An Ass of You and Me

Today was one of those days when I basically wanted to tell off the world. Everybody seemed very ignorant and annoying. I'm glad I'm not a telepath. People would be getting very angry thought messages from me all the time. They would deserve it too.

Michelle Bachmann felt the need to tell American Jews how disappointed she was in them because they support Obama and not Republicans. After all, Republicans support Israel, which, apparently, is the only cause that anyone who is Jewish should care about, or something. She doesn't understand why all the Jews are being so liberal and supporting the liberal causes, because that doesn't jive with the stuff she thinks the should like. I know this is very disappointing for her. I have to say her disappointment makes me happy and I hope she experiences a lot of it in the future.

Then there was the man who got very upset that the airplane he was on was being flown by a pilot who also happened to be a woman. He wrote a note on his napkin, explaining that women should want to be mothers and not captains and that god didn't want women to fly planes. It was in the Bible. He marked a verse that is that one about how women should all stay at home and sell stuff in the market place and be meek or something. You know, the one they like to read on Mother's Day or at any time they want to justify sexual oppression. I am sure he was very disappointed when he realized his pilot was a woman and even more disappointed when he found out she'd been piloting planes for many years. Again, I find his disappointment to be delightful and hope he experiences a lot of it in the future.

You'll notice in both cases, the people involved made some very big assumptions about a whole group of people (Jews and women) and believed their assumptions to be the foundation of some deep truth. When the members of the groups refused to just conform to their expectations, they experienced disappointment and sadness about it. This will probably happen any time one makes assumptions and has expectations about people that one has decided to group together. For one thing, people are all individuals, who make decisions based on many factors. Whatever you may think about their "group" may have nothing to do with their own wishes and desires.

Also, just because you place them in a group doesn't mean they place themselves there. Women are not some collective whole who all think the same and have the same wants or needs. I always hate it when people ask "what do women want?" as if we're a groupmind who all strive for the same goals. We're not and we don't. And no book, even one that you may think is holy or important, is going to change that.

Any time we begin to make blanket statements about a group or have blanket beliefs about a group, especially about what we think they SHOULD be doing, we're being idiots. People, by the very nature of being people, will have any number of reactions to the world around them, no matter what group we happen to place them in. It's best to just not make those assumptions. It is certainly best not to let yourself get emotional about your own assumptions. Again, you are just going to end up disappointed. That would be a sad way to live.