Life As Performance Art 146

I think where I really get worn out about activism is the black and white thinking that it can easily impose upon us, the activists. Only those who fit our narrow definitions of what is good, right and appropriate are allowed into the club. Everyone else is at best suspect, at worst, less than human. If you vote Conservative then you are not considered human. If you vote Liberal, then you are almost human, but you still have to cravenly apologize for voting for the gutless corporate swine if we are going to let you in for at least a token visit. If you are a meat eater then you are not even considered worthy of our attention. If you are a vegetarian who likes cheese omelettes, (I happen to be a vegetarian who loves cheese omelettes. In fact, I just had a cheese omelette for breakfast!) some of us, me likely, will sort of welcome you (though you will still be treated like you're the weird uncle or aunt at Christmas dinner), but the hardcore born-again vegans will all revile, condemn and sentence you to the flames, like an apostate or heretic, and if they were Spanish priests during the fifteenth century, during the Inquisition, then they would be the first to light the fire underneath the stake that they had tied you to. Especially if you are a vegetarian who enjoys cheese omelettes (like me!). Vegans tend to hate ordinary vegetarians even worse than they hate meat-eaters, or anyone else, but vegans tend to hate almost every living thing that walks on two legs. If you support NDP or Green Party then you can consider yourself safely in the club of our accepted definition of humanity. I think this is the real reason why I have come to limit my participation and involvement in promoting causes that are, or should be, dear to me. I am exhausted from the self-righteous bigotry and hate disguised as virtue that I have come to notice in many in the activist communities I have participated in. And, I have quite simply come to love the enemy. Or at least to see the enemy, not as a cartoon construct with horns, fangs and a forked tongue, but as a human being, every bit as complex and fragile as I am, as anyone. Having a different opinion does not make you less human. Promoting hate is one thing, but simply choosing to disagree about politically correct definitions of gender? For that you are going to exile those who don't agree with you? Then, tell me, please, who is the real bigot here!) My own parents, for example, were what would now be considered as absolutely horrible, deplorable individuals not even worthy to be called human beings. They were both racists. They were also homophobic with some very backward opinions (my father anyway), about women, and like many working class people of their generation, they were both exasperatingly conservative. They both had limited education, had grown up during times of deprivation and want during the Depression, and great fear and anxiety during the Second World War. They lived in thrived in cultural backwaters. they were not educated, they were not cultured. But they were still decent human beings and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this drivel! Their views, even when I was a kid, I found repugnant. I responded to their racism by taking on as a childhood best friend the Japanese boy living up the street, who was also socially isolated because his parents both carried the trauma of the internment camps where they were exiled as children with their families during the Second World War. I knew none of this, being only five years old at the time. It was 1961. I was not interested in making any statements to my family, neither was I yet able to understand just what it was that I hated about them. But there was this other little boy, same age as me, riding his tricycle in the family driveway, just five houses down from where we lived. I already had a very strong compassion radar, and my heart went out to him and we became very tight friends till I had to move five years later. To this day I will not excuse or justify my parents horrible opinions. But I will honour their memory and the positive aspects of their legacy, especially my mother, who raised me to be honest, straightforward, fair, tough, and compassionate.