Ix's Essays

[My pseudonym is Ix]

On Identity

The question of identity and 'labels' is one of the most delicate and potent of liberal thought in the 21st century. With the increasing liberation of sexual and gender freedoms (amongst others), people are finding new ways to define themselves and their approach to life. This has, of course, not been without controversy, mostly coming from those who either can't comprehend the way of life the identity describes or simply feel that trying to overspecify one's preferences via a long string of interconnected adjectives is either dumb or weird.

At the same time, a counter-argument being espoused from within more liberal spheres is the conscious rejection of 'formal' identity. These are those who argue that society cares unnecessarily much about your gender/sex/orientation/add or delete as appropriate, and that all these 'labels' do is to blinker our existence into a particular way of working and behaving. For example- some folk don't like the idea that it's not considered culturally normal for someone to have a dress and a waistcoat in the same wardrobe, and rather than challenge those stereotypes they choose to challenge the ideas that 'enforce' these cultural norms. This is another contentious field, mostly due to the sizeable subset of this group who seem to like to pick fights over the issue.

The whole debate surrounding identity is a relatively new one for humanity and one that will only grow in intensity over the coming years and decades. However, it does throw light over an idea that most of us never really think about- that how we define ourselves is primarily through association with words and ideas that carry a lot of cultural baggage, and that there is rarely ever a need to identify as one thing or other.

This latter point (the idea that our self-identity may be almost entirely self-determined, regardless of other circumstances) is one that a lot of people have trouble with, particularly within the field of sex and gender. For thousands of years, within most societies, what sex you were pretty much defined what gender you were- society had very clearly defined expectations of what the different sexes were to do, and if you claimed to be something other than what was defined by your genitals you were simply lying. Nowadays, it's a bit different- not only does modern technology allow us to change pretty much everything about our bodies that would be said to 'define' one sex or another, but we are also far more cognizant of those who have been dealt a biological wildcard. This includes those with unusual combinations of chromosomes, or hormonal balances that would be considered unusual for an individual's apparent sex, all stuff that prevents their bodies from acting like 'normal' male and female bodies. All this has made the task of defining one sex or another a much more difficult one. The simplistic, chromosomal argument is to say that XX goes to female and XY goes to male- but what then does one do with all those with non-standard chromosome content? What about those who have hormonal imbalances- what about those who have had their hormonal balances artificially changed from their birth values via surgery or drugs? The bodies of these people simply do not behave like those of 'standard' male and female bodies, so to tie them down to one or the other is to present a frankly incorrect medical picture.

Some amongst the transgender community, particularly those who subscribe to the label-less camp, have seized upon this fact as evidence that biological sex simply is not real. To my mind, this does not hold up under evidence. For what I shall for this purpose refer to as 'normal' men and women, biological sex is a very useful guideline regarding the way their body works, and the way it differs from that of others- the science of sexual dimorphism provides some fairly extensive evidence.* The truth is that male and female are nothing more than (you guessed it) convenient labels, words we apply to people because it enables us to better categorise and evaluate their differences. They can't describe everyone (describing a surgically-altered transgender person as biologicaly male or female, for example, is a pointless exercise because the various complications associated with their body modifications means their body will not behave like one or the other), but they are a useful set of names for the rest of us to use to help simplify things. However, the phrases male and female also come with a lot of other cultural baggage (trousers vs skirts, strength vs elegance, rugged vs makeup and so on) that many of us break the mould of, which has lead us to the more recent idea of the separation of sex and gender- identifying where the biological aspects of maleness and femaleness end, and where the cultural aspects begin.

All this begs the question- biological and medical identities aside, why do we ever associate with particular identities at all? Why don't we all follow the label-less crowd and live a life devoid of names? Why do some men like to think of themselves as masculine, even when that word carries with it cultural connotations of brashness and insensitivity? Why do some women like to think of themselves as very feminine, even when that word is associated with inactivity and needing rescuing? Why do I, who likes to think of myself as a liberal, accepting person, describe myself as a folkie when the folk scene is mostly white, mostly male and full of 'back in my day' types?

There are two answers. The first is a question of simplicity- human beings are noted for liking to classify the world, to mentally chop it up into neat little parcels that we can describe in a straightforward fashion. Some labels are just useful shorthand- I've never been attracted to someone of my own gender, so I describe myself as straight. I like science, gaming and Lord of The Rings, so I describe myself as a nerd. But that answer doesn't tell the whole story, and for the rest I'd like to tell a little story.

A little while back, I stumbled across the term 'demisexual'. It's a label used by people who only feel sexual attraction for somebody they have an existing emotional connection with- they don't look across the room and want to make out with the cute girl in the corner, but might after they've got to know them and spent a lot of time together. They almost never have crushes and wouldn't be seen dead hitting on someone on a night out. It's a label that quite well describes a lot of my thoughts and feelings regarding sex and relationships, but it also has a wide range of other connotations. The majority of people who identify as demisexual are to some degree asexual or are sexually attracted to close friends, neither of which is particularly true for me. But in spite of this... it's nice to know that some aspect of the way my brain works is described and known and shared by other people. It's not just me overthinking things, but a part of who I am- and a cultural association that, little-known as it is, I am on board with being behind.

Something often unappreciated by the label-less crowd is that living up to a label invokes a powerful sense of community and legitimacy. It's one reason why why so many transgender people will proudly identify as their newly assigned gender- the reason they chose to switch is so that they can revel in a set of cultural norms that they feel much more comfortable with. Humans are social animals and we do not like to be alone in the world- having a name for who we are, a group that we can slot into, even if that group isn't quite a perfect fit, is a powerful motivation to take up a label.

Our identities are a confused mass of a thousand different labels. Somewhere at the intersection of the Venn diagram is a place for you. And it's nice to know that place exists.

*There are those who say that the evidence for sexual dimorphism is deeply skewed by the fact that women do not have the same cultural conditioning as men- for example, culture paints men as the muscular ones, so men go to further efforts to be strong in order to appear more manly, thus skewing the data regarding what the two sexes are capable of. This is doubtless a real effect, and one that too many studies fail to take account of... but I'd like to see anyone stare down a female athlete and tell them that they could run as fast as Usain Bolt if only they tried as hard as him.

[AdmiralMemo]

Slightly personal question: When you first heard and understood "demisexual," did you have a moment like Tedd had when hearing "gender-fluid"?

[Jamfalcon]

A little while back, I stumbled across the term 'demisexual'. It's a label used by people who only feel sexual attraction for somebody they have an existing emotional connection with- they don't look across the room and want to make out with the cute girl in the corner, but might after they've got to know them and spent a lot of time together. They almost never have crushes and wouldn't be seen dead hitting on someone on a night out. It's a label that quite well describes a lot of my thoughts and feelings regarding sex and relationships, but it also has a wide range of other connotations. The majority of people who identify as demisexual are to some degree asexual or are sexually attracted to close friends, neither of which is particularly true for me. But in spite of this... it's nice to know that some aspect of the way my brain works is described and known and shared by other people. It's not just me overthinking things, but a part of who I am- and a cultural association that, little-known as it is, I am on board with being behind.

Huh... I... yeah, after some reading that actually fits me pretty well too. Not something I'd ever put much thought into, but it's like that comic Memo linked... there's a word for this? It's not a perfect fit, but reading some information, it definitely seems to fit more than it doesn't, especially with things like never being able to answer celebrity crush questions and stuff like that. It's a word I'd heard before, but never really looked into the meaning of.

Really glad I read this.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Slightly personal question: When you first heard and understood "demisexual," did you have a moment like Tedd had when hearing "gender-fluid"?

No, not really. The reaction was 'huh, that's a thing, let's get back to playing Empire Total War'.

Some weeks afterwards, I ended up doing some more reading and ended up going along the lines of "y'know, this is actually quite a good description. Let's borrow it as convenient shorthand."

As a cis white male, identity crises are not a problem I feel I need to devote much mental space to.

[fantôme]

A few thoughts from a "label-less-ist" (we need a better name don't you think, j/k):

The advantage to no labels is the loss of divisions in society. It is much harder for a bigot to self-justify when the lines that define people are so complex, many things we share with one another and many things are different.

Personally I have never felt any solidarity by having a label for a minority that I would identify with, nor have I ever felt angry or upset at being mis-labeled by someone. Words are just words, bigotry that goes beyond words is another matter entirely.

My fundamental reason for rejecting labels though - it isn't reactionary, it isn't counter-culture, it is apathy. Not apathy in the sense that opinions and feelings don't matter, but rather that misused words don't matter - or at least shouldn't.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

A few thoughts from a "label-less-ist" (we need a better name don't you think, j/k):

The advantage to no labels is the loss of divisions in society. It is much harder for a bigot to self-justify when the lines that define people are so complex, many things we share with one another and many things are different.

Personally I have never felt any solidarity by having a label for a minority that I would identify with, nor have I ever felt angry or upset at being mis-labeled by someone. Words are just words, bigotry that goes beyond words is another matter entirely.

My fundamental reason for rejecting labels though - it isn't reactionary, it isn't counter-culture, it is apathy. Not apathy in the sense that opinions and feelings don't matter, but rather that misused words don't matter - or at least shouldn't.

Indeed. As with everything I write, this is purely a matter of perspective and an endeavour to understand how and why people work. The inspiration behind this one came from thinking about the label-less movement and the reasons why it is instinctively decried or dismissed by large sectors of the population. I don't particularly think either side is right- I'm just intrigued by how the people involved work, and think that this kind of discussion is important to help each side of the argument understand one another.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

This isn't an essay, but something I found online and that I think has a particular poignance at present. It also, I think, resonates with some of the ideas espoused in the "On Being Right" essay. The following are the last words of one William Blake, the last man to be convicted for treason in the UK (in 1946, for producing pro-Nazi propaganda) prior to his hanging:

“In death as in life, I defy the Jews who caused this last war, and I defy the power of darkness which they represent. I warn the British people against the crushing imperialism of the Soviet Union. May Britain be great once again and in the hour of the greatest danger in the West may the standard be raised from the dust, crowned with the words – “You have conquered nevertheless”.

I am proud to die for my ideals and I am sorry for the sons of Britain who have died without knowing why.”

We all have our truth. To some it is worth hating and dying for; and to others, it is worth killing for.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

On Soldiers and Remembrance

DISCLAIMER: Despite prior efforts to the contrary, I have never been a member of the military. I have never been to a warzone in my life, never held a firearm outside of a couple of incidents on a firing range, and never used a weapon to intentionally inflict harm on another human being. I don't write this meaning to insult or disregard anybody who has served in the armed forces- this rather aimless ramble is just my act of remembrance.

Ninety-eight years ago, on a cold November morning in northern France, the last guns stopped firing. The end of the Great War- the final denouement of the most significant conflict in world history. World War One was the first truly global war, with casualties from every continent on earth, and like no other it was a war fought at every point between the front line and the front door. In Europe, the war touched the lives of every single man, woman and child alive, and in doing so it fundamentally changed society's confused relationship with the soldier.

Armies have been around for almost as long as recorded civilisation, and wherever there are armies there are battles and heroes. For millennia, humanity has obsessed over such ideals- our fairy tales, our epic poems, even our accounts of history, inevitably focus on the tales of individual valour, courage and leadership, contrasted against the deception and general weediness of our craven foes. From Achilles to Arthur to Aragorn, we like our heroes to be those who can solve their problems at the point of a sword.

But then the war came, and suddenly everything changed. The Great War was not a war of heroes- it was a war of logistics, attrition and brutal, mechanised slaughter at the hands of the new weapons of war. Not only were soldiers dying and suffering on a scale never before seen in warfare, but a mixture of better-educated soldiers and greatly increased media coverage (both through private and government challenge) lead to a war that communicated its horrors to the home front better than any conflict before or since. War was no longer a noble or righteous idea from tales or songs- it was a brutal, mechanical reality from which men did not return intact.

Society's response was distinctly confused, and after the dust had settled (and the clamouring for revenge quietened), two main messages ultimately condensed- not contradictory in nature, but frequently running counter to one another. Some decried the whole concept of the war, saw only the horrific waste in every life lost, every body and mind inhumanly broken. And some simply clung on to the message of heroism and bravery- of the incredible courage of those who faced the guns, who fought and died in the mud and fire.

The government, in particular, favoured this latter line, at least in part because by encouraging remembrance of the sacrifice they in turn discouraged memory of the folly that caused it. The thousands of war memorials that sprung up around the country were daubed with sombre messages of 'we will remember them' or 'lest we forget', devoid of any words to remember the futility of the sacrifice so many made. You will not find the words "Never Again" carved on many memorials. "The old lie", Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori, still stands carved into an archway in the chapel at Sandhurst, and when warfare reignited just twenty years later the next generation of young men and women proved more than willing to sign up again to fight and die. Following on from the Second World War, a war much easier to sell to the public as a straightforward tale of good against evil, this message became the default for the vast majority of people when talking about war. Perhaps that's simply because it's the most natural fit; for a species that's spent the last half a billion years of evolution having to fight for its very existence, perhaps its not surprising that fighting has some kind of positive message hardwired into us.

But the message of pacifism, of questioning why these men must fight and die for us, has not quite died. After the futility of Vietnam and Iraq especially, and the widespread reporting of deeply questionable military practices in both conflicts, it has become a little harder to claim that every man in combat fatigues is a figure of heroism. And, from my experience of meeting them, one would be very hard pressed to find one who believes that their every action is heroic, or even right, in nature. Unless a soldier is fortunate enough to agree with every single one of their generals' and governments' decisions (which must frequently be made based on incomplete intelligence) it is almost inevitable that a soldier will at some point in their career doing something that they are morally or politically opposed to. But a soldier is a contracted employee constrained by a strict legal framework and hierarchical structure- they are simply not free to ignore their orders. Within certain restrictions they could simply leave their role, but as with all working men and women this is not a decision they are free to take lightly- anyone considering this decision must balance it against their career aspirations, their potential for future employment, their current financial situation and the simple culture of where they find themselves working. As such, you'll rarely find a soldier whose day-to-day motivation for what they do is rooted in philosophy or the ethics of their conflict- much more frequently, they will talk about something to do with the culture of the armed forces, of the self-determination the role allows of them, about the idealised idea of serving their country, or simply about looking out for their mates and working for the guys next to them. Soldiers tend to be pragmatists, not philosophers.

So, maybe it's not logically consistent to paint soldiers as strictly heroic figures. Maybe we can't always cast them as defending the front line of freedom, and maybe it's fine to say that perhaps a soldier isn't actually doing all that much to truly serve their country. But the problem with all of those claims is that they appear to, or are twisted to by their opponents, lay a degree of blame at the foot of soldiers themselves- who frankly are the last people in need of any kind of blame.And this, I think is the problem we have talking about remembrance and soldiery nowadays; we struggle to separate the ideas surrounding the harshness of a soldiers' task, the hard work they put in whilst serving for their ideals, from the debate regarding whether their actions are righteous or not, or whether they should be there in the first place.

At this point, one is almost tempted to argue that the existence of Remembrance Sunday places an artificial skew on the subject- we have one day a year dedicated to remembering soldiers as sacrificial lambs and monuments to bravery, in the mould of the war memorial slogans, but no such holiday dedicated to peace and consideration of the futility of warfare. But to do so, I feel is to sell humanity rather short. In spite of what the internet may tell you, human beings are not mindless sheep following their prescribed government guidelines on how to undertake remembrance. We are nuanced, complex beings, and I am not the only person for whom Remembrance Sunday is an opportunity to consider conflict as a whole in greater depth. When I was at school, the overarching theme of November 11th was a crusade against any idea of glory in warfare, whilst I've seen others use today to make the point that the best way to honour the fallen is to prevent any more young men and women from joining them. A century on, we are still remembering them.

Remembrance Sunday is a confused commemoration of a morally tortuous subject. But maybe that's enough.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

On Orwell and The Snoopers Charter

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is my all-time favourite work of literature; not because it's the best to read or because I'm some sort of nihilist, but because it presents a horrifyingly compelling, realistic depiction of totalitarianism and the logical extremes of man's desire to control. However, sixty-seven years since it was written it's now something of an anachronism; Orwell was writing about a world that he felt could feasibly yet come to pass, but nowadays we know that, in fact, didn't. Ultimately, totalitarianism is losing.

Indeed, nowadays it is comparatively hard to imagine that a state of such all-encompassing intellectual and moral control as Oceania awaits our near future, at least in the affluent, pro-capitalist west. Some would even argue that such a state is economically and practically infeasible. But this hasn't prevented us from continuing to throw around the descriptor 'Orwellian' at any whiff of government data monitoring. This was most recently demonstrated following recent Parliamentary approval of the so-called "Snooper's Charter", which granted (and provided provisions to aid) UK intelligence agencies with powers to intercept the communications of targeted individuals in the interests of national security. Whilst the bill doesn't grant the state all-encompassing powers (and indeed includes several provisions to limit abuse thereof), it is undoubtedly a step along the road from online privacy to online monitoring, and the outrage, argument and discussion surrounding it is most definitely warranted.

The Snooper's Charter undoubtedly presents a major potential threat to the civil liberties of individuals... but it's not a threat I'd call Orwellian in nature. To me, the truly terrifying thing about Orwell's Oceania a is not the simple gathering of information, but the sheer level of control and abuse thereof; the cynical, power-crazed attitude that all individuals are either perfect pawns of the state or dissenters to be summarily executed. For as long as our state remains a genuine democracy, it's not the creation of an Orwellian state that we have to fear. The kind of abuse that the Snooper's Charter should put us in fear of is, to my mind, not described in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, but in Osmotic Studios' Orwell.

Orwell is a videogame released in October of this year (currently on Steam for less than $10), and it clearly takes many of its cues from 2014's Papers, Please; it too focuses its primary gameplay on reading and cross-checking information (which, as it turns out, is WAY more compelling than it sounds). It also casts the player as a lowly government pawn; this time not a border control guard but a specialist intelligence operative, tasked with investigating the digital communications of suspect individuals. So far, so predictable- you can almost write a script of 'slowly being indoctrinated into following the party line until, *shock*, you realise what you have become' already.

But Orwell is written much more cleverly than that, for two crucial reasons. Firstly, there is the setting: unlike Papers, Please, Orwell is not actually set in an Orwellian, authoritarian state. Rather, Orwell's "The Nation" (who really need a better naming department) is a stable, prosperous, modern democracy, with a free press and peaceful political demonstrations. There is no secret police, no government agency populated by diehard fanatics- both the people you are investigating and the supporting characters you work with are complex individuals, struggling with the morality of both your investigations and the political opposition you are investigating. You, the player, are not the only person feeling conflicted.

And secondly, there's the mechanics of a deliberately imperfect interface. The game does not give you, the investigator, any powers of enforcement; rather, you gather information from multiple sources, pass it on to your superiors via a one-way electronic interface, and leave enforcement up to them... all of which means that said superiors have no appreciation for the nuance that you do. Looking through past email exchanges, social media profiles and phone call transcripts allows you to build up a rounded picture of these ineffable individuals you investigate, but your boss does not get a chance to see this. They see raw facts, devoid of context; dates, addresses, "has previously expressed X opinion" and act based only on these cold, unfeeling touchstones of information. It gets to the point where one thinks to withhold potentially crucial information for fear of it being misused, or getting frustrated with the interface for not letting you tell your superiors about the multifaceted nature of the situation; the system doesn't allow you to say "yes, but...", and even if it did there's no guarantee that it would listen.

I can't say much more without going into some major spoilers, but suffice it to say that Orwell the game is not really about the threats presented by Orwell the author. Nineteen Eighty Four is a parable against totalitarianism, about the perils of an all-controlling, power-hungry state that isn't really an immediate threat to us in the present day. The game Orwell, however, tells us about the dangers inherent in a slightly imperfect system full of people trying to do the right thing. In my playthrough of Orwell I had access to the complete online presence of all figures central to the case- I knew everything, from their workplaces to their political views to their favourite colour. And I still only managed to get two innocent individuals arrested, whilst still letting multiple individuals die in terrorist bombings and inspiring hate crimes along the way. And this is Orwell's message, delivered like a knife to the gut- that the danger of modern day surveillance is not how it might be misused, but how it might be used right and go very, very wrong.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

This one isn't written by me, but instead comes from the comments section underneath a Cracked article. And it's brilliant; a call against homogeneous thinking and against the least productive aspects of both liberal and conservative politics that is both much better written and much better articulated than any of the dross I usually write. Cross-posted here because... I dunno, it just feels like the place for it:

"We live in some tumultuous times where, in part thanks to a media who loves to fan the flames from the tiniest of sparks and even if they have to cause that spark in the first place, and people so intent on saving the day they forget to check their facts, there are times of trouble, and that’s an understatement.

Racial tensions, homophobia, religious fighting, the Red Sox sucking, they’re all very prominent and troubling. Except that last one. That’s just hilarious.

Anyway, the point is that it’s been inescapable in the news whether it’s a racially motivated mass shooting, protests against the legalization of gay marriage, beheadings over cartoons, and it all goes back to the title of this article—we’re all somebody else’s mutants.

What I mean by that is all of us are guilty of harboring some prejudice or another, no matter how much we like to pretend otherwise. That doesn’t mean that prejudice is the same as outright hating another person or group. It just means that we have conceptions and misconceptions of other people formulated by our own experiences and what we’ve been told or taught.

And no group is immune from that.

The problem lies when we stop looking at our commonalities and focus solely on our superficial differences and refuse to accept any members of a group as a rule. At some point, members of some groups that, rightly, push for equality seem to have forgotten that promoting fairness and equality does not mean being a dick to everyone else and painting people with the same broad brush, or propping up by tearing down.

There’s no way to deny that certain groups, especially in America, have enjoyed a certain degree of privilege not afforded to others. But, by the same token, that doesn’t mean there’s a homogenous hivemind either in which all said privileges are evenly distributed.

But, that said, trying to shoot down any argument or discussion with a self-righteous, “Check your privilege,” is a surefire way to sound like a douche because you’re using it to dismiss an individual based on your preconceived notions of his or her association as a part of a larger collective which is no more acceptable or logical than someone telling some Hispanic guy to go back to his own country even though, chances are, he was born and raised here with every right to be here.

Sure, privilege exists. Again, no denying that. But to assume it’s the same for all and to automatically discount the real experiences of an individual in a game of guilt by association is problematic. People on one side need to be able to recognize that they do, on average, share a significantly greater degree of privilege (not liable to be passed up on jobs for their gender or ethnicity, for example) and that their own experiences, while possibly very real and legitimate, are not representative of the whole, nor the result of a systematic prejudice. They are, largely, anomalies and not an apples to apples comparison.

On the other side, people need to be able to recognize that just because someone is of a certain demographic it doesn’t mean that they can’t relate to things, that they don’t have feelings on issues, or that they haven’t encountered hardships of their own.

I’ve seen it on several websites where it seems equality has taken a back seat to “tallies,” the attitude that until X happens to Group Y as much as it’s happened to Group Z then Group Y has no right to speak out. That’s like telling a guy who’s been raped to walk it off because it happens far more to women. And, sadly, I've literally seen those equivalents on far too many online discussions; I was literally told a week ago by a woman on a website that jokes about men getting raped were all right because men had no right to be offended since it's not something they live in fear of.

Really?

Have we really gotten to that point in society? A point where we can’t empathize with our fellow humans and have become so entrenched with ourselves and our opinions and stereotypes of the other that we have turned things into a contest of hardships, who can have the most and thereby hold the conch to complain? Do we only acknowledge another person's plight so that we can demonstrate how much worse our own is?

Don’t look at the group of black teens hanging out on the corner and assume they’re up to no good. Don’t look at the people outside of a mosque and assume they’re terrorist sympathizers. Don’t look at the white guy on his way home from work and assume he got his job handed to him on a silver platter. Don’t look at that female executive and assume she’s only there for affirmative action.

These stereotypes demean people by putting them neatly into boxes that we can easily shove under the bed unopened, and they destroy meaningful and necessary conversations that need to be held.

We seem to have arrived at a point where it’s getting harder to get past that, where we can no longer disagree on something or find something offensive without attacking and shaming everyone else who doesn’t feel the same. It’s no longer enough to turn the channel, now a Keyboard Cowboy campaign needs to be fired up on the Internet to demand the network bows to you. For every Millions Mom group, there’s a group that’s crying about the Dukes of Hazzard. Hell, I guarantee more than one person read this far, honed in on only one sentence or another, and is preparing a litany of ad hominems of how I hate [fill in the group].

We post political and social memes without fact checking that do more harm than good and spread more misinformation while we applaud our “activism.” We have a media that’s put priority on being first over being correct and we sanction it by helping them perpetuate half-truths or outright lies. We dismiss each other with automatic tags of racist or sexist or homophobic or anti-Christian or whatever else it is this week.

And I bring this all up because I look at the X-Men comics I’ve read over the years and in every future we see in which humans and mutants can’t put aside their differences, in which they can’t stop the infighting, in which they can’t learn to share this world and accept that there is a place for equality for all, there’s only one commonality:

The future sucks.

So, learn from that. Stop yelling, “Check your privilege,” or, “Affirmative action hire.” Stop saying things like, “Well, yeah, I know you think my group has privilege, but let me tell you about this one time in my life that says otherwise,” and miss the point entirely. Stop telling people they can’t marry who they want because you don’t like it and then hide behind selective quoting to try and justify yourself. Stop doing things like telling people they can’t say anything until they’ve had their imaginary frequent customer card punched a certain amount of times or belittle their life experiences or continue to blame them for things they had no control over or role in and then continue to be shocked that they take umbrage. Stop telling people that racism is gone or overstated because we have a black president as if that magically ended prejudice, or that sexism is gone because of inroads females have made and then spout MRA nonsense at them. Stop automatically responding to a call of "black lives matter" with one of "what about X lives," and making it about you. Stop talking at and past one another instead of talking to and with one another so you can learn where each side is coming from.

Because, all of that? It’s going to be the end of all of us.

There’s good and bad in every group, just like there were humans who hated and loved mutants, and vice versa. But, what it comes down to is we’re all people here together. White, black, Hispanic, Asian, gay, straight, bi, transgender, Muslim, Christian, whatfrigginever.

So, as I leave you here today, I implore to remember that, to remember the stories of dystopian futures of the X-Men and what happens when people refuse to get along, and to just remember we’re all somebody else’s mutants, not as horrible as the other side tries to paint us.

Basically, just don’t be a dick to your fellow person, that’s all I ask."

[My pseudonym is Ix]

On Tolerance

Today is the inauguration ceremony for soon-to-be President of the United States, Donald J Trump. It hardly needs saying that this is one of the more... contentious political events of the last few years, much of which stems from the extensive accusations of intolerance leveled at Mr Trump by his opponents and detractors. He has been labelled a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a homophobe and, perhaps inevitably, so too have his supporters. And I think that is fucking horseshit.

(To clarify: based on the evidence I have seen and have available to me, I would agree with the sentiment that a lot of Mr Trump's politics and behaviour is rather distasteful- I consider his ideas and comments on such subjects as LGBT people, gender equality and in particular the environment to vary between vulgar and actively counterproductive. Point being, I wouldn't have voted for the guy, and wouldn't disagree with calling him bigoted.)

A large part of the reason why I feel this way comes from the places where I spend my time, particularly online. Places like this forum, for example, or my Facebook feed, tend to have a pretty significant liberal bias, so during Trump's rise to power I've got to see a pretty representative cross-section of the collective liberal response to it. Upon his election to the presidency, some people were simply shocked, struggling to cope with the prospect of such an individual being labelled leader of the free world for the next four years. Some ultimately took a more pragmatic stance, resolving to spend the next few years fighting for the principles they believed in through every means they could. But some went on the attack; they decried the Trump regime as illegitimate and his support base frequently as either a) bigoted a la the man himself or b) motivated solely by anger, frustration and lies. Which leads us nicely into talking about the idea of tolerance, particularly among the political left.

The left has, with some notable exceptions (the Democratic party during the American Civil War, for example) long endeavoured to be the champion of tolerance in today's society. Views concerning civil rights, same-sex marriage, discrimination laws and so on are considered to be 'liberal' attitudes, and most of us would probably like to think of ourselves as tolerant people. And yet, if this last year of politics has taught us anything, it's how easy tolerant people find it to be ideologically intolerant towards those who disagree with them. You see this kind of flash intolerance to the slightest disagreement all the time online (see pretty much any YouTube comment thread), but to my mind rhetoric like "why should compassion be political?" or "how can you have a problem with this?" demonstrates this principle in more subversive ways. Implicit in these narratives are the ideas that all individuals completely agree with everything they are voting for, and all have the same knowledge, perspective and valuation about these factors, and frankly, that's absurd. I, for example, am a scientifically minded, university-educated, well-travelled white male living in a university town with a reasonably large LGBT population, which means I have been exposed to completely different news, culture, values and childhood experiences as a mother in rural Utah. And to argue that I am more 'correct', as some educated liberals like to do, because I have read more books or my opponent is 'stupid', implies that by living a life that is rural or exposed to different factors a person should somehow get less of a right to self-determination who governs them, and the things that matter to them are less important. Leaving aside how the idea of 'intelligence' is not a one-dimensional scale like that and that your opponents probably know about things that you don't, I'm not sure you can look yourself in the mirror and honestly say that you are a tolerant, compassionate human being if arguing that they are wrong because they are stupid.

Before I get accused of left-bashing, I should note that liberals are not alone in this dialogue of ideological intolerance, and also that many political commenters before me have already made the point that compassion and dialogue are key to healing political rifts in society and making genuine progress. But this kind of thing doesn't just apply to politics- it happens everywhere. Ever seen an argument online where one party has been accused of 'trolling' for disagreeing with another? Perfect example; a party so unable or unwilling to countenance the idea of somebody disagreeing with them in this way that they can only perceive it as deliberate mockery. Ever seen a meme or mantra along the lines of "if you've [done a thing], you don't get to [enjoy any kindness or compassion]"? A different take on the same idea; that unless you're living and acting according to a method of behaviour that I consider to be correct, you do not get the virtue of my respect regardless of circumstance or situation. I will concede that there are exceptions to this one, where society has already decided on some rules that get such strict, inflexible punishment- it's called the law, and there are systems in place nowadays to try and ensure that enforcing it aims to heal the wounds of those falling victim to it. Across the world, across the internet, across the whole phase-space of human interaction, again and again we find situations where human beings cannot process the idea that other people can disagree on something without either Needing to be Changed or becoming vilified.

Where people cannot countenance that, had they exposed to all the same inputs as their foe, they might act in exactly the same way.

Some comfort may be drawn from the fact that this is in no way a new phenomenon; recent research indicates that the desire to argue is largely borne of the innate desire to win rather than the desire to learn, and it is nigh-on impossible to ever understand all of the subtleties contributing to a particular issue. But in a world that relies more than ever before on communication and co-operation in order to achieve success, harmony, and progress, humanity's lack of ability or desire to communicate and understand one another is holding us back and making us unhappy. More than left or right, the ideology that society perhaps most could use nowadays is that of understanding those we would like to hate.