No label is (or should be) a monolith. Humanity is too diverse. If you feel you must accept every single precept set down by any ideology, then you clearly are involved in a cult, and need to de-program your brain.
One of the most important aspects of being human is our ability to use critical thinking. Too many ideologies (conservatism, liberalism, feminism, communism, whatever) demand that we give up this crucial aspect … demand that we be obedient, that we stop using that critical-thinking side of our brain, and just submit. Accept the ideology unthinkingly.
“Here is what we believe.”
“But … well, this seems to make more sense to me…”
“Nope. Sorry. This is what we believe.”
I hate the use of “we” in that context. It smacks of exclusivity, as in: excluding those who do not agree.
I do not accept any monolith. I am like Kipling’s cat. You know, the one who “walked by himself”. I memorized the closing sentences of Kipling’s short story (I first read it when I was 17 or something like that – not knowing at the time what a rabid Irish-hater the guy was – I probably wouldn’t read Kipling NOW, which would be a shame. That’s my own monolithic ideology running the show there).
I memorized the closing sentences because they seem to so completely describe my personality. And not just my personality, but … how I experience life. I feel like I could have written the lines myself; they seem to have come from me:
The Cat keeps his side of the bargain too. He will kill mice and he will be kind to Babies when he is in the house, as long as they do not pull his tail too hard. But when he has done that, and between times, he is the Cat that walks by himself and all places are alike to him, and if you look out at nights you can see him waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone—just the same as before.
I like to recite that last phrase … it sings: “you can see him waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone” — beautiful.
Kipling’s Cat would not submit to any monolithic ideology, and neither will I.
