Answers – in progression over two or three days – to a criticism of my Note on LGTB:
I found this thought provoking...and worrisome. I have seen these
trends before too.....To intellectualize and "straight'splain"
the lived experiences of LGBTQI folk.
The time from being a victim of persecution for your actions and
beliefs to trying to impose your beliefs upon others seems very
short. The Pilgrims come to mind. Is this human nature? I am right
therefore you must agree with me? My way is right for me, but your
way is right for you, what is wrong with that? Where is tolerance
and love? Love for all and all for love, not all being the same as
me, or all being the same as you. Being human has a great deal of
uniqueness and specialness for all humans. Personal and
transpersonal appears to be a difficult concept for many to absorb.
Yes your Jesus's love for you is universal, but it is not my path, I
say to the Christians. Yes Allah's love is universal, I say to the
Muslims, but it is not my path. I love lesbians and gay men, I truly
do, but it is not my path. We can all have our own temples and shtup
in our own way with our own beloveds and all of us, in our own way
can fill liminal time with the love and light of the universe that
we make when we make our own vortexes, our own temples of love. Love
for All , and All for Love. Stuart/Shemesh.
Wow. Okay. Where the hell do I even start?
Firstly, you are racist. The literal state of multiculturalism is the natural outcome of diaspora, with people moving all around the world. It's been going on since before Alexandria. There is no such thing as a 'pure' culture to begin with, and the policies nations make to facilitate peaceful multiculturalism - you know, the state where a pluralistic society can function without dissolving into warlord-ruled territories - are not part of some Great White Conspiracy. It has an awful lot more to do with the ability to fly half-way around the world for under $2000 USD, settle in a new place, and absorb (or reject) the customs and culture with relative freedom.
Not to mention, condemning the mixing of race as 'abhorrent' is pretty racist, okay?
1) The myth of homosexual and trans 'specialness'. This does not actually exist, except in the minds of straight (armchair) psychoanalysts. Gay people, by and large, do not think they are 'special'. They are, however, often damaged, and they have brittle self-concepts which may lead some people into narcissistic behavior. This isn't a part of 'gayness'. Straight people do this too. They abuse substances and feel shame about their sexuality and cut. So do some LGBT people. It is not because we are gay, bi or trans.
2) Straight guys speculating on the ability of gay men and trans people to complete 'inner work' makes me squicky. They and you do not, in fact, get to 'address' us, and tell us how we develop ourselves as human beings. You do not get to 'plumb the personal-societal hitches' in us. You can ask US how we develop ourselves as human beings, and we will communicate our methods if we desire to. Because we have this thing called 'agency'.
You don't actually have the authority to speculate on what makes or breaks a wise gay man - or a wise anyone else, for that matter.
3) Gay people and trans people still live with shame and misrepresentation, and under-representation, and stigma. Just because your social bubble doesn't seem to include it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
4) Being butthurt when people call you out on your opinions doesn't constitute persecution, 'political correctness' or suppression of free speech. You always have freedom of speech, which is the legal right to say whatever you want, and other people also have the right to freedom of speech, which includes telling you that your subjective opinions and feelings are offensive and you should probably rethink them. Persecution is someone coming to your house and writing GOD HATES MALE NURSES on your door, okay? It's when people key your car, beat the shit out of you, deny you employment, food, water or shelter, or abuse you because of who you are. Not what you say. *What you are*.
5) Critical thinking includes respecting the agency of others. Your essay reads like 'Speculations of the Persecuted White Man Upon the Nature of the Homosexual Agenda'. It does not represent critical thought or tolerance.
6) Including LGBT-related education in schools is not 'sexualising children with propaganda'. TV shows depicting underage girls in go-go boots and miniskirts is sexualized propaganda. Teaching young children how to respectfully and sanely deal with others in a pluralistic society is not.
7) Change gender 'with good reason'. Who the hell are you to decide what 'good reasons' are?
LGBT is an acronym used by the people in my community as a short-hand for aspects of their lived experiences. It isn't a 'sacred' political showpony for anything. By generalizing it as some bid for attention, you do a massive disservice to the people in my communities who have suffered and often died to establish a baseline of human rights which heterosexual men have had for hundreds of years.
The rights of others do not end where your feelings begin. You may have convinced yourself of your tolerance, wisdom and self-enlightenment, but I assure you that you're not fooling me.
Firstly, you are racist. The literal state of multiculturalism is the natural outcome of diaspora, with people moving all around the world. It's been going on since before Alexandria. There is no such thing as a 'pure' culture to begin with, and the policies nations make to facilitate peaceful multiculturalism - you know, the state where a pluralistic society can function without dissolving into warlord-ruled territories - are not part of some Great White Conspiracy. It has an awful lot more to do with the ability to fly half-way around the world for under $2000 USD, settle in a new place, and absorb (or reject) the customs and culture with relative freedom.
Not to mention, condemning the mixing of race as 'abhorrent' is pretty racist, okay?
1) The myth of homosexual and trans 'specialness'. This does not actually exist, except in the minds of straight (armchair) psychoanalysts. Gay people, by and large, do not think they are 'special'. They are, however, often damaged, and they have brittle self-concepts which may lead some people into narcissistic behavior. This isn't a part of 'gayness'. Straight people do this too. They abuse substances and feel shame about their sexuality and cut. So do some LGBT people. It is not because we are gay, bi or trans.
2) Straight guys speculating on the ability of gay men and trans people to complete 'inner work' makes me squicky. They and you do not, in fact, get to 'address' us, and tell us how we develop ourselves as human beings. You do not get to 'plumb the personal-societal hitches' in us. You can ask US how we develop ourselves as human beings, and we will communicate our methods if we desire to. Because we have this thing called 'agency'.
You don't actually have the authority to speculate on what makes or breaks a wise gay man - or a wise anyone else, for that matter.
3) Gay people and trans people still live with shame and misrepresentation, and under-representation, and stigma. Just because your social bubble doesn't seem to include it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
4) Being butthurt when people call you out on your opinions doesn't constitute persecution, 'political correctness' or suppression of free speech. You always have freedom of speech, which is the legal right to say whatever you want, and other people also have the right to freedom of speech, which includes telling you that your subjective opinions and feelings are offensive and you should probably rethink them. Persecution is someone coming to your house and writing GOD HATES MALE NURSES on your door, okay? It's when people key your car, beat the shit out of you, deny you employment, food, water or shelter, or abuse you because of who you are. Not what you say. *What you are*.
5) Critical thinking includes respecting the agency of others. Your essay reads like 'Speculations of the Persecuted White Man Upon the Nature of the Homosexual Agenda'. It does not represent critical thought or tolerance.
6) Including LGBT-related education in schools is not 'sexualising children with propaganda'. TV shows depicting underage girls in go-go boots and miniskirts is sexualized propaganda. Teaching young children how to respectfully and sanely deal with others in a pluralistic society is not.
7) Change gender 'with good reason'. Who the hell are you to decide what 'good reasons' are?
LGBT is an acronym used by the people in my community as a short-hand for aspects of their lived experiences. It isn't a 'sacred' political showpony for anything. By generalizing it as some bid for attention, you do a massive disservice to the people in my communities who have suffered and often died to establish a baseline of human rights which heterosexual men have had for hundreds of years.
The rights of others do not end where your feelings begin. You may have convinced yourself of your tolerance, wisdom and self-enlightenment, but I assure you that you're not fooling me.
James - and others - thank you for
sharing. It doesn't matter to me whether we view something with the
same eye or conclusion, I welcome any authentic reaction or
heart-felt response. Dialogue is better than blind acceptance of
anything. Yes, Aunty - I AM addressing a trend here, one which is quite worrisome, and that is the point.
That you state it doesn't matter to you
Sam, is, in fact, very clear. James has articulated my thoughts on
your writing.
When I wrote this I knew that some might not understand a word of
what I'm saying and therefore not react or respond. Others would
understand and perhaps relate but not trust themselves to openly
express an agreement due to the pressure of political-correctness.
Still others would partially understand what I'm saying or
misunderstand it and either not react or react negatively or even
express their version of agreement for reasons I certainly never
intended. The latter cannot often be helped, but next to that I
actually prefer those who, like James, have read it through and
strongly disagree and express authentically and with passion –
even if we remain in disagreement on aspects, I prefer this.
While I don't take James' or others' criticism of my criticism personally – however you express it, which I understand and respect – you seem to have taken my piece quite personally and I'm sorry to hear that, so I have to underscore one thing above all: anything good, risks being intellectually and morally compromised and hijacked once it's allowed to become an ideology – which does happen – and passive, unquestioning compliance toward any ideology, toward any agenda (corporate, gummint, or societal), especially when it has reached the forced and enforced dictate of PC-by-decree, is unconscious and dangerous. It is the death knell for Thinking, for Thought. Critical thought is the basis for deepening understanding, mutual recognition and renewal. Compliance will never deliver that – so where do we want to go with this?
One's sexual orientation or gender identity as one defines it for oneself (if one still can) is not only a private matter but a sacred one and one's right to be that and to own it. It should not concern anyone else or society, and persecution or ostracization is outof the question. I hope I am being clear on that.
I don't know which lexicon others are using, but according to my understanding: racism is hatred or contempt and mistrust toward any particular race, i.e., ethnic group – so what "race" was being addressed here, wherewith I come off as "racist"?
Sexism would have been a better attempt to diss me, however sexism is an outward societal expression of contempt or mistrust or need to humiliate, covering for a deeply embedded misogyny – i.e., toward the opposite sex which means in a male-dominated culture as we've known, toward women.
Either racism or sexism can be overt or covert, as with antisemitism, another "ism". Speaking as a Jew, can anyone here imagine me calling someone an antisemite because s/he doesn't consider Jews the best thing on earth since chickens gave us soup? Or doesn't share my brand of flag-waving Zionism or non-Zionistic recognition of Israel (whose policies are of course 'always right') or jump on the Holocaust-Industry wagon with the mantra 'never-again'? Frankly, my toleration goes so far as to tolerate anyone his or her antisemitism, racism, sexism – until that one is placed in any position of power at whatever level, whether lobby or political or autocratic. And then I will man the barricades, I will take to the streets, whatever means are at my disposal, I will always speak, and if it's at the cost of my life, for the weak, the repressed, the disadvantaged.
Are my FB-friends reading this aware of the persecution toward gays across the board in every Muslim country? That gay Palestinians who face mistreatment, even torture and execution in Gaza, scramble over that damned wall into Tel Aviv so they can just be themselves, and this among the "sworn enemy"?
Why does The Great Lobby never address the draconic repression of gays in Muslim countries? Why, for that matter do American "Christians" feel so persecuted when the real persecuted Christians are in most if not all Muslim countries, where you dare not open a Bible, erect or repair a church, but the mosques and Qur'ans are flourishing all over the States and Europe without any concern for local indigent culture or customs? Because another Great Lobby, calling itself Islam, has got the West by the short hairs and no one is (likewise) permitted to even question this for fear of "offending Muslims" – who are notorious for shunning hard reflection, introspection, self-criticism, development. My own views toward Islam after 40 years of Sufism are my concern, and that's for me to work out – yet I am anything but shy about critically looking at it.
But back to my statement from Gurdjieff concerning homosexuals, which brought this reaction oninthe first place: if one reads that carefully, I - i.e., he made it clear it was not one's homosexuality which mattered, but that generations-old conditioned shame toward it, coupled with it's corresponding and compensating notions of specialness. A very great American Swami who'd left behind a serious school of inner work and spiritual development, Rudrananda by name, or Rudi, was – so I'm told, I don't know because he never said so himself – gay. I can imagine this possibly being so, and it's not only fine, it also poses no contradiction here. What I find more interesting is that he made no matter out of it, it neither prevented nor enhanced his development – and knowing Rudi I can only surmise why: because he was free of shame over this or anything else about himself, nor did he indulge in any degree of feeling special (as opposed to – what, normal or ordinary).
I'm more in agreement with what you have written than may appear, but that's par for the course. I understand that my writing hit a nerve, so whether you can hear this or not, I do and always will embrace, for yourself: manifesting as you are, who you are - with all dignity and with all lovingkindness.
Dear James – and Jane/Aunty – this is already much longer than I'd wished to say, so I'll close here, wishing any readers and/or commnetators well, and as always welcoming your reflective input.
While I don't take James' or others' criticism of my criticism personally – however you express it, which I understand and respect – you seem to have taken my piece quite personally and I'm sorry to hear that, so I have to underscore one thing above all: anything good, risks being intellectually and morally compromised and hijacked once it's allowed to become an ideology – which does happen – and passive, unquestioning compliance toward any ideology, toward any agenda (corporate, gummint, or societal), especially when it has reached the forced and enforced dictate of PC-by-decree, is unconscious and dangerous. It is the death knell for Thinking, for Thought. Critical thought is the basis for deepening understanding, mutual recognition and renewal. Compliance will never deliver that – so where do we want to go with this?
One's sexual orientation or gender identity as one defines it for oneself (if one still can) is not only a private matter but a sacred one and one's right to be that and to own it. It should not concern anyone else or society, and persecution or ostracization is outof the question. I hope I am being clear on that.
I don't know which lexicon others are using, but according to my understanding: racism is hatred or contempt and mistrust toward any particular race, i.e., ethnic group – so what "race" was being addressed here, wherewith I come off as "racist"?
Sexism would have been a better attempt to diss me, however sexism is an outward societal expression of contempt or mistrust or need to humiliate, covering for a deeply embedded misogyny – i.e., toward the opposite sex which means in a male-dominated culture as we've known, toward women.
Either racism or sexism can be overt or covert, as with antisemitism, another "ism". Speaking as a Jew, can anyone here imagine me calling someone an antisemite because s/he doesn't consider Jews the best thing on earth since chickens gave us soup? Or doesn't share my brand of flag-waving Zionism or non-Zionistic recognition of Israel (whose policies are of course 'always right') or jump on the Holocaust-Industry wagon with the mantra 'never-again'? Frankly, my toleration goes so far as to tolerate anyone his or her antisemitism, racism, sexism – until that one is placed in any position of power at whatever level, whether lobby or political or autocratic. And then I will man the barricades, I will take to the streets, whatever means are at my disposal, I will always speak, and if it's at the cost of my life, for the weak, the repressed, the disadvantaged.
Are my FB-friends reading this aware of the persecution toward gays across the board in every Muslim country? That gay Palestinians who face mistreatment, even torture and execution in Gaza, scramble over that damned wall into Tel Aviv so they can just be themselves, and this among the "sworn enemy"?
Why does The Great Lobby never address the draconic repression of gays in Muslim countries? Why, for that matter do American "Christians" feel so persecuted when the real persecuted Christians are in most if not all Muslim countries, where you dare not open a Bible, erect or repair a church, but the mosques and Qur'ans are flourishing all over the States and Europe without any concern for local indigent culture or customs? Because another Great Lobby, calling itself Islam, has got the West by the short hairs and no one is (likewise) permitted to even question this for fear of "offending Muslims" – who are notorious for shunning hard reflection, introspection, self-criticism, development. My own views toward Islam after 40 years of Sufism are my concern, and that's for me to work out – yet I am anything but shy about critically looking at it.
But back to my statement from Gurdjieff concerning homosexuals, which brought this reaction oninthe first place: if one reads that carefully, I - i.e., he made it clear it was not one's homosexuality which mattered, but that generations-old conditioned shame toward it, coupled with it's corresponding and compensating notions of specialness. A very great American Swami who'd left behind a serious school of inner work and spiritual development, Rudrananda by name, or Rudi, was – so I'm told, I don't know because he never said so himself – gay. I can imagine this possibly being so, and it's not only fine, it also poses no contradiction here. What I find more interesting is that he made no matter out of it, it neither prevented nor enhanced his development – and knowing Rudi I can only surmise why: because he was free of shame over this or anything else about himself, nor did he indulge in any degree of feeling special (as opposed to – what, normal or ordinary).
I'm more in agreement with what you have written than may appear, but that's par for the course. I understand that my writing hit a nerve, so whether you can hear this or not, I do and always will embrace, for yourself: manifesting as you are, who you are - with all dignity and with all lovingkindness.
Dear James – and Jane/Aunty – this is already much longer than I'd wished to say, so I'll close here, wishing any readers and/or commnetators well, and as always welcoming your reflective input.
Reading this I feel some sadness but
then I love harmony and agreement. It seems to me there is a lot of
in group out group bickering going on and I will not participate in
that. Love for All and All for Love, that is what I am devoted to and
the conflicts of other I do not embrace.
Dear readers! I'll say this, and if there is any failure of
communication I'll consider it my own, as I had meant to include
this point in my last statement, but it slipped my mind after all.
No one is "special" - not the Jews, and not the gays. That said,
everyone – every single person, being divine in origin and a
fellow sentient being, a soul – is to be regarded as special, and
no person is ever to be treated with contempt, ever. This is the
very core of the matter. I would like to make that clear above
all.
And among the several things Jews and gays have always shared in common, are these: a) you will always find both everywhere on the globe, in the most unimagined places and the most unimagined trappings; b) both are marked with a strong creative bent, and the entire film and stage and arts and entertainment industry would be nothing compared to what it is, minus the Jews and gays (Berlin/Germany at all, has scrambled these past couple decades to try to gain back a Jewish culture of arts and entertainment after having lost all of that to the Third Reich, as well as the sending of any known homosexuals to the Camps – during which, BTW, the number of gay SA troops back then could have alone filled several Concentration Camps, just one of the ironies of the Nazis – and during my first years here in Berlin there still lived and functioned one of the foremost local Neo-Nazi leaders, Michael Kühne, who was known to be gay and ended up dying of AIDS); and c) Jews and gays have even been found in numbers among orders and ashrams and monasteries and what have you all over the world at any time – but also found alike in Communist and Capitalist structures in history. So much for being special.
Now, as to male nurses and this hetero writer, and homosexuals: I'm a white Jewish male nurse living and working home-visits in Berlin. In the early '80s I was a home-visiting caregiver, in 1985 this was all in San Francisco. In that year I had a number of AIDS patients, this at a time when the current attitude was that so much as the merest contact with them without lots of protection could cost you your life. I never used gloves or any other covering, I came as I was and worked as I was, gloves for me were only for changing soiled diapers or shorts, cleaning butts and so forth -the obvious.
One of my patients was a Palestinian, one was Black – both died on my watch. All got the same physcial care from me, AIDS meant nothing in this equation, it might as well have been terminal cancer (which I also saw on my watch).
I had to take the bus up to a Twin Peaks residence for four or five nights running, during a two week period where I worked shifts back to back with about two hours actual sleep per day, money being tight. There sat my patient in the very last stages of AIDS, sitting upright in the living room while his partner, also now evidencing spots of Karposi's Sarcoma, created atmosphere in the company of friends in their circle playing pinochle or canasta all through the night. His very loving partner requested of me, as the patient had been a long-practicing Buddhist, to read to him privately from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. As I responded that it so happened I'm quite familiar myself with it and had read it at times doing night shift in nursing homes, we were agreed. The others, politely but nonetheless clearly seeing me as an unfortunately necessary hetero intruder who certainly must be carrying all his prejudices toward gays with him, especially when he says he's enternig the military later that month, these went on chatting and playing cards. I read aloud quietly, and this went on for the first two of those four nights. On the third night, upon my arrival, the patient was confined to bed, no covers, just laynig there and his partner very distraught. I followed all of his cues, he had placed pictures of the patient's teachers before the bed, and he and I lay close on either side of the paitent, I to the right, he to the left, and according to the patient's earlier stated wishes, we snuggled up close to him and whispered into his ears the name Amitabha, addressing this way the Buddha of Compassion.
The patient was skeletal, sweaty all over and smelling of it – and there I was, all white and hetero, without gloves or anything between my clothes and his body, closely cuddling him, my left arm crooked under his neck; his partner corresponding lay likewise. And so this fella expired.
We lay there for a bit, we opened a window, his partner needed a time-out and left the room. I said, fine, I'll just stay right here a bit. Actually my duties were all as of this moment over – officially.
I thought, hmm, I have time, the first bus comes at 4 a.m., the undertakers won't arrive quite yet, what to do with a body – what do they do in movies? Right: wash the body. Wasn't in my job description, but I have always been more than a job description. So I asked them for a basin and cloth and towel. I washed that body from top to bottom, I washed and turned it as thoroughly and as gently and attentively as if it were a still living person, and when I was finished I felt satisfied, now the matter was done, dignity was complete.
As I left the room and returned into the living room, the whole group, every man of them, stood there moved in speechless gratitude, and then for the first time in those three nights all fell into natural and easy conversation with me. We parted on the best of terms.
And you know what? There is nothing special in this. It is just being Human. Would anyone reading this have done otherwise?
And among the several things Jews and gays have always shared in common, are these: a) you will always find both everywhere on the globe, in the most unimagined places and the most unimagined trappings; b) both are marked with a strong creative bent, and the entire film and stage and arts and entertainment industry would be nothing compared to what it is, minus the Jews and gays (Berlin/Germany at all, has scrambled these past couple decades to try to gain back a Jewish culture of arts and entertainment after having lost all of that to the Third Reich, as well as the sending of any known homosexuals to the Camps – during which, BTW, the number of gay SA troops back then could have alone filled several Concentration Camps, just one of the ironies of the Nazis – and during my first years here in Berlin there still lived and functioned one of the foremost local Neo-Nazi leaders, Michael Kühne, who was known to be gay and ended up dying of AIDS); and c) Jews and gays have even been found in numbers among orders and ashrams and monasteries and what have you all over the world at any time – but also found alike in Communist and Capitalist structures in history. So much for being special.
Now, as to male nurses and this hetero writer, and homosexuals: I'm a white Jewish male nurse living and working home-visits in Berlin. In the early '80s I was a home-visiting caregiver, in 1985 this was all in San Francisco. In that year I had a number of AIDS patients, this at a time when the current attitude was that so much as the merest contact with them without lots of protection could cost you your life. I never used gloves or any other covering, I came as I was and worked as I was, gloves for me were only for changing soiled diapers or shorts, cleaning butts and so forth -the obvious.
One of my patients was a Palestinian, one was Black – both died on my watch. All got the same physcial care from me, AIDS meant nothing in this equation, it might as well have been terminal cancer (which I also saw on my watch).
I had to take the bus up to a Twin Peaks residence for four or five nights running, during a two week period where I worked shifts back to back with about two hours actual sleep per day, money being tight. There sat my patient in the very last stages of AIDS, sitting upright in the living room while his partner, also now evidencing spots of Karposi's Sarcoma, created atmosphere in the company of friends in their circle playing pinochle or canasta all through the night. His very loving partner requested of me, as the patient had been a long-practicing Buddhist, to read to him privately from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. As I responded that it so happened I'm quite familiar myself with it and had read it at times doing night shift in nursing homes, we were agreed. The others, politely but nonetheless clearly seeing me as an unfortunately necessary hetero intruder who certainly must be carrying all his prejudices toward gays with him, especially when he says he's enternig the military later that month, these went on chatting and playing cards. I read aloud quietly, and this went on for the first two of those four nights. On the third night, upon my arrival, the patient was confined to bed, no covers, just laynig there and his partner very distraught. I followed all of his cues, he had placed pictures of the patient's teachers before the bed, and he and I lay close on either side of the paitent, I to the right, he to the left, and according to the patient's earlier stated wishes, we snuggled up close to him and whispered into his ears the name Amitabha, addressing this way the Buddha of Compassion.
The patient was skeletal, sweaty all over and smelling of it – and there I was, all white and hetero, without gloves or anything between my clothes and his body, closely cuddling him, my left arm crooked under his neck; his partner corresponding lay likewise. And so this fella expired.
We lay there for a bit, we opened a window, his partner needed a time-out and left the room. I said, fine, I'll just stay right here a bit. Actually my duties were all as of this moment over – officially.
I thought, hmm, I have time, the first bus comes at 4 a.m., the undertakers won't arrive quite yet, what to do with a body – what do they do in movies? Right: wash the body. Wasn't in my job description, but I have always been more than a job description. So I asked them for a basin and cloth and towel. I washed that body from top to bottom, I washed and turned it as thoroughly and as gently and attentively as if it were a still living person, and when I was finished I felt satisfied, now the matter was done, dignity was complete.
As I left the room and returned into the living room, the whole group, every man of them, stood there moved in speechless gratitude, and then for the first time in those three nights all fell into natural and easy conversation with me. We parted on the best of terms.
And you know what? There is nothing special in this. It is just being Human. Would anyone reading this have done otherwise?
Dear Stuart, back
in my early Berlin-barracks time shortly after arriving, end of the
'80s, I recall a Black female GI who went about angry, you know, Girl
With Attitude – and her t-shirt read, "It's a Black thing – you
wouldn't understand." As she caught me reading it, I very gently
informed her, "No, it's a Human thing – and I very well
might." Yes, I very fucking well might. And this same girl of
about 19 or 20, having issues with herself and her life, wound up in
the military clinic after suffering a crisis, a suicide call-for-help
sort of thing, upon hearing of which I dropped by the clinic for a
brief visit to her and to ask how she was coming along. She smiled very
sweetly and thanked me for coming.
As a hetero male
nurse myself, and one who can talk about up-close with AIDS patients
at a time when no one generally dared, it pains me to see how James
and Aunty – neither of whose comments I'd solicited but neither of
which I also rejected or wrote off – how swiftly they could write
me off and not take one moment to investigate me, show any interest
in broadening out of their shells, but regurgitated only what suited
them. So much for tolerance. This is what you get with movements
about tolerance, it's the death knell for exactly that, as no
criticism from "outside" is tolerated. You have experienced this
among women who don't want a man writing about Goddess, by which
negative attitude they assure further ignorance – they are not for
consciousness, nor are the ideologues of any matter or issue or
belief or view. It's the nature of things, that good things always
go sour when organized into a sytem of how-it's-gotta-be-now. These
who have so responded toward you and these who so respond toward me,
are as hooked on the unquestioning obedience they expect (and are now
getting!) from the very public by whom which they had expereineced
being or at least perceiving themselves as disadvantaged.
I don't know what
Jane/Aunty's problem with looking into this was, but neither she nor James
know me nor would ever take a moment to make this enriching by
pursuing it one step further. Their loss. It would have run
differently. If she really is psychic, why wouldn't she have figured
that out? So much for psychic, for openness, for listening to what
the other is saying (James filtered most of what I'd even said
through his preferred lens), so much for tolerance.
The original critique follows, for reference:
http://samuelinayatchisti.blogspot.de/2014/04/a-critical-look-if-one-still-may-at.html
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