Reid+C's+2015+OpEd+Article



“...there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.” ― Bret Easton Ellis, //American Psycho//

With all of us who we are doesn't come down to who we are but how others have perceived us. I hear people parroting how admirable it is to bridge that gap; to be genuine or "real". Yet when the rubber meets the road it really does seem to be about saving face. Grin and bear it and the world will just grin right back! Quite frankly this mentality tends to just piss me right off. The commonality of it and its spoken and unspoken encouragement does little but fill the world with this doubt and uncertainty that doesn't really need to be there. Are we scared of the consequences? Are we worried we may hurt someone's feelings and by spanning ourselves past the divide from our minds to our faces we'd just carve another between us and other people?

Something I've been told as I've written my blogs this past year in tandem with the encouragement to be 100%, even by my own parents, is to "not say something I'll regret". If I say something controversial, it's "social and academic suicide". I've read things people have posted that I knew for a fact weren't true, and any that strike me as truly genuine are few and far between. Why though? Why can't we hold everyone's opinions in an evenhanded context that yes while we have strong viewpoints that they're probably strong for a reason and just talk it out?

It's for the same reasons we cheat, just about word-for-word. We want to meet the expectations of our friends and family, we want to get ahead in the world regardless of small moral hiccups, we don't want to choke down the embarrassment of falling short of those things and it drives us to falsify and compromise our "integrity". I'll say openly I'm guilty of these things. It makes me sick. I've smiled and joked with people who I know are saying awful things about me or my friends when I'm not around, I've feigned interest in my uncle's trucking business, I've laughed when a family friend told us about how she secured a deal with an upper official in her organization by faking admiration for their agreeably messed up priorities regarding their children and outward appearances (ain't that topical) when I wanted to ask if encouraging behavior that'd be damaging to their kid's psyche was worth a few pennies of a grant or two for their branch of the company. I wonder if that guy in the "super inspirational" TEDx talk we saw considered the animals tested on for his hair gel or the Taiwanese sweat shops making the fabric for his "fashionista" lifestyle.

I'm not saying you need to lead a perfect lifestyle of having absolutely no carbon footprint and emulate Mother Theresa in every facet of your being, but for the sake of reason don't say you do and not deliver. I could forgive all of the above things I've said, truly, but the clincher of it is that people just don't fess up to it. They use this mask of perfection and amicability not only to get ahead in the world but oftentimes to put down those either not skilled enough to fake it as well as they do or those who choose not to to just build themselves up. It's this kind of practice that's made the Tea Party and the Republican party into a joke steeped in hypocritical pseudo-Jeffersonian rhetoric covering a rotten core of corporate shenanigans and antiquated views. Hell even things as noble as social justice fall prey to the tendency of putting forth a facade that, while it's meant to be offensive to certain groups, is also put forth to pander to others. If you're white you're racist, if you're male you're misogynist, if you're in any sort of position of power you're just another gear in the system of oppression that puts down "people like us". They had a point in there, they probably could've done something actually progressive, but instead of making the sacrifices they berate others for not making they go for insignificant targets that are trending on twitter because they said something that wasn't PC, share it on Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, stir the pot a little to feel good about themselves, and go back to sitting pretty in the same system they're apparently fighting against. A million props to those who break the mold and go out to do something about it, but anyone who looks at something as tragic as a school shooting and disregards the fact that even if the patriarchy wasn't a presence or firearm laws were different or insert-hot-topic-here were altered in some way an insane person does what they do and if that involves hurting innocent people that they follow through and instead the indignant conscientious objector in them looks at murder and says "Gee, I can fit this into my agenda!" is not deserving of consideration. To affect this sort of opportunism for self promotion at the cost of so much is straight up sociopathic.

People may just want to belong, so they do these things. They see a way for them to fit within a group and that's enough for them, but I just have to wonder if they consider how little of the real them is involved. I'm going to agree with things people say here and in their blogs, I'll have some strong disagreements with many as well, but I'll not hold it against them that they say what's on their minds regardless of social or academic benefit. People are going to say things about it, maybe things that aren't totally constructive and based on prejudice or maybe because it's just what they think their friend will want to hear. Knowing that shouldn't stop you or me or anyone though. People say the "right" thing for the reasons of moving up in the world or in their social lives, but logically it makes no sense to do so by becoming part of a herd. There's real value in everyone's viewpoint, but if it's just someone else's all you're doing in contributing to empty space.