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Don't read this
This is very incoherent. It's incoherent because I'm upset. I'm not even sure why it upsets me as much as it does.
I almost deleted it. Then I decided to let it stand because this is my journal and I may want to look at this mess ten years from now when I'm trying to figure out what in god's name I was thinking.
But you probably want to skip it.
I ranted about better certification for civil air pilots. As you may recall.
Ysabel tore into me, the way she always does when I suggest something she defines as "saving stupid people from themselves."
Ys is both more cynical and more ruthless than I am, but she has a point: There are plenty of non-boneheaded people who are perfectly capable of flying a plane under VFR without ever getting themselves into something they can't handle. She points out that getting IFR certification is a long, expensive, difficult process. Does that mean I want to ground her - and other VFR-capable pilots like her - until she can pay for enough flight training to fly IFR? she asks. Is that fair to the people who know what they're doing?
My problem with her "saving the stupid people from their own stupidity only hinders the capable people" argument is that I maintain that the stupid people have a habit of dragging non-stupid people down with them. Yes, JFK Jr. was stupid. Does that mean his passengers deserved to die for his stupidity?
Ys says yes. She says they were stupid to get on the plane. I say they can't possibly have known the risks. She says they should have taken the trouble to learn them. We go back and forth, back and forth.
I will say this: I know some things about this flight stuff, and I would not have gotten on that plane. So score one for Ysabel. But just because I know when something's a bad risk doesn't mean it's common knowledge ... they may have trusted his judgment, and they might not have had any reason to suspect that judgment.
My arguments with Ys always end up going nowhere, and sometimes I think it's because she has a dimmer view of humans than I do. I hate the concept that most humans are stupid or nasty. It's a snotty thing to say. Yet I hear it a lot, and I hear it most often from people who - shall we say it - are outcasts from society for one reason or another. This makes me suspicious. This also brings me back to the comments on Fandom.
Aussie wrote me:
Good god, C, what do you think the Real World is? Who are the They whose opinions matter so much to you, that your friends' don't? Whom do you know who doesn't feel like an outcast? The idea that "the people that matter" are external to you and the people you know is deranged.
I sure hope that most of my friends aren't outcasts from the Real World, but I bet a lot of them would self-identify that way. That is Not Acceptable. My friends are good people, and for the most part I can't tell whether the world actually won't have them or whether they just think that. Either way it makes me uneasy.
I don't like this idea of a vast populace of people who disapprove of anyone who's not like them ... this nation of intolerance of anything that's different. Some of you apparently think the world's like that. First off, I disagree. Second, by saying, "I'm an outcast, I am not going to play by those rules, I spit on your society and all the stupid people in it," you're causing just as bad a problem.
Told you - I am being less than clear. This is what happens when I get upset.
All right. Let's try again.
1. If you believe that most people are stupid then you are not helping to change that. Whether it's true or not is irrelevant. You are turning your back.
2. If you revel in your outcast status, you are turning your back. You have amazing things to contribute to the Real World and just hiding among other outcasts is Not Good Enough.
3. If you believe that the world is intolerant then you are helping make it so.
The world does not accept me, and I am sometimes unhappy because the world does not accept me, but that does not mean I have the liberty to go off and build a Happy Place with the people who do accept me, because that is Not. A. Constructive. Thing. To. Do.
Do you understand???
It makes me feel better. It doesn't make the world better.
This isn't going in the right direction either. Damn. All right, look, I don't know why Ysabel's attitude about people annoys and upsets me so much. I don't know why Aussie's attitudes on men upset me so much. But I do know that I don't agree with them. I refuse to see monsters around every corner. I am not saying the world is a rosy place, either. I don't know what I'm saying.
I shouldn't have written this. I can't sort out my own head.
© Columbine
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