The Value of a Horrible Person
Always something to learn
This morning I found a bookmark about the glories of God and his angels in my library book with dragons and wizards. Presumably someone left it there to either “reach” a Satan-worshiping fantasy reader or maybe it was a religious person who just forgot their bookmark. I have met both types, it is entirely possible to both read and write fantasy and still be religious. But I am inclined to think it’s the former. I promptly yelled out to Spouse—I was just spirit bombed!
Anyways, it reminded me of a time when I was around 14 at church carrying around a different book with dragons and wizards and was told by the youth pastor that it didn’t belong in church because that was a book that “let Satan into the hearts of children” and it was “a horrible sin to read it.” Not only should I stop reading it but I should ask God’s forgiveness, throw it out, and throw out any other books like it. This is a core memory for me. More than any other singular moment of my life it set me on my own personal road to apostasy. It opened my eyes to a number of different things.
First, I realized that religious beliefs and opinions didn’t need to pay heed to reality. This dumbass knew literally nothing about the book except that it had dragons and wizards. And yet he was so certain in his belief that he told a child that what the child was doing was evil. That reading was evil. That anything with magic in it was evil. That dragons were one of Satan’s creations. This guy tried to convince me that one of the things that brought me more joy than just about anything else in my life was an evil thing because his personal view of God said so. Unreal.
Second, I think this was what truly opened my eyes to the fact that adults didn’t necessarily have a handle on what they were doing either. Just another scared human going through life handing out judgements and telling kids they were unholy. Cloaking himself in an unearned certainty that he knows the truth when none of us actually do. This guy was so obviously wrong that I started questioning everyone’s certainties. Turns out questions are sort of a good thing to embrace.
Third, and most importantly, that I didn’t ever want to be this guy. That, too, was an interesting signpost on my life. I don’t generally have heroes, but I have a very long list of folks I’ve encountered throughout my life that I try to be nothing like. This guy is at the top of the list. “I will never be like you” is something I’ve thought over and over in my life and I think it’s mostly worked out for me. As I roll my history around in my brain, though, this interaction was the first time I remember consciously thinking it. I am wildly thankful.
Sex, Religion, and Politics
Decades ago I learned the wisdom that one should avoid discussions about these things. But, fuck it, this is my Substack. Now it would be a different, perhaps more interesting, Substack if we were going to be talking about sex. At least I’m pretty sure “those” types of Substacks are out there but it’s not really the vibe I’m going for. I’ll just mention that I think it’s probably worth talking about a bit considering the global decline of fertility so, you know, maybe worth thinking about sex a bit. But, no, I think I’d rather focus on the other two.
The thing about religion and politics is that it turns everyone into a horrible person. By design. Like most things that last - whether it’s animals, plants, corporations, or systems - there is always a focus on survival. One of the goals is to persist. An animal will kill to protect itself or its young so it persists. Corporations will diversify and gather power and want to stay in business forever. Virtually all systems have some feedback mechanism to adapt and stay “alive.” Religion and politics are particularly nasty, though, because they use the mechanism of differentiation.
“Where do you go to church?”
“Who did you vote for?”
These are dangerous questions, because they invariably have wrong answers. I don’t go to church, so, just like reading books with dragons, this means to many folks in South Carolina that I’m a horrible sinner bound for an eternity in hell. Who I voted for is just as fun — either I’m a baby-killing Democrat or a Trump-loving Republican. But after I’ve answered these questions, well, now you know how you feel about me. Now you know if I’m different from you. Whether you even want to know me. Whether you need to invite me to church, or whether you are now certain that I’m an evil and/or stupid person.
Are you with me or against me?
Religion and politics divide. One of the surest ways to preserve something is to create an “in” group and an “out” group. A Christian will, with a straight face, explain that the billions of people who have never heard of Jesus are going to burn in Hell irrespective of how they lived their lives. This includes every Muslim, Buddhist, or any follower of a religion that isn’t Christianity. Donald Trump, possibly the least Christian of all American leaders, has overwhelming support from Christians. On the other side right now this Graham Platner dude sounds like he’s basically cut from the same stained moral fabric and yet the excuses are already flying about him. It is exactly the same bullshit I’ve been hearing about Trump.
“He’s not the best choice, but he’s what we’ve got.”
“I’ll admit he’s not perfect, but look at the other guy.”
The problems with the asshole are not important, what matters is that he’s not reading the wrong kinds of books.
The Different
Something I’ve told Squirt for years, something I still have to remind myself of all the time, is that everyone has value and everyone can teach us something. That “the different” is a valuable thing and can be an opportunity. That was the way the conversation should have gone with the asshole back in my childhood. He could have asked about the book, sought a connection, and learned something. He did not. He sat in judgement, talked down to me, and told himself he was teaching me something.
I’m sure he hasn’t thought about it in decades, but he showed me who I didn’t want to be and that’s stuck for decades in my head. I find that interesting. He leveraged what he saw as different and wrong to judge and belittle. I took that and fabricated my own explicit certainty that I wouldn’t be like him. And I did it by judging him and those like him. We are the same, both judging, and yet I do see a difference. A tangled web.
The problem with the world is that everyone is so fucking certain of their worldview. The other problem with the world is that avoiding certainty forces paralysis. I’ve argued before that you have to embrace movement over stillness. In that piece I argue that the important part is bleeding and learning. Maybe I’ve finally found the point after all this flailing. Maybe he looked at the different thing and believed that he already knew everything he needed to about this book he hadn’t read. I looked at him and said I wanted to be open to learning. He closed all the paths and closed his mind. I simply looked at the path he was on and said “Fuck that path.”
“Burn the book, be exactly like me, and don’t seek out new things,” he says.
“Bullshit, I’ll read the book, be nothing like you, and be open to learn from the world,” I say.
In the end, I guess that’s the thing. The people I dislike have shaped me. Perhaps even more than those I admire. I’ve been learning from horrible people since I was a kid. But goddamn do I wish there were fewer of them.
