RantSome: A Personal Soapbox Site

This was originally written as an entry in my weblog/journal in January 2001. It doesn't matter what, specifically, set me off. This is edited in style very slightly for this site, but in essence, it's a rant in pure form.

I'm seriously annoyed at the moment. I'm not going to go into the details or specifics, but I really want to say that I am bloody sick and tired of people on some sort of crusade trying to force the rest of us to swallow their beliefs. They over-react or otherwise go off on some rampage of moral outrage and anyone who fails to go along with it or thinks it's a bit ridiculous is suddenly "the enemy" who advocates who-knows-what evils in society.

Why, if we don't do something about [whatever], there will be terrible consequences! Children running amok with chain saws! Increase in crime of all sorts! The world suddenly ending in a big ball of flames, hair, and moral indignation! The end of the world is nigh! Sign this petition immediately or there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth! And put this bumper sticker on your car so people know you really, really mean it!

It doesn't matter what sparked this posting, because, frankly, this kind of narrow, reactionary thinking exists in all areas and in all forms. I've seen it with various religions, philosophies, causes, work ethics. I've seen it in regard to every subject imaginable and always in florid, overly dramatic rhetoric which generally tends to have several well-known logical fallacies present within its "facts" (there is a reason these are called fallacies, you know, but I digress).

You know, to people like that I just want to say, "Will you just get over yourself already?" Take a step back from your own perspective and your own world for a minute. The Greek word "idiot" has its root in the word for "one's own" or "personal" (also related to "idiom"). Don't be an idiot. Take a breath and try to get a grip on an idea outside of your own existance.

Of course, I generally don't say things like that, because it's almost certainly going to be unproductive and a waste of my time, and it's almost certainly hurtful in the bargain (despite being passionate and sometimes bitchy, I'm not actually a cruel person). I have enough frustration and friction in my daily life that I don't need to take on more by arguing with someone on a moral crusade, no matter how ridiculous I think their crusade is. I may well agree with their sentiment (or I may not), I may well think they've got some good points (or not), I may well be interested in the same goals they are (or not), but no matter what, I'm going to get annoyed and then tune right out when someone starts up with the logical fallacies and ridiculous assumptions about what "might" happen if we don't do [whatever] immediately.

The worst part of all this is that I used to be very like this at times. I'd get triggered and off I'd go on a crusade about something, all fire and fury and very little substance. I did it because I was basically not very realistic about myself or the world and not in very good control of myself, and I was so afraid of what "might" happen that I couldn't stop to consider what would almost certainly happen, which was just about always far less dramatic, far less frightening, and far less extreme than what I imagined.

I don't know why other people do it. I just know that it's annoying. It was annoying when I did it, it's annoying when other people do it, and it's just damned annoying in general.

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Righteous Indignation