The Culture Cudgel

The most efficient way you can make someone resent your culture is to force it on them.

The second best method is to insult people for not accepting your culture, as “bigots”.

 

People discover cultures they love. They don’t submit to them. They submit to things they hate, because they have no other choice.

And if something has to be forced on people, it’s wrong.

Internet access allows you to learn almost anything about humanity. It takes the heavy lifting and guesswork out of library research, so that eons of history can be misread, or improperly reduced. Thus, here’s a typical day on Facebook:

1. Slavery is bad, and only white people did it. If you’re white, you should feel bad.
2. History as recorded is all wrong.
3. Except for the slavery part, which only affected black people.

Hey: did you read something about slavery, and use it to try and make a white person feel guilty?

Then fuck you.

You took a piece of actual recorded history, distorted it, and used it to lord over another person. Fuck you if you think like that.

You want to lecture people about slavery? Do the work and get a job as a teacher. Otherwise you are literally no different than the asshole screaming about aliens on the street corner. You’re abusing the memory of people who truly suffered. Nothing you’ll ever know in your life will equate actual slavery, and you’re a fucking asshole for using the idea as a cudgel anyway.

Oh, but you’re angry about slavery? Good. You’re human. I’m angry about the fact that there’s a weekly 9/11 thanks to a particular religion, but I try to apply that passion positively, and in a way that hurts and scapegoats no one. I’m angry that my best friends were murdered in cold blood last March, and I have to check myself when I talk about their killers. If you’re a human with eyes, you have to learn to deal with your prejudices regarding people who look different. That goes for everybody, not just white people.

Some of the finest people I’ve known were Hare Krishna. Not one of them pushed their culture upon me; they allowed me to discover it on my own. I didn’t join*, but I absorbed many positive aspects from it into my own life. When I got out of jail, I did community service at the local temple, and though I came prepared for hard work, the experience was richer than I could have imagined.

I learned about “polishing the mirror of the soul”; performing an act that has no tangible reward. I cleaned all the filth off the temple’s PVC picnic tables, even though they’d inevitably get dirty again. Then the devotees came out for the feast, and I lost count of how many of them thanked me personally. How good do you think THAT felt?!

*The issue of my religion is a sticky one, as I am technically a founder, and I can’t represent any one religion without a conflict of ethics. There are formal terms for what I’m speaking of, but let’s not pretend that’s any more interesting that the rest of this garbage. In short: Science of Practical Hedonism. 

Actually, it’s appropriate that I brought up Poddism. I don’t generally preach it because I’d prefer that readers discover it on their own, as per tradition. If I’m not shoving it in your face, there’s much less chance you’ll abhor it. I know legitimate Discordians, Subgenii. and adherents of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I didn’t just fall off the dogma wagon.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Without absence, there can be no longing. Women in particular long to long. They’re the best at it. Deep down, women want to long for something, whether they know it or not. Guys are all about results.

Witness the rant earlier in this awful article. I’ve seen a misrepresentation of slavery used as a cudgel so commonly, I hammered out an ultimatum. I overlooked the people who fear slavery because of its horror, and who fear that there might be someone out there longing for its return. I overlooked the horror of slavery itself, which I have only read about.

I used the Cudgel.

Granted, the Cudgel is part of my identity. I mean, I’m the one who told you about the fucking thing. That’s how I know it’s the wrong method for just about everything else. Movies, ideologies, music, comics, web series, and especially books, because you can literally brain a person with a book. Well, a hardcover novel, I mean, not one of mine. You could barely swat someone with my comics, the latest of which is coming before July’s end.

If you’re sharing something with other people; an event, an idea, a culture, a tragic part of history; ask yourself one question. Am I using the Cudgel? Am I sharing something, or beating someone over the head with it?

You’ll find the results are equal to what you get with an actual cudgel.