My post “Movement angst” got me thinking about my, err, ambivalent relationship with movements, and with belonging in general. I could lie and thus keep it simple, and tell you all it’s just good ol’ skeptical thinking that makes it hard for me to belong to movements. But really, that isn’t the full story. It definitely is part of it, but only part.
Fact is, I’ve always felt a bit outside of things. Now, I’m not saying I’m some weird loner, writing these mad manifestos out in some log cabin and muttering to the bats about Gubmint conspiracies. I can get along with people just fine. People at work, say, seem to like me, and we joke and laugh and it’s all good.
But I’m always that guy that’s just a bit outside of things. I come home to a cat.
Social interaction wasn’t a big thing in the strangely isolated childhood I had. We weren’t particularly encouraged to spend lots of time with friends and in activities. There was a lot of time in the House on Twilight. Even holidays were mostly just the four of us. That history, plus some natural inclination, probably accounts for some of the awkwardness, the outsider feeling.
Yet there’s more to it than that, too. I seem to be a contrary soul. Someone says that something is x, y, and z, and I’m likely to agree. Except that z part, I mean, it’s clearly r, and they didn’t even consider m. Idiots. In short, there’s a bit of a natural rebel in me. Or maybe it’s just a natural smartass.
Here’s where it gets fun — I like being an outsider in some ways. I like being a rebel. I like being a freethinker. But at the same time, much of my life has been spent in a desperate search, born of desperate desire, to belong. To fit in. To be one of the crowd, on the inside, part of the whole flow and not, as it’s always seemed to me, an outsider looking in. It’s like, if I’m at a party, I’m the guy at the edges, and I’m having a blast people watching, and I’m also miserable, somewhere deep inside, because I’m not part of it. Not completely, at least. For a long time I swung back and forth between the two extremes. Now I’m realizing that it’s a more complex, and messy, thing I need to be after: being a freethinker who’s engaged with the world around him. Be in the party, and be myself. Belong, and be me.
Sometimes, I wonder if my “movement” problems aren’t just a way to rationalize the outsider status, make it sound smarter and more rational than it actually is. But I don’t think it’s only that. Take that post — some of the issues I raise are real and true. I honestly believe that. I do have grave concerns about “activism,” at least in the sense of the kind of mindless groupthink that can emerge. And in relation to veganism and AR, I am honestly concerned with things like the anti-science element that has such a strong voice.
But one problem with being always the outsider is that you always see the big picture, and that can make you fail to see the smaller details. The big picture is often considered to be “more accurate,” but when dealing with groups of people what it means is that you can fall into the trap of seeing, say, only the loudest voices, the most extreme.
I have angst, sometimes, about the atheist community, and it’s mostly that phenomena at work. A few braying asses, and I get cranky and irritable, and want to wash my hands of the whole thing. Bah! Clearly a defensive reaction on my part. I tar a whole group with a…tarring thingie…and that’s not cool. It’s not fair, but it makes it mighty easy to justify being the outsider looking in, and not taking part.When the Barefoot Bum called me on my massive overgeneralization about atheist thinking, well, that was a perfect example. I took a valid point about a few braying asses and turned it into a sweeping generalization.
I pretty much jumped without looking, as far as this blog is concerned. And when I did, I told myself I would actually try to make it something. Which means, among other things, actually participating, joining the party and dancing, commenting on other blogs, starting to make connections in the atheist and skeptic communities, instead of just watching from the outside. All, in part, so I can see the trees, and not just the damn forest — or, rather, my perception of the forest based on an incomplete picture based on a few noticeable trees. I can’t help but think that my movement angst is partly a sign that I should stop trying to see the forest, and just check out the trees for a while.
1 Comment
13 August 2008 at 1:51 am
There is a lot to be said for brevity.
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