Why I Won't Debate With You

            Heeeey, kids! 

           A quick update before I jump into this post, because I’ve been gone for a while. I’m balls deep into the semester, and I have a much heavier workload than I did in fall, including three papers due every week and the fact that ceramics seems to be moving at a breakneck pace for me, especially since this is my first time touching and interacting with clay. It seems like I’m just barely getting the hang of something before we move on to the next project. I actually love ceramics. I’m terrible at it…in fact, most of my work looks like it was wheel thrown by a six-year-old with a frontal lobotomy…but I love it. I love it so much that I’m trying to figure out ways to continue playing with clay after I graduate and no longer have access to the awesome fully equipped ceramics studio on campus.

Behold a shitty bowl, my first
finished product of the semester!

            I surprisingly haven’t mentioned this on Bite Me, but Stella, my crazy naked rat dog/savage canine child, somehow tore both ACLs in her back legs some time in fall. After months of her suffering and veterinary detective work, she finally had surgery a couple of weeks ago. Now she’s on the path to recovery and acting very much like her wild-haired, food stealing, tail chasing little self, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m going to throw out a thank you to all of my friends and family who were so supportive while I struggled with seeing my pup in pain and trying to figure out why, and for no one making fun of me for being so preoccupied with a dog. You’re all awesome.

Poor cone-headed puppy.

            I was cast in Lionface Productions’ Winter One Acts, and I’m simultaneously elated and terrified to be back onstage after nearly three years. The rehearsal process is brief, to say the least, so I’ll have to dust off the cobwebs from my line memorization skills quickly. I’ve missed acting onstage. I’ve been in shows fairly regularly since I was in junior high, and not being in one was like losing a little piece of myself. I can’t wait to get started!

            Other than that, I don’t have much to report. My new boyfriend (who has chosen the name Wade* for this blog, since I don’t use real names) are ridiculously, deliriously happy and frequently cause those around us to swell with happiness and/or vomit because of said happiness. Awesome side note, this is the first time I’ve ever been with someone who is just as physically affectionate as I am, and. It. Is. AWESOME. I could use a second job, but other than that, life is chaotic, creative, and wonderful. I’m surrounded by amazing people and amazing opportunities for just about any creative endeavor I can cook up. I am a happy Dee.

We may or may not be
trying not to crack up.

            And now, to bitch about something mundane!

            In addition to being amazing, the people with whom I affiliate are, more often than not, extremely passionate about many things. Every day, my Facebook newsfeed is a battleground for emphatic posts and opposing views on anything from politics to public health to civil rights. Being passionate and overly opinionated myself, I have a tendency to get wrapped up in the swarm of constant discussion. I’m a big believer in being able to learn from informed views that oppose your own, so I’m happy to have friends who are bleeding heart liberals, organic enthusiasts, religious nuts, right-wingers, and everything in between.

            However, there are quite a few friends of mine with whom I refuse to discuss certain topics. I ignore their verbal baits and rabble-rousing posts, no matter how much I disagree or how moronic they happen to be. I consider this growth on my part.  A few years ago, I’d leap into the verbal fray with anyone who dared ask my opinion on something. But now, for big controversial topics like climate change, LGBTQA+ rights, women’s rights, vaccinations, etc, I can identify a pointless and infuriating discussion before it happens, and engaging in pointless and infuriating discussions is #1 on my Murtaugh List. I am too old for that shit. I’m all for informed conversations about these topics, but for a few people in my life, an informed discussion is simply beyond them. So, if you notice that I clam up when you start ranting about the dangers of mercury in vaccines or how the world can’t possibly be getting hotter because it’s snowing outside right now, it’s not because I disagree with you. I won’t debate with you because of one or more of the reasons listed below, in no particular order.

1. You have attached your own definition to something and you treat it as the definition.

            Fox News and its sympathizers have done as much as they can to portray feminism as some sort of bra burning, man-hating, whining bitchfest full of women who refuse to shave and rail against “the patriarchy” by asserting that women deserve not equal treatment, but superior treatment to men. Unfortunately, thanks to these morons, this has become a common view of the current movement. Similar defamation by emphasizing extremes have occurred with those who were opposed to any homosexual rights movement, and those who were opposed to the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, portraying Civil Rights activists as Black Panther-like extremists. In reality, feminism, like civil rights activism and homosexual rights activism, is simply an advocacy for equal rights for women, an issue that still remains unresolved today (again, much like black and homosexual equality). By defining an issue by its extreme, or by some personal definition (“global warming means everything is getting hotter and that’s all there is to it!”), you immediately prove to me that you are utterly uninformed and not worth talking to about said topic. You are Fox News.

2. Your opinion is based on personal and anecdotal accounts/experiences and nothing more.

            Have you ever heard of the anecdotal fallacy? A great non-personal example of this is the idiot Senator Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma, who recently brought a snowball into the Senate to drive home the point that global warming isn’t happening because it’s cold outside in Washington, D.C. Yes, I am comparing you to that moron. I’ve heard so much of this fallacy from so many people who are otherwise very intelligent: “I was beaten as a kid, and I turned out just fine! Corporal punishment isn’t bad!” “My roommate went through a lesbian phase in college and now she’s married to a man, so gayness is just a phase for everyone!” “I’ve never been discriminated against and I’m a minority! Racism totally doesn’t exist anymore!”

            …

            You guys do realize that you don’t represent a gender, race, nation, childhood, or background, right? You do realize that your reality isn’t everyone’s? Sorry to burst your narcissistic bubble, but you’re just a tiny blip in a mountain of data, and you should be looking at the data, not a single case. To quote the amazing Hank Green, “That’s like looking at a picture of five pixels and trying to figure out what it is.”

3. Your opinion is tethered to a label you have applied to yourself.

            I recently read an article about a former “crunchy” mom whose child ended up contracting measles because she had refused to vaccinate them. She has since reconsidered her position, stating that, and I’m paraphrasing because I couldn’t for the life of me find the article on Huffington Post, “Being a crunchy mom had become such a huge part of my identity. I didn’t even think about it. Being anti-vaccination went hand in hand with breastfeeding and co-sleeping and organic food. It was all part of being crunchy.”

            Whether you consider yourself “crunchy,” “conservative,” or even “against the grain,” you have let that label you’ve slapped on yourself take over your better judgment. I’m not saying that everyone does this—there are crunchy moms who vaccinate, conservatives who advocate homosexual rights, and rebels who don’t feel the need to choose the side of the argument that most people disagree with in order to emphasize your “uniqueness,” but that’s what you have done, and why I won’t debate with you.

4. Your opinion forces the world to conform to your personal beliefs.

            Slut shaming is an example of this: You don’t agree with a woman having as much sex as she wants, or dressing in a provocative way, so she must be a slut, and sluts must have no self-respect, because respect is directly linked to the amount of dicks you allow inside of you (the lovely Laci Green makes this argument far more eloquently and less angrily than I can, if you’re interested.) The constant response of “Because the Bible says so” is also an example of this. Sorry, honey, but fortunately the entire world doesn’t adhere to the violent, hate-filled ramblings of an outdated and irrelevant mythology.

5. Your opinion is entirely based on your “beliefs.”

            Similar to the former, if you debate with the zealotry of an old timey fire-and-brimstone preacher when you’ve formed your opinions without actually informing yourself, I’m not giving you the time of day. Also along the same vein…

6. You flat out ignore unbiased scientific data.

"See no science, hear no science..."

            This is my biggest point of contention. Scientific data flat out empirically states that “Global warming is a thing”, “Vaccinations save lives”, “Homosexuality has biological and genetic factors”, and you simply close your eyes to it like an Evangelical ignoring evolution, or worse, angrily cite “facts” from sources like www.deathtofags.com. You are so on my Murtaugh list. Just do the rest of the country a favour and don’t vote, all right?

7. When stripped down to bare bones, your stance is founded on "this makes me uncomfortable, so it must be wrong."

             Hopefully I don't need to elaborate on this one. All non-scientific biases pretty much boil down to this.

8. If your opinion is proven wrong (say, scientifically), you “still feel that way.”

            Stubbornly sticking to your guns despite being flat out wrong isn’t admirable. It’s stupid. Grow a pair and accept defeat. You know what? Don’t even call it defeat. You’re apparently too fragile to consider things that way. Just see this as an opportunity to improve as a person, to be more enlightened, and to stop being a complete bullheaded dipshit.

            All right, kiddies, that’s all the rant I have in me for tonight. I promise I’ll write more than one post this month. I actually have a couple in the works right now. I love you to bits, even if you’re one of the people in my life who fits into one or more of these categories. I still adore you. I just don’t respect your opinion in certain departments.

*Wade is Deadpool’s first name. My boyfriend is almost as obsessed with Deadpool as I am with the Joker. Almost.