Humans are So... Human

Cartoon of me, a chubby white
woman with brown and grey
hair, wearing blue and grey.
The caption reads "UGH,"

And I do not grok them.

I mean, I can - and have done - rant all day long about the illogic and the ridiculous selfishness and so forth. These things have really been brought to the forefront in the past few years. And I can say all I want to that I don't understand why people are this way... why they won't wear a mask or get vaccinated, or won't believe that Biden actually won the 2020 presidential election, or believe that critical race theory is somehow fascist. Or believe that climate change is a hoax for... some unspecified nefarious purpose. Or think that gay people are trying to indoctrinate your kids via sex ed in the schools.

But whenever I have asked why to these sorts of views, I get a couple of very unsatisfactory answers. Usually, racism and the patriarchy are at the top of the list.

Okay, sure, but those are very simplistic and pat answers, regardless of their basic accuracy.

Occasionally I get an answer of fear or xenophobia, which is probably more fully accurate, as these answers describe the why a little better. People are afraid of what they don't understand; they don't understand epidemiology, or people who don't look like them, or women in positions of power, or climatology, or actual consent... and therefore they react poorly.

The fact that most of the loudest people I hear talking about their God-given right to do whatever they want - from refusing masks and vaccines to blowing things up during the hottest and driest summer on record - also claim to believe in the socialist and neighbor-loving lessons taught by a brown-skinned, middle-eastern, Jewish guy, well... back to humans being human, I guess. That's a level of hypocrisy I can't even wrap my head around.

Yeah, yeah, not all Christians, not all cishet white dudes, not all Republicans, etc. Whatever.

I wish they'd walk the walk they talk so much about.

Why do they think that pregnancy is more important than living, breathing children?

Why do they think that being required - or even asked - to wear a piece of cloth over their faces is somehow more oppressive than being enslaved or imprisoned?

Why do they think that learning actual, complete history is so threatening?

Why do they trust people who are trying to scare them rather than those trying to help them?

Why are they so quick to believe that everyone wants to kill them or convert them into some icky-squicky subculture? Are they that paranoid? Or that self-important? Probably the latter.

Why do they think the people they call fragile and wimpy and other denigrating terms are so dangerous that they need automatic weapons to protect themselves from us snowflakes?

For that matter, why do they think that wearing a mask into a grocery store is an indication of fear but wearing an arsenal into a grocery store isn't?

Yeah, fear, xenophobia, patriarchy, racism.

Whatever it is, it kind of sucks.