One of my Facebook friends is really into working out, and he posted a link to an article praising the beauty of women who are into weight training. At first I thought it was cool -- hooray for finding beauty in women who don't fit the magazine mold! -- but the writer lost me pretty quickly. He criticized women who tone instead of bulking up; he mocked women who wore makeup to the gym. I can understand not being a fan of what may appear to be shallowness, but ultimately he simply replaced one standard of beauty with another.
It's pretty hard to affirm one thing without comparing to it another and making that other look bad. I think this is why we end up tossing the term "real" around. We're flooded with the output of a small percentage of the population that creates the media. Women who don't look like Hollywood actresses, and who don't know anyone who does, say, "Those actresses don't live in the real world, where we have sedentary jobs and kids and houses to clean. I'm real, and my friends are real." And thus bigger women become "real" women. Folks who live in the Midwest see movies and TV made by people who live in New York and LA, who either never lived in the Midwest or chose to leave. Their home is lumped into the category of "flyover states," and their values are mocked. They say, "Those people in La La Land have no clue about my life. They're rich and have their heads up their asses. But my experience is real, too." And they call their home "real" America. And then everyone else gets miffed at the suggestion that they're not real.
We can chicken-and-egg it, trying to figure out what imbalance first lit the Hate Fest, but I don't see that being more productive than two siblings fighting over who started it.* Everything is a reaction to something else.
I get it. I understand how we all get offended and we all get our feelings hurt and we feel left out by this set of values or that standard of coolness or this ideal of attractiveness or that way of life. And it's almost impossible not to express that in a way that doesn't alienate the people who alienated you. It goes back and forth and everyone feels justified. But I wish people could take a step back once in a while.
Not that it hasn't been hugely productive so far. Everyone feels like they have to defend their position, which makes them look like the persecutor in the eyes of the opposition.
I'm certainly having fun, aren't you?
*It was my brother.
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4 comments:
Very interesting set of ideas Holly, I think it goes a step beyond the classic "politically correct" theory. I think it has to do with empathy. If people could just for a second place themselves in another´s position, before they passed judgement, but not just place themselves and judge with their own ideas and values, and experience, but instead truly take into account and respect the other´s ideas, beliefs, values, experience, history, etc., perhaps we could begin to understand each other, even our enemies. And then true human love would only become a treasure to be discovered, not denied.
Dorkbutt.
He's starting it again! Does everyone see this???
Brothers ALWAYS start it!
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