The either-or conundrum or how to be everything and nothing

What is it about human nature that makes us divide ourselves?

I can be a feminist or sex positive. Stay at home or working mother. Male or female. A spiritualist or logical thinker. Happy or sad.

Black or white. No grey.

Well, that’s a lie. Obviously. Make your own rules.

There are tons of grey areas. Sexuality, for instance, is a scale. Heterosexual-bisexual-pansexual-queer-homosexual. It’s true, bisexuality in women at least, is not a phase. They’ve done research!

Even buying produce is a grey zone. Local, organic, plastic free, fair trade bananas anyone?

Pick a cause. Pick a side.

Once you are for one side of a cause, you’d better be for it in every instance. Don’t let those fuckers on the other side get you. You can never let your guard down, even if you see a valid argument from over there. It can’t be right. You wouldn’t be on this side if it were. They must be wrong, even if you have no counter points. Attack their character!

I’m swimming in a sea of shoulds. I have access to more information than I can process on any given topic. And everyone has an opinion. There are over 100,000 blogs started everyday. Everyone has an opinion and you can find them all!

My problem is not in getting stuck on one side of an argument. I have trouble choosing a side at all. I read deeply on a subject, environmentalism vs. global warming hoaxes, or feminism or child sexuality in popular culture, and I become convinced of the validity of the argument. And then, I notice the comments from the other side, “You are full of crap, it’s like this.” And I follow a link to some asshole’s blog where he expounds his views of the world and whatever “science” he can find to back it up.

And I get sucked in! I link around for ages, reading valid counterpoints to all the points I read yesterday. If you’ve read anything on the global warming hoax, it can be a pretty compelling argument. Except, after a while you get the feeling they are trying really hard to convince you of this (I felt the same of Al Gore’s movie).

This week I ended up reading three different opinion pieces on three different topics that really struck a chord in me. In all three cases I had three very opposing opinions. What all three had in common was the opinion holders seemed very sure they had the right answers and wanted to impose their choices on everyone else.

What makes me right and you wrong?

I have an opinion on most things. I am willing to defend that opinion, because I’m convinced my way is more right. What makes me so right? What makes my opinion valid? What makes me rational and not a crazy zealot?

The willingness to listen to an opposing argument, the willingness to alter my opinion and position if something better makes more sense to me.

Too many people are stuck in conviction. Stuck in the belief that they are so right no one else could ever counter their points. And they will argue a point to irrational places or to contradiction. Or they point us away from the real issue. They ignite and flame infighting, so those who do care about the real point become distracted. To hide the flaws in their argument, to dissuade us that real change needs to happen, to get by our defenses.

I’ve learned not to argue with people. It’s pointless. Move on; go make your case somewhere else. You’ll just get into circling arguments with people who don’t really want to listen. They have decided and they are not going to change their minds. Energy is best spent somewhere else.

But…

When you do speak your opinions, speak loudly. Stupid people are somehow louder than the rest right now.