Breaking the Spell: Rethinking queer community

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

Walk me through this, Snowy. In your world, please explain how this works:

1) You walk out your door, your neighbor sees you. What does he do?

Well the guy across the street sneers, the lady behind us looks at us like she's smelling shit or shakes her head, the other two besides us now ignore us and keep their kids away.


2) You walk out your door, your neighbor sees you and sneers. What happens then?

I say nothing, we say nothing. what can we say we can't change their minds about not liking homos and them thinking we're disgusting and going to hell.

Actually, Snowy, I wasn't asking how things are *now*. I was asking, in your ideal world, in the world you were talking about having a right to, how things would be different.

You had said:

I could even throw in there that as a woman I want my space and place to be equally valid if not more valid than the guy next to me who gets it just cause he's a guy.

Sometimes I think I'm expecting to much when I try to take my place in the world but I'll be damned if I won't take it it's mine and my right. I don't just want it for me me me, I want it for alll women, childrens, queers, geeks, underdogs, poor, forgotten people out there.

What does that world look like? So in this world, where your space and place are equally if not more valid, how would things be different with your neighbors? What would that look like? If it would be different HOW would it be different? That's why I asked if, in the world you envision, your neighbors could even *be* anti-gay and if they couldn't, why would they not be able to be?

To me acceptance is never changing as for tolerance can and will change with conditions. I hope that changes as time goes on here, people are pretty closeted here if they are queer, they are quiet it about it and discreet I'm not used to it cause of having always lived in areas that were queer friendly.

Yes, tolerance does change with conditions. But here's what I'm driving at. I do not see *how* we can have a free, open society where there is only acceptance and no need for tolerance. I agree that tolerance is learning to live next to people with whom you might disagree vehemently on one or more points. However, while several people see that as a bad thing, I see it as the *least* bad thing given the species we have to work with. IF America were both ethnically and religiously homogenous then there would, ironically, be less need for tolerance. The reason for that is that if this nation had that kind of homogeneity we would be more culturally homogeneous. But we aren't. We are ethnically and religiously pluralistic. We will *always* have a heterogeneous society and so we have to figure out how to get along with one another. Otherwise, we will rip ourselves apart.

This is where tolerance comes in. I do not have to like that which I tolerate. I just have to tolerate it. Tolerate does NOT mean that I'll put up with X until I can find some way to squash it. Rather, it means that I will let X be if X will leave me be. It most certainly does not mean trying to attack X either physically, verbally or through the law. This is why I'm curious about those who disagree with me about tolerance. If tolerance is unacceptable--and at least two people have stated that it is neither enough nor is it a good thing--what's the alternative? If acceptance is the ONLY thing, then how do we get there from here? In other words, how do people envision creating a society where tolerance doesn't happen because there is universal acceptance?

For the life of me, I cannot see how you can convince an *entire* society to accept ALL difference and treat them as irrelevant. I just don't see it. Tolerance, I think, you can teach because one can attack it from a couple of different directions. But how do you teach *acceptance* without squashing out less accepting ideas? That's why I asked the question about whether, in your best of all possible worlds, your neighbor is capable of sneering at you because you are queer. If he isn't then why isn't he? Is it because we have made it unthinkable? If so, how? Is it because we have created a society where certain facial expressions are taken as prima facie evidence of bigoted behavior? Are we, in the name of queer liberation, ready to embrace the idea of thought-crime? I don't think we should.

Because of my background in evolutionary biology, I see everything as a trade-off. There are no perfect worlds, there are no perfect animals and there are no perfect societies. Because there are always costs, it becomes important to determine what those costs are and consider whether those costs are outweighed by the benefits. So we can have a society that is largely tolerant of difference while still being open and free enough to allow for people who are *not* tolerant, provided that they do not attempt to directly threaten either individuals or the stability of the community as a whole. On the other hand, we can have a society that has no need of tolerance because everyone is accepting--or at least they behave that way--but I think we would then have a drastically less open and free society. I don't think we can have a society of universal acceptance that is free.

Cheers
Aj