"The Blame Game"
on low self-esteem and the scape-goats it creates
©2002 David J Rust

Unity and community don't sell save in small doses. The larger world, while individuals or small groups may want it to be so, just doesn't accept "getting along" without total capitulation on the part of one party or another. Concessions are illusionary. At least that's what I'm starting to see.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

I just finished watching Episode Three of "Queer As Folk"'s second season. The theme of the show seemed to be that heroes don't exist or, if they do, their virtues are only skin-deep and no more substantial than a Hollywood screenplay. As the episode opens, the main characters watch a superficial, non-realistic portrayal of monogamous, saintly and de-sexualized gays on a fictional TV show, "Gay As Blazes". Yes, they're lampooning the cries that have rung out from some sectors of the gay community over "Queer As Folk". They poke fun at the outcry against the stereotypes in their show by painting those who've criticized them as superficial, hypocritical prudes with no greater grasp of reality than the show, itself, is charged with possessing.

Unfortunately, while the episode made some excellent points, it also supported the argument made by their opposition. By trying to make it look as if Gay people can't be virtuous or are being two-faced if they speak out against sexual stereotypes, they fail by falling into the same trap that awaited the earlier group of critics in the first place! They cast aspersions on the motivations and secret perversions of their critics ... an act that makes them just as bad.

The funny thing is that I'd already come to the conclusion that the world is pretty two-faced to begin with, long before this episode aired. Heck, I still love "Queer As Folk" and will continue to watch it. But, in all corners of the globe, we see self-loathing people -embarrassed by those around them- acting just as poorly as those who pigeon-hole and stereotype them.

We see this in Furry fandom. We see this amongst Liberal Intellectuals. We see this between the various sects of Christianity. We see it in Gay circles, Gamer circles and Pagan circles. Everyone wants to point a finger at the person who creeps them out and say "See? I'm normal; not like HIM!"

It's always the scape-goating with us, isn't it? Could it be a facet of human nature?

We seem to resent those who act differently, but then get incensed when something we care about -be it a way of behaving or dressing or communicating- gets tagged as "different". Then, to defend our beliefs, we make up all sorts of nonsense about how the other guy's behavior is actually "damaging the community" while we are lilly-white and just misunderstood. Meanwhile, while we're saying all these things, we try to -somehow- justify our words with all manner of explanations as to how we're not being discriminatory or duplicitous.

But we are.

Who cares if some members of Furry fandom like fucking blow-up dolls or plush toys? Who gives a rat's ass if some Gamers lie back in bed and fantasize about using the Magic-User spell "Limited Wish" to make their girlfriend's breasts the size of zeppelins? Why should it bother us if someone's sexual fetishes are bizarre to the general public?

No, I'm not condoning walking through a hotel lobby during a Science Fiction convention wearing nothing but a small strip of masking tape over each nipple and a carefully shaved groin. It isn't all-right to subject the general public to actions that would cause alarm and unrest. But the line gets blurred by so many of us ... even me. I'm not immune to the lure of pointing at the Satanists and saying "See? I'm a Wiccan ... I'm not a Satanist!"

Good Gods... That's the sort of thing that got hundreds of thousands of Jews, Women, Pagans, Protestants and other oddballs burned at the stake throughout Europe a few hundred years ago! And I'm doing it to another group! Demonizing them!

No, I don't particularly like Satanist ethos. In fact, from what I've read of it, I find it quite disturbing and counter to my own beliefs. But how DARE I try to assuage my own feelings of nervousness and unease by trying to paint another group as an evil source contributing to humanity's downfall? It's so damn easy!

I've done it with Republicans. I've done it with military personnel. I've done it with the Burned Furs. I've done it with Trekkies. I've done it so many times, it's become easy to ignore it as nothing more than a casual joke between friends. If you surround yourself with people who reinforce your scape-goating, it becomes child's play to justify it to yourself...

But I can't. I just can't keep doing this! It's terrible! I can't keep blaming the oddballs I don't agree with just to make my own beliefs seem more stable and justified.

So what if a certain percentage of SF fans get into the whole Goth-Dark-Sider-Vampire thing? I do care about what people think about me and my associations, but -at the same time- I don't have the right to start casting aspersions at a rival group whose only crime is that they've made me feel uneasy! Yes, I'm judgmental. I'm very judgmental. But, for crying out loud, we're already minorities! All of us! Why do we have to indulge in our spurious judgments so often?

Every person, white, black, Christian, Jewish, gay, straight, whatever... There's something about each of us that makes us minorities. Do we really have to go out of our way to cast other people in a negative light or blame their behavior for how society sees us? How about blaming ourselves for not stepping forward and doing something positive to show the world that we're individuals; not so easily categorized? It's not naive to think that could work; we cry and bitch and moan about other people, but -in the end- we rarely do anything to substantiate our own beliefs. It's too easy to attack the supports of the others who threaten our world view.

I started seeing this in myself about twelve years ago. I hung out with four guys whom I thought were my closest friends. We made jokes about faggots, liberals and namby-pamby hippies. We were as close as we could be and I put my own unease on the back-burner so I could be with them. Later, three of them made a racist joke at the expense of the fourth when he wasn't around. I laughed with them, although -inside- I was appalled. I never spoke up, either. I just swallowed my feelings because I wanted to go along and pretend like it didn't matter.

Later, over separate incidents, they ended up stabbing me in the back and abandoning me. I had no friends after that and I felt -for the first time in my life- like I had no future. So, I'd continue to blame people around me; cast aspersions on those I felt I could safely lash out against in order to get more people on my side ... to reinforce my wounded ego and feeling of self-worth. I'd scapegoat all the people I could...

It was only years later that I woke up and realized all the cruelty I had committed against those who made a "normal person" like me look bad was just an unjustified lashing out by an insecure, frightened little boy. I was no more normal than those I'd lashed out against. In fact, in many ways, I was the real freak.

I swore, back then, that I would never play the blame game again. And I honestly tried ... I really did! But, as I said before, it's easy to slip into that method of behavior when you're not looking.

Getting along with others is harder than it seems. It means putting aside your personal distastes and trying to understand the other person ... not just intellectually, but emotionally. Socially. Internally. You have to risk new ideas and ways of behaving. You have to be willing -even if you don't, in the end, adopt the new behaviors- to embrace the very precepts that disturb you. It's the very willingness to immerse yourself in the things that disturb you that allows you to break out of the cycle of scape-goating others. You can hold on to your personal beliefs and convictions when you do this, but it is dangerous. You risk changing. You risk becoming someone else. You risk death.

Well, if that's true, the person I am isn't worth the price. If preserving me -the selfish, stuck-up and judgmental prick that I've seen in the mirror some days- is at the expense of someone else's beliefs, I don't deserve my own.

But all of us ...all people... will never truly achieve peace until we can ditch this kind of behavior! Yes, I disagree with the Burned Furs, Republicans and Southern Baptists. I think Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps are some of the most evil men alive today. I really feel uneasy about each and every one of the concepts and ideas I've admitted to scape-goating in this essay...

...But I can't allow them to be slandered, slammed, marginalized, reduced, ridiculed and blamed just to ease my own conscience and elevate my own feelings of self-worth. I'll oppose those people and movements that I feel I have to. I can remain true to my principles without making personal, ad-hominem attacks on others. I will continue to be involved in the evolving world. But I'm not going to go around laying the blame for my own fears, self-loathing, embarrassment and nervousness at the feet of people who are different from me. I'll stand up for myself, thank you very much, and I'll put my best foot forward.

It is not naive to think you can make a difference by being yourself. But, at the same time, if I have to cut the legs out from under someone else to feel good about myself and to justify my beliefs in the eyes of a hypothetical observer, my beliefs just aren't worth it.

Thank you.

©2002 David J Rust