccan, but then again I'm not really an anything specific - pigeonholes are restrictive and get on my nerves - but the Wiccan Rede is useful. It goes:
"An it harm none, do what you will"
This is open to interpretation, as are all rules and guidelines. My own works something like this: using the proviso that as little unnecessary harm of any kind is caused to everyone and everything around you, including yourself, then do your own will
"Doing your will" is a very Thelemic bit of jargon and not one I like much because it conjures images of some complete and total deadlegs from whom I would prefer to be disassociated. The trouble is that I'm not sure I can think of a better one. As James Curcio has said, Will is synonymous with Identity, but Identity in action. To do your will is to be yourself just as hard as you can manage. This takes us full circle back to the original question: who is the me that I must be to be who I am?
Circles.
So far this article is going round in ever-decreasing circles and will soon disappear in a puff of smoke up it's own arsehole. Before it does, perhaps it's time to look in a different direction.
Pope Tim Leary and Saint RAW the Optimistic, both following others and being followed in their turn, have shown that we can change how we are made. Using various techniques we can alter our socializations, our behaviours, our attitudes and our habits - and we can do it ourselves. Brainwashing techniques have shown that even the most deeply entrenched beliefs can be reversed, and advertising and propaganda show us that new beliefs and attitudes can be injected into the human mind with very little difficulty. How many people with dogs even noticed the smell before the Shake & Vac lady danced backwards across her living room?
When one wants to alter oneself in the ways suggested by Wilson and Leary there is usually an aim in mind, even if it's only to become more open-minded. The aim of finding the True Will is in stripping away the layers of social conditioning and beliefs until all that's left is the pure primal self. This isn't really changing oneself, which is like changing one's mental "clothes" - it is more like stripping completely naked. (Good grief, I'm on nudity again! It's becoming an obsession.)
A Radical Thought
The concepts of primal Self or true Will imply a certain belief - that there is such a thing. It's the assumption that the human being has a single, eternal and unchanging central core which has become known as the Soul. What if this isn't true?
I'm not proposing that we are all soulless automata or that there is no spiritual dimension at all to the human being, only that it's not a separate and eternal thing. If the human soul is as capable of change, growth and deliberate alteration as the mind and body are then how much more wonderful it surely is. It means that I am not some abstract thing distant and separate from my mind and body, but a soul/mind/body gestalt where all the bits blend to become indistinguishable at the edges. It implies that when my body dies and changes its state by becoming part of the soil fertilizing a tree whose buds feed a bird, then so do my mind and soul in their own ways.
It also implies that all creatures must be like this and therefore, by a process of extension, so must groupings of creatures - like families, societies and forests. I am part of my family and a separate individual at the same time; my children are part me, part their mother and individuals in their own right at the same time. Could there be, therefore, a family soul which joins us and is within us in the same way that we form a gestalt as individuals all together under one group concept? If there is it is made of the combined souls and DNA of the parents within the children, but the parents' souls are made of their parent's souls ad infinitum. Extend this far enough and you end up with a universal physical/intelligence/spiritual gestalt which covers and includes everything that exists/does not exist, has/has not existed and will/will not exist - ever!
Big thought!
Have I answered my question, though? Probably not, except to say that I think I'm getting there. Not only can the true I be found, I can decide what I ought to be. I think!
Love,
Seán
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
News in the Nudes
I've just realized that this is my first post of 2008, so if you're reading this -
Happy New Year!
Anyway, part of the inspiration for this inconsequential ramble came from here:
http://losing-the-thread.blogspot.com/2008/01/topfree-equality.html
The other part came from the fact that very soon I'm going to spend two hours sat/stood/lay in front of a group of people, and I won't have any clothes on. In my quest to question the entire universe therefore, I'm going to ask why. Not why am I doing it ? per se, I already know that. I'm doing it because I'm good at it and I enjoy being paid £8.50 per hour for being an attention-seeking old tart! What I'm questioning is why our dichotomous relationship with the naked human body?
Bare Bits
It seems strange to me that our western society uses the nude as the greatest of its art forms, yet at the same time considers nakedness as something corrupting. For instance, I can take my children to an art gallery full of, often very realistic, paintings and sculptures of people without clothes but they can't see an unclothed person on a film because that gets rated as adult.
Film censors are strange like that. A 14 year-old can watch some of the most horrific violence, yet as soon as someone takes their clothes off the film gets an adults-only rating.
Back to art. I can (and will) sit naked in a room full of clothed people, and anybody can see me do it - it's a publicly advertised drop-in group for life drawing. Yet if I walked down the street naked I would be arrested. Interestingly, I wouldn't be arrested for public nudity because it's not actually illegal in Britain but if someone were to complain then I could be arrested for Breach of the Peace. I wonder how many police officers would observe such niceties.
The situation is worse for women, they can't even take their top halves off without someone being appalled by an offensive nipple. Some women have actually used this shock value as a political tool, PETA are famous for it.
Am I a Hypocrite?
At the same time a funny thought arises, I like looking at naked women! I like looking at clothed women too, but I prefer naked ones. Is this a subconscious sexualization or just personal taste in the same way that I like looking at mushrooms, or complicated Victorian architecture?
Thinking of situations I've been in involving group nudity, I've not been offended by anybody's body and seriously impressed by a few, but I definitely liked looking at the women more than anyone else; and women of all sorts of shapes and sizes depending on how it seemed to suit them. Thinking even more deeply, I've just realized that the most attractive people I've met without clothes are actually the people I've already found attractive regardless of what they were wearing, or not. In other words, naked is good and can be a turn-on, but the real turn-on is the person and not their body (I think!).
Phew! I'm obviously not as shallow as I thought.
So Why D
oes It Matter?
It's a question I've been asking myself for a while: why does it matter to be naked? I have realized in a religious context that nude rituals are definitely the best. Being naked ("skyclad"!) in that situation is equivalent to making a universal statement: This is me. Entire. Uncovered. With nothing hidden.
Why, then, is the nude so popular in art? I can understand nude drawing from the point of a couple of the artists that attend to draw me, because they're animation students. To them a good working knowledge of human anatomy is indispensable. Can this be said for the other artists, though?
Drawing a human being, a human being draped in cloth or simply some draped cloth are equally difficult/easy. It's all about line, shadow, highlight, shade and so-on. It doesn't have to be a naked human being at all and yet drawing the naked human being is considered the pinnacle of art. Perhaps it comes from the thought that Man is the Measure of All Things. This uniquely Classical Greek idea has some sway over artists and society in general, but I find it to be a false flattery. Most models would.
Who would you prefer to draw or paint? Would you prefer the almost featureless, slender modern concept of the perfect "body-beautiful" (Kate Moss, for instance) or would you rather attempt to portray a normal person? You know, with fat bits, different textures and a variety of shapes and colours?
Me too!
Why Does it Matter to Me?
Why indeed. Why, if I'm so comfortable naked, do my balls shrink when I disrobe to take the first pose? Why am I bothered about the size of my paunch when I know it makes me more interesting to an artist?
I'm more comfortable naked than most, and I know that most people who don't have a serious hang-up become a lot more comfortable and relaxed after about ten minutes of group nu
dity. But am I still as comfortable as I'd like to be nude in public or am I still fighting my socialization which says that naked equals sex? I think perhaps that it matters because I'm trying to be who I am and not what I've been made.
In an ideal world it wouldn't matter if you went shopping in your birthday suit or a three-piece so long as you were happy and comfortable, but to our societal norms it does. Perhaps as Lily The Pink says in her blog, it's about time we started to go Cretan!
Love,
Seán
Happy New Year!
Anyway, part of the inspiration for this inconsequential ramble came from here:
http://losing-the-thread.blogspot.com/2008/01/topfree-equality.html
The other part came from the fact that very soon I'm going to spend two hours sat/stood/lay in front of a group of people, and I won't have any clothes on. In my quest to question the entire universe therefore, I'm going to ask why. Not why am I doing it ? per se, I already know that. I'm doing it because I'm good at it and I enjoy being paid £8.50 per hour for being an attention-seeking old tart! What I'm questioning is why our dichotomous relationship with the naked human body?
Bare Bits
It seems strange to me that our western society uses the nude as the greatest of its art forms, yet at the same time considers nakedness as something corrupting. For instance, I can take my children to an art gallery full of, often very realistic, paintings and sculptures of people without clothes but they can't see an unclothed person on a film because that gets rated as adult.
Film censors are strange like that. A 14 year-old can watch some of the most horrific violence, yet as soon as someone takes their clothes off the film gets an adults-only rating.
Back to art. I can (and will) sit naked in a room full of clothed people, and anybody can see me do it - it's a publicly advertised drop-in group for life drawing. Yet if I walked down the street naked I would be arrested. Interestingly, I wouldn't be arrested for public nudity because it's not actually illegal in Britain but if someone were to complain then I could be arrested for Breach of the Peace. I wonder how many police officers would observe such niceties.
The situation is worse for women, they can't even take their top halves off without someone being appalled by an offensive nipple. Some women have actually used this shock value as a political tool, PETA are famous for it.
Am I a Hypocrite?
At the same time a funny thought arises, I like looking at naked women! I like looking at clothed women too, but I prefer naked ones. Is this a subconscious sexualization or just personal taste in the same way that I like looking at mushrooms, or complicated Victorian architecture?
Thinking of situations I've been in involving group nudity, I've not been offended by anybody's body and seriously impressed by a few, but I definitely liked looking at the women more than anyone else; and women of all sorts of shapes and sizes depending on how it seemed to suit them. Thinking even more deeply, I've just realized that the most attractive people I've met without clothes are actually the people I've already found attractive regardless of what they were wearing, or not. In other words, naked is good and can be a turn-on, but the real turn-on is the person and not their body (I think!).
Phew! I'm obviously not as shallow as I thought.
So Why D
oes It Matter?It's a question I've been asking myself for a while: why does it matter to be naked? I have realized in a religious context that nude rituals are definitely the best. Being naked ("skyclad"!) in that situation is equivalent to making a universal statement: This is me. Entire. Uncovered. With nothing hidden.
Why, then, is the nude so popular in art? I can understand nude drawing from the point of a couple of the artists that attend to draw me, because they're animation students. To them a good working knowledge of human anatomy is indispensable. Can this be said for the other artists, though?
Drawing a human being, a human being draped in cloth or simply some draped cloth are equally difficult/easy. It's all about line, shadow, highlight, shade and so-on. It doesn't have to be a naked human being at all and yet drawing the naked human being is considered the pinnacle of art. Perhaps it comes from the thought that Man is the Measure of All Things. This uniquely Classical Greek idea has some sway over artists and society in general, but I find it to be a false flattery. Most models would.
Who would you prefer to draw or paint? Would you prefer the almost featureless, slender modern concept of the perfect "body-beautiful" (Kate Moss, for instance) or would you rather attempt to portray a normal person? You know, with fat bits, different textures and a variety of shapes and colours?
Me too!
Why Does it Matter to Me?
Why indeed. Why, if I'm so comfortable naked, do my balls shrink when I disrobe to take the first pose? Why am I bothered about the size of my paunch when I know it makes me more interesting to an artist?
I'm more comfortable naked than most, and I know that most people who don't have a serious hang-up become a lot more comfortable and relaxed after about ten minutes of group nu
dity. But am I still as comfortable as I'd like to be nude in public or am I still fighting my socialization which says that naked equals sex? I think perhaps that it matters because I'm trying to be who I am and not what I've been made.In an ideal world it wouldn't matter if you went shopping in your birthday suit or a three-piece so long as you were happy and comfortable, but to our societal norms it does. Perhaps as Lily The Pink says in her blog, it's about time we started to go Cretan!
Love,
Seán
ADDITIONAL
After publishing this post I decided to decorate it with some pictures. The photo at the top is my "official" modelling picture taken by Sara Smith.
The drawings of me were created by three of the artists during the University of Bolton's life drawing group that I mentioned in the post. Going from top to bottom they are by:
Martin John Hayes
A. Pederson
Dave Cowley.
A special thanks goes to these three artists for letting me borrow their work.
Love,
Seán
Saturday, 1 December 2007
The Honesty of Children
Bikeface!
During the summer I attended a Green Party Rally in Manchester. As I was representing cyclists and cycling and there was a nice lady there who did face-painting, I got her to paint a bicycle on my face. It all seemed pretty logical to me!
The rally itself was a bit of a washout. It heaved down and we all got very, very wet. Afterwards, I pedalled my weary, dripping way home via a supermarket for some wine and nibbles to warm up the evening of an otherwise disappointing day. The thing is, I hadn't removed the picture of a bike from my face.
The reactions were fascinating, and all exactly the same - except for one. Everybody looked at me with surprise, and then attempted to appear as if they hadn't looked at all - all within a split second. The body language of a person desperately attempting to be nonchalant while trying to look at something unusual is just this side of hilarious.
So, who was the one exception?
He was a little boy of about 5 years old. He stared straight at me whilst swinging on his mum's arm and said in a loud, clear voice, "That man's got a bike on his face!", to which I replied (smiling whilst his parents suffered mild heart attacks and made frantic attempts to shut him up), "That's right. I have!"
Pink!
My beloved and better half has recently dyed her hair. It's pink. Not pink bits amongst the blonde. Not a subtle shade of pinkish tinge. Bright pink. All of it.
It really suits her. It brings out the blue of her eyes like some kind of lantern. She looks great.
Other people seem to think a little differently, though. She went to Asda yesterday (for my American friends, that's the UK branch of Walmart, more or less) and had much the same reaction that I had with the bikeface - a whole bunch of people deliberately and obviously not looking.
Except for (yep, you guessed it) a child. In this case it was a little girl of about three years old who shouted "Mum, Mum. That lady's got pink hair!"
Any other reactions to her hair have been as positive as the little girl's, but only from friends and family. Never from strangers, who pretend they don't notice.
The Question
Now, I fully understand why a child can (and often will) say and do things that an adult won't. It's called socialization. It's the same training that teaches us from an early age not to shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema or pinch traffic wardens' bottoms, and for the most part it's quite a useful thing.
Without a basic level of socialization the normal day-to-day interactivities of people wouldn't work. We couldn't, for instance, get a bus to work and expect the driver to take us there. We're socialized to expect that the bus will go to the place that's shown on the front, and the driver is socialized to do what he's agreed to do - ie. drive the bus from point A to point B, picking passengers up on the way.
The question is now whether socialization is entirely good and if it isn't, is it possible to separate the good bits from the bad and retrain ourselves.
Honest children
The children who shouted out were only saying what their parents were thinking, and what they shouted contained no sense of judgement, simply an expression of surprise at something unusual. This was entirely harmless and perfectly acceptable from a child, but not, apparently from the child's parents. I'm reminded of things said by people who suffer some sort of facial disfigurement. Adults try to ignore it, young children ask about it in simple, honest and non-judgemental ways. Unfortunately they get told off for that, possibly because they're doing what the parents want to but can't.
So what are we, as adults, afraid of? Is it possibly the fear of causing offence? In my own example this doesn't seem to work. I'm not a scary-looking person (I don't look like Mr. macho-hard-case, is what I mean), so there's unlikely to be a fear of violence. Questions such as "Why have you got a bike painted on your face?" are likely to elicit a sensible response such as "Oh, I've just come from a Green Party rally". Even the act of shushing the child seemed to be an act of fear of some kind.
Fear of difference
I've always been a bit different from a normal person. Mostly this has been in attitude and interests - I like art but I don't like sport, for example - but as I got older this came out in my appearance. The only strangers to comment (with a few notable exceptions) were confrontational. In other words, they were reacting to something unusual with violence and, as any good Buddhist knows, violence is a direct descendant of fear. Sadly this is a worldwide problem - think of the recent death of young Sophie Lancaster from Bacup, who was killed for wearing heavy eyeliner.
Obviously the "people" who killed Sophie weren't the thoughtful types. If they (and others like them who do and have done similar things) actually bothered to think, they wouldn't have done it. Instead they reacted to a stimulus, much like one of Pavlov's dogs. The stimulus was: here is something different and the response was fear followed by violence. This doesn't excuse them their actions because they are - at least nominally - human and therefore capable of choice in their actions.
Instead, though, they followed a stimulus-response pattern. I used to think that such patterns were genetically coded (like the coding that makes a white blood cell attack any foreign body), but the example of the honest and non-judgemental children proves that theory wrong. Fear of difference is a result of socialization. In other words we are taught to be afraid of what we don't understand, to see it as a threat and reject it, often violently. This isn't genetic, it's societal. Rather than some form of survival strategy, fear of difference has appeared as a form of social control via socialization.
Mutation
I once read a piece by a sociologist (if you know who this was, please tell me!) who said "Nature loves variety, sadly society hates it".
Mutation, change, experimentation and difference are the ways of nature. These are the mechanisms of evolution and without them we wouldn't have the staggering diversity of life that covers this incredible planet, even in places where we think it shouldn't be able to. As a Pagan and Taoist it is my job to accept, understand and follow the ways of nature. To do otherwise would be to hold back the natural evolution of the human race.
Fear of difference is one of the forms of socialization we could do without, but it's deeply entrenched. Can it be separated and done away with? Well, I'm trying to "Embrace the Mutation" (J.K. Potter), and I hope that the more people that do will eventually reach a kind of critical level and cause some perceptual change in society as a whole.
It may take small children to teach us how to do that.
Love,
Seán
During the summer I attended a Green Party Rally in Manchester. As I was representing cyclists and cycling and there was a nice lady there who did face-painting, I got her to paint a bicycle on my face. It all seemed pretty logical to me!
The rally itself was a bit of a washout. It heaved down and we all got very, very wet. Afterwards, I pedalled my weary, dripping way home via a supermarket for some wine and nibbles to warm up the evening of an otherwise disappointing day. The thing is, I hadn't removed the picture of a bike from my face.
The reactions were fascinating, and all exactly the same - except for one. Everybody looked at me with surprise, and then attempted to appear as if they hadn't looked at all - all within a split second. The body language of a person desperately attempting to be nonchalant while trying to look at something unusual is just this side of hilarious.
So, who was the one exception?
He was a little boy of about 5 years old. He stared straight at me whilst swinging on his mum's arm and said in a loud, clear voice, "That man's got a bike on his face!", to which I replied (smiling whilst his parents suffered mild heart attacks and made frantic attempts to shut him up), "That's right. I have!"
Pink!
My beloved and better half has recently dyed her hair. It's pink. Not pink bits amongst the blonde. Not a subtle shade of pinkish tinge. Bright pink. All of it.
It really suits her. It brings out the blue of her eyes like some kind of lantern. She looks great.
Other people seem to think a little differently, though. She went to Asda yesterday (for my American friends, that's the UK branch of Walmart, more or less) and had much the same reaction that I had with the bikeface - a whole bunch of people deliberately and obviously not looking.
Except for (yep, you guessed it) a child. In this case it was a little girl of about three years old who shouted "Mum, Mum. That lady's got pink hair!"
Any other reactions to her hair have been as positive as the little girl's, but only from friends and family. Never from strangers, who pretend they don't notice.
The Question
Now, I fully understand why a child can (and often will) say and do things that an adult won't. It's called socialization. It's the same training that teaches us from an early age not to shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema or pinch traffic wardens' bottoms, and for the most part it's quite a useful thing.
Without a basic level of socialization the normal day-to-day interactivities of people wouldn't work. We couldn't, for instance, get a bus to work and expect the driver to take us there. We're socialized to expect that the bus will go to the place that's shown on the front, and the driver is socialized to do what he's agreed to do - ie. drive the bus from point A to point B, picking passengers up on the way.
The question is now whether socialization is entirely good and if it isn't, is it possible to separate the good bits from the bad and retrain ourselves.
Honest children
The children who shouted out were only saying what their parents were thinking, and what they shouted contained no sense of judgement, simply an expression of surprise at something unusual. This was entirely harmless and perfectly acceptable from a child, but not, apparently from the child's parents. I'm reminded of things said by people who suffer some sort of facial disfigurement. Adults try to ignore it, young children ask about it in simple, honest and non-judgemental ways. Unfortunately they get told off for that, possibly because they're doing what the parents want to but can't.
So what are we, as adults, afraid of? Is it possibly the fear of causing offence? In my own example this doesn't seem to work. I'm not a scary-looking person (I don't look like Mr. macho-hard-case, is what I mean), so there's unlikely to be a fear of violence. Questions such as "Why have you got a bike painted on your face?" are likely to elicit a sensible response such as "Oh, I've just come from a Green Party rally". Even the act of shushing the child seemed to be an act of fear of some kind.
Fear of difference
I've always been a bit different from a normal person. Mostly this has been in attitude and interests - I like art but I don't like sport, for example - but as I got older this came out in my appearance. The only strangers to comment (with a few notable exceptions) were confrontational. In other words, they were reacting to something unusual with violence and, as any good Buddhist knows, violence is a direct descendant of fear. Sadly this is a worldwide problem - think of the recent death of young Sophie Lancaster from Bacup, who was killed for wearing heavy eyeliner.
Obviously the "people" who killed Sophie weren't the thoughtful types. If they (and others like them who do and have done similar things) actually bothered to think, they wouldn't have done it. Instead they reacted to a stimulus, much like one of Pavlov's dogs. The stimulus was: here is something different and the response was fear followed by violence. This doesn't excuse them their actions because they are - at least nominally - human and therefore capable of choice in their actions.
Instead, though, they followed a stimulus-response pattern. I used to think that such patterns were genetically coded (like the coding that makes a white blood cell attack any foreign body), but the example of the honest and non-judgemental children proves that theory wrong. Fear of difference is a result of socialization. In other words we are taught to be afraid of what we don't understand, to see it as a threat and reject it, often violently. This isn't genetic, it's societal. Rather than some form of survival strategy, fear of difference has appeared as a form of social control via socialization.
Mutation
I once read a piece by a sociologist (if you know who this was, please tell me!) who said "Nature loves variety, sadly society hates it".
Mutation, change, experimentation and difference are the ways of nature. These are the mechanisms of evolution and without them we wouldn't have the staggering diversity of life that covers this incredible planet, even in places where we think it shouldn't be able to. As a Pagan and Taoist it is my job to accept, understand and follow the ways of nature. To do otherwise would be to hold back the natural evolution of the human race.
Fear of difference is one of the forms of socialization we could do without, but it's deeply entrenched. Can it be separated and done away with? Well, I'm trying to "Embrace the Mutation" (J.K. Potter), and I hope that the more people that do will eventually reach a kind of critical level and cause some perceptual change in society as a whole.
It may take small children to teach us how to do that.
Love,
Seán
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