Things one's going to be a long, potentially wandering tangle. Read if you'd like and I'd like it if you did.

There's a thing that's bothered me for years but I didn't have the words to name the thing I was seeing until recently. There's a social mantra I grew up in, was steeped in, that says blitheness in the face of obscene racism, sexism and bigotry is a victory. That to smile and shrug it off as if it hadn't happened at all is the one and only prescription and then later, in private where only you and your most trusted confidants can hear you because you just don't do that in public, you talk about injustice; THAT is how you show humility, THAT is how you 'turn the other cheek'. I'm fairly certain it's rooted in the meekness and 'turn the other cheek' notion that's bandied about rather heavily by Christians and only furthered by the anti-feminist, anti-LBGTQ dogma so heavily pushed in churches. 

This may be the part where some of the Christians I know might start to squirm a little but let me speak to that for a moment. You may not push that agenda, you may not push that thoughtspace, your church or your sect might not but your sect is not the plurality in this country. You are not in the plurality in this country. You may be fighting to be so but you are not yet. I know the culture I grew up in. I know the culture of the churches my parents STILL go to (what's the proper place of a woman, again? And should or should she not have her head covered while doing so? How many churches did I get to witness, personally, schism over questions like these?).

I know their views on women and their subservience, I know their dogmatic views on what my marriage to my husband spells for my eternal soul. I've looked it in the eyes and named its malice for what it is. I don't speak to the 'shoulds' of life, I speak to what is. How you want to feel about that is up to you but don't lay it at my doorstep for naming things as they are; lay it at the doorstep of your fellow practitioners, lay it at the doorstep of the people responsible for what is.

Having said all of that, the irony is that I agree with the basic idea of 'turn the other cheek'. It suggests not to return hate with hate, not to return violence with violence. Generally speaking, cycles of abuse only perpetuate themselves and most situations can only be resolved with empathy¹.

But at what point did meekness get conflated with silence?

At what point did 'turn the other cheek' turn in to 'choke down every ounce of pain you feel and leave it strangled in your throat until it's socially acceptable to talk about it but don't you ever confront someone directly'? 

And don't think I don't understand the fear that keeps people 'in line'. It worked well enough on me for long enough. I understand that hand that grips your throat as you think about the collapse of your ENTIRE social structure if you speak too harshly at the wrong moment. I understand the paralysis that comes with the terror of knowing that if you spoke as you truly believed, you would be outcast and the target of some pretty foul behaviors at the hands of your fellow 'believers'.

¹To my view, this is where individualistic determination versus group dynamics starts to matter. By and large, most of human behavior is memetic. Think of it like this: you have the core of who 'you' are and then you have how you express that essence of yourself. How you express yourself is a synthesis of the various circumstances, events and peoples you expose yourself to. You inherit behaviors from your family and peers and distribute behaviors of your own, both consciously and otherwise. It's the 'otherwise' part that poses the problem in my head, especially when the lens of 'empathy' comes in to play. I'm fairly certain there's an agreed upon definition of what empathy is. Getting people to understand that their behavior is not within that definition is beyond difficult when they believe, from a place of Faith, that they are acting from a place of empathy.

Toilet Seats.

In a fit of randomness (because life works that way sometimes), let's talk about the contention of toilet seats.

I've both been a part of and seen it play out in front of my eyes time and time and time again over the years. It's usually a proxy fight for something else. It's never about the toilet seat.

The seat just happens to be an overt thing that most people can fixate on because they're currently incapable, through both socialization and teaching, of dealing with their deeper and less overt issues. As a result, they need something overt so everything they're pushing down and not dealing with can arc out on to it.

And don't think I don't name myself among you when I say 'they'. I know what I did, I know why I did it. It may have taken me years of introspection and reflection but I can name the stains of my past. If I can't, how can I possibly own them and abrogate them moving forward?

If you think it's too laborious to leave the seat in the opposite position you found it (guys put the seat down after, girls lift the seat up after), if you think this situation calls for anything other than that, you're not upset about the toilet seat, you're just fixating on it and should probably pay closer attention to the things you really are upset about.

Arguing over the direction of the toilet seat is foolish and it frustrates me that this is a cultural thing. How? How can this be a cultural thing? How can something this... this STUPID be a cultural thing?

Also, just because I like being explicit, let me state that I understand the proxy-fight happening is "You're being inconsiderate and I don't like being disregarded as a person, especially when the amount of effort it would take you is minimal and almost extremely so at that. So, if you're unwilling to put forth this minimal effort on my behalf, what else are you unwilling to do? What other barriers have you put in place that I now have to navigate around? What other situations are going to pull this same behavior in?"

I get all of that. Which is why I think arguing over the direction of the toilet is stupid. Argue over how you feel disregarded, do that. Understand that the thing you're fixating on is just one small part of what's actually producing what you're feeling, pay attention to those larger feelings and address those.

Pitching a fit about the damn toilet seat is puerile, unbecoming and foolish.

And it angers me, on a few different levels, that I was originally socialized to perform some of the patterns of behavior I'm speaking to.

It angers me that I inherited the American Male viewpoint of "Why's it such a big deal? Why do you have to get so upset about it?". The viewpoint that completely disregards the fact that someone is upset because you "don't get it" but every attempt they make to explain it is met with dismissiveness and, often, outright derision. Now, that derision might come in the form of "teasing" so that the speaker has the "Hey, I was just teasing" excuse to try to further dismiss the validity of the grievance being talked about.

In fact, it makes me seethe because this is scornful behavior and I refuse to name it anything but.

Oh, and this is usually the point where someone's probably thinking "Wow, he's blowing things way out of proportion" and to that, I'd like to say this:

Having lived it, having been brought up in it, surrounded by it and coated in it all my days, you are cross-applying the mindset to other things. You are establishing a pattern of behavior in which your dismissive mindset is the norm.

The base mindset that allows you to so freely and carelessly dismiss that any part of this could be something valid to be upset about is the issue.

Your base pattern of behavior is hurtful. The individual externalization of the toilet seat is just that, an instance of your disregard.

Yes, it's a small thing but it's a small thing that's a reminder of how you do this in other ways, in other contexts, some far more important. It's a reminder that this pattern of behavior is unconscious and unthinking, a "stamp" on every aspect of your being.

It is within your power to change, human. I would suggest you do so.