This will concern one of the unpopular matters I return to on occasion, not for the sake of repeating myself, but because I feel that with some concerns the greater portion of the population cannot help but to relentlessly announce its considerable need for reminding and goading to look beyond themselves. And sometimes, going by my webmail, finding new methods for expressing particular ideas is all that it takes to get a point across even if only one ear bent at a time, at least for those open to other perspectives in ways more intrinsic than getting sold on trending sales jingles. Online social networking for example consists entirely of the most malleable persons alive today, yet with no sense of irony do account-holders fail to find validation through validating usage of the corporate-owned platforms for perpetuating their own DIY segregation of thoughts and feelings. And despite having nothing much to say beyond reaction and repetitions of reaction, they reveal something other than their better angels. None of it is remotely conducive to self-examination or self-actualization.
Preaching to the choir of comfort zones, echo chambers, news bubbles and gated communities whether physical or ideological is turning a blind eye to the bulk of reality as well as the mass of experiences of others, no matter who you think you are or what you feel you’re on about. It is inequality of entitlement which misconstrues mere inconvenience as injustice, and it is inequality of privilege which misconstrues injustice as mere inconvenience.
Free speech unto itself does not magically guarantee an audience, not in a free and democratic society where all members might think and feel independently and unencumbered. It does not automatically guarantee acceptance either, as mandating preapproved responses is categorically no more freeing for speech. Laws to manage this society must exist strictly in defense of civil and basic human rights for citizens and non-citizens, to life and liberty neither impaired, impeded or infringed. Ideally, this would mean a sanctity for life to upend everything from nationalistic militarism to private gun ownership, as ending the life of another is the most definitive example of impairing, impeding or infringing upon their rights to life and liberty. This, no matter the political divide and no matter the religious chasm, no matter the eyeless fortitude of whichever brand competing for entitlements and privileges at cost to unity.
Irregardless of labeling or branding irons, proponents of identity politics assert that merit and mettle somehow carry less water than the packaging. That none should be measured by whatever they actually say or do, provided they agree with the good guys on all matters, but rather for how they would simply like to be judged. Cultural symbols by and large, most notably those of god and country and certainly capital but applicable across the board, are masquerades with which to shield a desired bias, fetish, quirk or whim from scrutiny or accountability. Regardless of appeal it’s their lone function, yet making symbolism of personal attributes is effectively of no difference, as the refusal to embrace an unflattering common ground is denied anyone who happens to know different firsthand experiences in their own lives. Wielding a flag or banner gives no indication for the totality of facets to someone’s character or constitution, and similarly hiding either our friends or our enemies behind a particular ethnicity, gender or sexual preference denies the enemies the opportunity and saves the friends the trouble of actually formulating and inhabiting an identity of their very own.
Ethnicity, gender or sexual preference are no invitation to judge negatively, but as well are they no invitation to judge positively, because anybody is capable of anything in this life. Demanding love and acceptance at face value from parties one is unwilling to give love and acceptance to at face value is categorically one-sided and self-serving. It passes blame for faults and fallacies onto others just as much as declaring ownership of the labors and values of others. Freedom to neither prove or disprove yourself is hardly a freedom, but a fantasy endured without reason. Decorate your metaphorical prison cell however you wish, but you’ve no civil or basic human right to decorate the metaphorical prison cell of anyone else.
It’s like with comic books, spending their budgets on multiple cover artists to produce variant covers and advertising to sell the act of literally judging books by their covers as any sort of positive thing, while the common interiors are left subpar. They could employ writers and artists of greater skill and imagination, and pay them for their labors justly, but nothing is more taboo in western civilization than effort, especially conveyances of convictions or principles which require more than a glance to ascertain. For that matter, anonymizing the creators would settle the silly comicsgate ordeal definitively, but voices on all sides of that debate would rather be celebrated for abiding with whichever variety of perceived commonality than be judged for genuine uniqueness of literal accomplishments made manifest. The mentality of “hire me and reward me for being male or female or non-binary, gay or straight, black or white or red or blue, not for what I have actually done” prioritizes something other than creativity. One of many contradictions inherent to any creative industry. Steve Ditko, a veteran of the art-form across more than half a century who handled every genre the medium has yet allowed, is still demonized after his death for the mortal sin of applying all of his time and energy to his work rather than signal-boosting his personality, as though developing a cult of personality for being a comic book creator meant more than actually creating content. Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the work itself. Detractors of Ditko seem to believe that only cool people produce cool work and only good people produce good work, and if anyone focuses entirely on the work itself then how might anybody know if the persons responsible are cool or good unless they vocalize a predisposition with personal attributes which simply never automatically denotes good or bad, cool or forgettable or skilled or goofy, thus admitting that who is creating a given thing is of greater importance to them than what is created. Along with fear of a work speaking for itself, people are generally mortified by the prospects of voids only being filled by anything more intuitive than a passing glance. The premise that superheroes are fundamentally “ends justifying the means” objectivists goes over the heads of professionals and fandom like word balloons set adrift, but such insight is impossible when everything is cast as two-dimensional.
Obviously, the universe possessing no center unto itself, comic books are only a niche of a microcosm, but the same problematics exist in far more relatable matters, as nothing is more predictable than ego. With regards to the political sphere, anonymizing political candidates would settle the same debates yet will never come to pass due to the same degrees of arrogance. If we never knew the ethnicity, gender or sexual preferences of any candidate to any political campaign, then such attributes would never be exploited as weaknesses by prejudiced voices, or strengths by the untrue sentiment that such attributes might ever possibly provide any testaments to an individual’s experience or knowledge. The work would have to do the talking, the definable merits and mettle measured for public standards, as opposed to effective marketing, cancel culture and popularity contests. Unto themselves, loyalty oaths and pledges of allegiance prove nothing measurable. We really must know what’s inside that box, Pandora. Alternately, as I wrote in the first published post here:
“Ban the political parties, as one and all they masque their designs of ultimately serving themselves as wealth-accumulating initiatives. As their partisanship does not actually exist, it is vital for us to uproot all related branding no matter the political persuasion. Let’s let individuals vying for dominance rise and fall on their own personal, provable merits, free of labels to hide behind or crowds to be lost in or shelters for their taxes. Really simple purity test: any politico to have ever utilized a marriage counselor, divorce attorney, financial consultant, life coach, marketing expert, social networking guru or the like cannot seriously be expected to resolve the problems of others. All campaigners, at personal expense, must provide fully public transparency of their complete criminal background report at local, state and federal levels along with current psychological evaluations. Show us tax records, credit scores, college transcripts, with mandatory, regular drug screenings while serving in office. I’ve managed kitchens after more red-tape.”
Of course, public figures refuse real transparency for the same reasoning they refuse anonymity, because it’s the same argument everywhere, what those giving utmost value to ID fanaticism adhere to is a genericism kept safe from any defining extremes either which way. It’s a blanket refusal of personal responsibility, a resistance to actual individualism or independence and an insistence for loopholes preventing one’s work to speak for itself, as they must know it would not live up to any hype or fulfill any obligation. It’s insubstantial over-simplification preferred over any effort. Derogatory stereotypes are universally disingenuous, but demands for stereotypes to be universally positive in connotation are no more revealing of any measurable truth. “Don’t make me walk a mile in the other guy’s moccasins, just let me castigate their differences from shoes I wish to own and praise me for feeling as I do” is utterly ignorant rubbish. By any means necessary punch fascists after punching them and prior to punching them again, but do not for a moment misconstrue failure to be adored as fascism, because the exertion of will upon others is no different from where the fascist is coming from. Punch fascists *because* denying others the liberty of thoughts and feelings of their very own is always in the wrong, as even fascists have the liberty to think and feel how they wish in a free and democratic society, but in a free and democratic society they’ve no civil or basic human right to mandate those explicit thoughts and feelings for anybody else. Freedom is not the ability to impose, freedom is the ability to not be imposed upon. Contrary to all those looking for something to deflect or hide their shame behind, words and actions not only have consequences, but those consequences need not be a bad thing by any standard. Only the standards of ego.
I take it as a personal achievement how, in the 360k or so words to be found on this web portal, very few essays give any hint of my ethnicity, gender or sexual preference. Contrasted with the many self-proclaimed writers of the world who can evidently think of little else to discuss, often with private crowdfunding pleas joined at the hip to their broadcasts, and what I have to say not only speaks for itself authentically of matters more than what defines me, but I would hope the idea that my offering the world something, anything other than mandates for my self-perception as well reveals multitudes which others might actually find something to relate to. Give tremendous consideration to what constitutes your identity, not so that others might know how to address you, but so that you might know how to address the world.