Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about an experience that I recently had on my stream. While in my stream, I became angry and the person that triggered that anger challenged me for becoming angry; going so far to declare that I was not behaving in a civilized manner because I was angry and allowing my viewers to see that I was angry.
First, let’s start out by letting you view the clip of the stream in question. If you’d like, you can go watch that on my Twitch Channel.
Let us remember that having a difference of opinion is rather different than having a different ethical or moral foundation. I have already written a post about that and because of that, I am not going to go into that at length here. You can read that post here: Ethics Are Not Opinions.
People frequently tell me not to get defensive when I respond with anger to their making a statement that has made it clear to me that they do not value my safety. In this case, this person is declaring that I do not deserve to have the right of medical autonomy. This means that they believe that I should not have the legal right to choose what happens to my body. Does it not make sense that a person should react in a defensive manner when they are put in a position that their safety is being questioned? This person is advocating that other people should be able to decide what happens to my body. That makes me feel very unsafe and it is very scary. I think it is reasonable to respond in a defensive manner.
They suggest that my being angered by their position makes me uncivilized. My tone of voice changed, I swore and I declared that I wasn’t accepting this view point as a difference of opinion, but rather a fundamental difference in ethical values. I find it interesting that being civilized is what is brought up here.
at an advanced stage of social and cultural development.
Oxford Dictionary
I would argue that fighting to defend human rights is at the highest level of civilization. Part of being a community is holding a responsibility to ensure that all members of that society are being protected and well cared for. What is the point of having communities if we are not going to ensure that we are safer in numbers? Allowing people to undermine human rights is allowing society and civilization to crumble at its most essential foundation.
polite and well-mannered.
Oxford Dictionary
On the second definition, they have more ground since this is a matter of opinion. Was I impolite or ill mannered? Maybe. I can accept that criticism. But I will counter with the question: “What is more important?” Is it more important that we stay polite and well-mannered or is it more important that we fight to maintain the fundamental human rights for all people?
I have frequently discussed in this blog that there is no emotion that is right or wrong. I talk frequently about how emotions are just another body signal to alert us to our current status. Anger is an alert that either our boundaries are being crossed or an injustice is being experienced. I have always taken the position of be authentically myself while I am on these various social media platforms. Doing so means that there will be times that my viewers or readers witness my emotions. I am comfortable with that. I find it interesting that many who witness my emotions are not.
Why is that? Why do people so quickly become uncomfortable when they see a genuine and unmasked emotional state of another human being? We have spent so much effort masking our feelings and pretending not to see the feelings of the other people around us that we have become incapable of knowing how to respond to a person expressing genuine and unmasked emotion. I find this both sad and dangerous. We are emotional creatures and we must give ourselves and each other space for those emotions. It is simply part of being human.
I offer no apology for being angry. I am going to continue to be angry until the injustices that I see in our country have been resolved. I am going to continue to be angry that there are people that believe some people don’t deserve medical autonomy. I am going to continue to be angry that there are groups of people in this country that are treated like they are less important than other groups. I am going to continue to be angry until this country begins to treat people the way that they deserve.
Well, that’s about it for my rambling today. Thanks for coming and spending some time with me. If you like what you read, click on that like button. It really does help! Until we talk again, you take care of yourselves!
Zebra Pig 