So today, at work, nobody's in the pool currently, meaning you're getting your first, well and true, proper blog post for the month. In this case, I wanted to talk about the for corners that build a pyramid around the majority of ideas. Around concepts themselves, really. (Trust me, this will all make a lot of sense later. Well, relative to ME that is.)
I define the four corners as biology, law, society (also known as unwritten law), and personal. To explain these, we need something for them to be about. For most of them, my go-to example would, in this case, be murder. Once I begin to explain, you'll see why I chose something like that.
For the biological stance on murder, there are many justifications for it. This is one of the reasons why I so strongly dislike biology as a reason; of the four corners, I find it the least-valid. Many things which aren't acceptable could be considered such using it, and many more which are acceptable may or may not have any biological support (hard to say), for instance, saaaaaaaaaay, being a lesbian. Or being a transwoman. Things like that. Frankly, if there is a biological explanation for such things, I don't even want it known, because these are things we should be accepting without biology.
Yet many people insist biology trumps all, and advocate such things as unnatural and wrong. But back to the example of murder, you could, via biology, excuse crimes of passion: "I was so overcome with rage, I just couldn't help myself!" That might be (and probably actually is) true, but it doesn't make the murder any less wrong.
Panic also works as an emotional excuse, via triggering the instinctive fight-or-flight response. Still doesn't justify nor change how wrong the murder is. Yet these are things that murderers will exclaim all the time. You might have caught onto the implication here already, but just to reinforce it...
...If biology doesn't work as a reasoning, what about written laws? After all, it's basically universally illegal to murder someone, so surely laws are infallible rules, right? Now, this is ignoring factors like corruption which is inevitable in any system. This is ignoring how no system can ever be perfect. This is talking about the system which governs every-day life.
Well, sure. Laws work nice and fine as a general guideline, but there's plenty of reasons they don't work as an absolute. Among them being some of the above, but an egregious example goes back to murder again. A fine example of laws failing? It is 100% legal for a man to murder a transwoman in many countries and even STATES. This isn't some third-world or archaic law, existing only in the backwater portions of the world.
I'm dead serious, this is something, absolutely real, about the first world. OUR world. Legalized murder, no joke, of a person who has committed no crime unless you consider existing to be one. The hope is, obviously, that such laws will change. I have confidence that, eventually, they will. But as of right now, in the current world?
I think you can understand my lack of regard for that corner. I obey laws, but I do so because 1: they usually overlap with my own habits/beliefs anyway, and 2: ignoring them is more trouble than it's worth. (Duh.) But they are no absolute rule to follow. So what about social?
These are the inferred, rather than explicit, 'rules', so to speak, that we live by. No explicitly-murder example here, since it is generally considered unacceptable in most forms of society; we don't call it murder for no reason. But the problem I have with living by social rules (aside from having Asperger's and therefore not even having a solid grip of them) is twofold.
Society's rules were not always right. It used to be accepted that slavery was a given. That would still be true to this day if everyone followed the mindset of "the current social rules are absolute". If everyone accepted those as a given, never questioning them, then of course it'd still be around, because nothing would cause it to change. Yet nowadays, slavery is of course near-universally considered unacceptable.
For that to have happened...somewhere along the line, someone had to have had the thought. The exact thought may be different, but the one I choose to use is "all people are equal". And somewhere along the line, for whatever various reasons...it grew, until it dominated, becoming the new social norm. (For the most part.)
Then there are other similar fights. It used to be a given that women should be subservient to men. Maybe not universally, but in a lot more places than not, this was the case. (Note also that this is something that also makes a fine example of why biology is not the best justification, as throughout time men have constantly provided biological "proof" of this "fact".) That battle is not yet completely over. In many places, it is still considered acceptable. However, overall, in the world, women are gaining a lot more of the respect they deserve, with each and every generation increasingly agreeing: the idea of women being subservient to men is wrong.
Yet there are other problems with society as a pillar aside from this slow progress. For instance...cultural divides in values that largely stem from Western/Eastern hemispheres, but for the most part, those differences have neither side clearly in the right nor wrong, both having valid points about their view and valid criticisms of the other.
And, given that there are still many battles to fight...it's not something I can throw faith behind. There is still far, far too much discrimination against people on the !cishet spectrum. While people who are gay are mostly in the clear these days (mostly; it's still preeeeeeeeeeeeetty harsh), other non-heterosexual orientations aren't nearly so lucky, and that's not even beginning to go into the hatred towards transgender and gender non-conforming individuals that, right now, is considered the social norm.
So, in general, society as a whole hates and fears LGQBT+ individuals. But, like laws (which are inherently linked to society in the first place), eventually, society should be able to sort things out, right? Maybe. Hopefully. Eventually, sure, but when? Ten? Twenty? Fifty years from now?
Bluntly, that love and support just doesn't exist right now. On the small scale, sure, yes, it does, but by and large, when looked at from the whole, it doesn't. That's evident enough by how even people within the !cishet community hate on others within the !cishet community. They should be supporting each other, and while that is fortunately the case a great many number of the times, it should be literally all the time, no exceptions, no excuses for hatred.
So, progress is being made...but at an abysmally slow rate. The people actually loving and caring of those like me are currently the social minority. Given that, you'll forgive me for not living my life as society by and large would demand. (Because society would demand me be a normal guy. I'm not. Very much not. Normal guy is the exact polar opposite of what I am. It's taken 22 years for me to accept that I am a weird girl and not have any shame in it.)
And that's why I use personal beliefs as my guiding system. These are things not given to me by biology. These are not things I follow because there's laws about them. These are not things I follow because everyone else follows them. These are things that I have developed on my own. My values, my beliefs, my views, my concepts, all have been given thought. Maybe they have reasons, maybe they're just instinctive, but they all come directly from me.
These things might be influenced by the other corners. These things might take cues from them. After all, if there's a good law that I like, no reason to complain about it, now, is there? And, heck. By and large, for the most part, my values, my beliefs, the things I see in the world, overlap with society as a whole, overlap with laws for the most part, and may have biological backing (who knows).
To put it in example, back to murder one final time...I find that life is one of the most precious things in the world. And taking another life, unless in the physical need of oneself or another, to be wrong, because robbing the most precious thing in the world from it is a crime. But do note my wording here.
I do not consider killing for meat to be wrong (meaning, yes, I eat meat), because it is in physical need: we are omnivores, not herbivores, and we evolved by eating meat. (As in, we were comparatively dumb tree animals when we ate plants, and it was eating meat that helped turn us intelligent in the first place.) Hunting is fine, even as sport...provided the one condition of nothing going to waste. Wasteful hunting (a la the stereotypical "shooting buffalo from the train for sport") I see as wrong, but even if the hunt is more for fun than need, so long as there is no waste I have no issue with it.
The physical need of oneself or another also is important because it covers killing someone in defense of either yourself or a loved one: someone getting jail time for defending themselves is absolutely abhorrent. (For instance, if a woman killed someone who was trying to rape her, there is absolutely zero way it is acceptable for her to be prosecuted.)
And the 'physical' bit in there is also an important disclaimer. If you're a guy, going on this date with a hot girl, and then you suddenly discover that her biology does not match her looks (i.e., she's trans), you do not have the right to "defend your manhood" and kill her. You do not have the right to defend your honor, your integrity, your heterosexuality, by killing someone; that is not defending yourself: it's murder.
Now, obviously, this is just my own personal beliefs at work here. I'd like to think they're pretty good ones, and as a result, would certainly like it if others began adapting them or at least similar-enough ones. People are free to disagree, because they have the right to their own personal beliefs. But this is more or less how I put things into perspective.
Thought that those who read this blog might enjoy the insight into me.
I define the four corners as biology, law, society (also known as unwritten law), and personal. To explain these, we need something for them to be about. For most of them, my go-to example would, in this case, be murder. Once I begin to explain, you'll see why I chose something like that.
For the biological stance on murder, there are many justifications for it. This is one of the reasons why I so strongly dislike biology as a reason; of the four corners, I find it the least-valid. Many things which aren't acceptable could be considered such using it, and many more which are acceptable may or may not have any biological support (hard to say), for instance, saaaaaaaaaay, being a lesbian. Or being a transwoman. Things like that. Frankly, if there is a biological explanation for such things, I don't even want it known, because these are things we should be accepting without biology.
Yet many people insist biology trumps all, and advocate such things as unnatural and wrong. But back to the example of murder, you could, via biology, excuse crimes of passion: "I was so overcome with rage, I just couldn't help myself!" That might be (and probably actually is) true, but it doesn't make the murder any less wrong.
Panic also works as an emotional excuse, via triggering the instinctive fight-or-flight response. Still doesn't justify nor change how wrong the murder is. Yet these are things that murderers will exclaim all the time. You might have caught onto the implication here already, but just to reinforce it...
...If biology doesn't work as a reasoning, what about written laws? After all, it's basically universally illegal to murder someone, so surely laws are infallible rules, right? Now, this is ignoring factors like corruption which is inevitable in any system. This is ignoring how no system can ever be perfect. This is talking about the system which governs every-day life.
Well, sure. Laws work nice and fine as a general guideline, but there's plenty of reasons they don't work as an absolute. Among them being some of the above, but an egregious example goes back to murder again. A fine example of laws failing? It is 100% legal for a man to murder a transwoman in many countries and even STATES. This isn't some third-world or archaic law, existing only in the backwater portions of the world.
I'm dead serious, this is something, absolutely real, about the first world. OUR world. Legalized murder, no joke, of a person who has committed no crime unless you consider existing to be one. The hope is, obviously, that such laws will change. I have confidence that, eventually, they will. But as of right now, in the current world?
I think you can understand my lack of regard for that corner. I obey laws, but I do so because 1: they usually overlap with my own habits/beliefs anyway, and 2: ignoring them is more trouble than it's worth. (Duh.) But they are no absolute rule to follow. So what about social?
These are the inferred, rather than explicit, 'rules', so to speak, that we live by. No explicitly-murder example here, since it is generally considered unacceptable in most forms of society; we don't call it murder for no reason. But the problem I have with living by social rules (aside from having Asperger's and therefore not even having a solid grip of them) is twofold.
Society's rules were not always right. It used to be accepted that slavery was a given. That would still be true to this day if everyone followed the mindset of "the current social rules are absolute". If everyone accepted those as a given, never questioning them, then of course it'd still be around, because nothing would cause it to change. Yet nowadays, slavery is of course near-universally considered unacceptable.
For that to have happened...somewhere along the line, someone had to have had the thought. The exact thought may be different, but the one I choose to use is "all people are equal". And somewhere along the line, for whatever various reasons...it grew, until it dominated, becoming the new social norm. (For the most part.)
Then there are other similar fights. It used to be a given that women should be subservient to men. Maybe not universally, but in a lot more places than not, this was the case. (Note also that this is something that also makes a fine example of why biology is not the best justification, as throughout time men have constantly provided biological "proof" of this "fact".) That battle is not yet completely over. In many places, it is still considered acceptable. However, overall, in the world, women are gaining a lot more of the respect they deserve, with each and every generation increasingly agreeing: the idea of women being subservient to men is wrong.
Yet there are other problems with society as a pillar aside from this slow progress. For instance...cultural divides in values that largely stem from Western/Eastern hemispheres, but for the most part, those differences have neither side clearly in the right nor wrong, both having valid points about their view and valid criticisms of the other.
And, given that there are still many battles to fight...it's not something I can throw faith behind. There is still far, far too much discrimination against people on the !cishet spectrum. While people who are gay are mostly in the clear these days (mostly; it's still preeeeeeeeeeeeetty harsh), other non-heterosexual orientations aren't nearly so lucky, and that's not even beginning to go into the hatred towards transgender and gender non-conforming individuals that, right now, is considered the social norm.
So, in general, society as a whole hates and fears LGQBT+ individuals. But, like laws (which are inherently linked to society in the first place), eventually, society should be able to sort things out, right? Maybe. Hopefully. Eventually, sure, but when? Ten? Twenty? Fifty years from now?
Bluntly, that love and support just doesn't exist right now. On the small scale, sure, yes, it does, but by and large, when looked at from the whole, it doesn't. That's evident enough by how even people within the !cishet community hate on others within the !cishet community. They should be supporting each other, and while that is fortunately the case a great many number of the times, it should be literally all the time, no exceptions, no excuses for hatred.
So, progress is being made...but at an abysmally slow rate. The people actually loving and caring of those like me are currently the social minority. Given that, you'll forgive me for not living my life as society by and large would demand. (Because society would demand me be a normal guy. I'm not. Very much not. Normal guy is the exact polar opposite of what I am. It's taken 22 years for me to accept that I am a weird girl and not have any shame in it.)
And that's why I use personal beliefs as my guiding system. These are things not given to me by biology. These are not things I follow because there's laws about them. These are not things I follow because everyone else follows them. These are things that I have developed on my own. My values, my beliefs, my views, my concepts, all have been given thought. Maybe they have reasons, maybe they're just instinctive, but they all come directly from me.
These things might be influenced by the other corners. These things might take cues from them. After all, if there's a good law that I like, no reason to complain about it, now, is there? And, heck. By and large, for the most part, my values, my beliefs, the things I see in the world, overlap with society as a whole, overlap with laws for the most part, and may have biological backing (who knows).
To put it in example, back to murder one final time...I find that life is one of the most precious things in the world. And taking another life, unless in the physical need of oneself or another, to be wrong, because robbing the most precious thing in the world from it is a crime. But do note my wording here.
I do not consider killing for meat to be wrong (meaning, yes, I eat meat), because it is in physical need: we are omnivores, not herbivores, and we evolved by eating meat. (As in, we were comparatively dumb tree animals when we ate plants, and it was eating meat that helped turn us intelligent in the first place.) Hunting is fine, even as sport...provided the one condition of nothing going to waste. Wasteful hunting (a la the stereotypical "shooting buffalo from the train for sport") I see as wrong, but even if the hunt is more for fun than need, so long as there is no waste I have no issue with it.
The physical need of oneself or another also is important because it covers killing someone in defense of either yourself or a loved one: someone getting jail time for defending themselves is absolutely abhorrent. (For instance, if a woman killed someone who was trying to rape her, there is absolutely zero way it is acceptable for her to be prosecuted.)
And the 'physical' bit in there is also an important disclaimer. If you're a guy, going on this date with a hot girl, and then you suddenly discover that her biology does not match her looks (i.e., she's trans), you do not have the right to "defend your manhood" and kill her. You do not have the right to defend your honor, your integrity, your heterosexuality, by killing someone; that is not defending yourself: it's murder.
Now, obviously, this is just my own personal beliefs at work here. I'd like to think they're pretty good ones, and as a result, would certainly like it if others began adapting them or at least similar-enough ones. People are free to disagree, because they have the right to their own personal beliefs. But this is more or less how I put things into perspective.
Thought that those who read this blog might enjoy the insight into me.
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