Quality

Plenty of people out there would like you to believe that there's a
binary distinction in quality of people. Those who earn money,
idealized liberal politics, are white or black, or straight or gay, are
seen as the Chosen Ones who can do no wrong, and the rest of us are
lesser. This kind of clubhouse mentality appeals to the Crowd best of
all, since if there's an elect who will solve all of our problems, the
rest of us can go back to slacking off and watching TV while they fix
things.

Quality is an illusory concept in some usages, but a fundamental one.
Consider that even among a highly-refined Nordic population, such as in
Scandinavia, there are vast differences between individuals. Some are
geniuses, some are superior warriors, and some top out at being short
order cooks who can drink entire bottles of vodka. These are different
qualities between people, but does this mean we can put them on a
linear spectrum? After all, much as a body needs a stomach (dumber than
a brain), nervous system (weaker than muscles), and muscles (less
durable than a stomach), doesn't any healthy society also need genius
leaders, brave warriors, and durable artisans and laborers?

Within any population, there's a great deal of diversity. Consider your
friends, or at least the people who are dear to you -- undoubtedly,
some are smarter, some are stronger, and some more steadfast in
day-to-day tasks. Geniuses make poor short order cooks, as their
attention tends to wander and they want to "innovate" with each
iteration of the process, which is moronic if you want a traditional
omelette (did it really need raisins and cilantro with avioli sauce?
probably not). Each friend has different strengths, and together, they
work in parallel to form a healthy friend group. You don't hold it
against big Ed if he's not as smart as Stan the computer geek, because
you care about him for other qualities.

Such is the case also with human populations. At some point, tolerance
and intolerance merge, and this is along the mental creasing point of
parallelism: there are different societies, localities, groups and even
people. Together they can form larger and more flexible structures,
especially if they do not try to linearize - or become one single
entity, under a single set of rules. This doesn't mean it's not time to
thin the herd; there are plenty of people who are extraneous, even if
we decide they have some positive qualities. The bottom line is that
with fewer people, our ecosystem can continue to operate autonomously,
which requires 3/4 of earth's space for it and 1/4 for us, which
requires fewer people living less "first world" lifestyles. It does
mean however that we can understand each other without being "equal"
and without comparing ourselves by the same yardstick.

In this thought, the greenest hippie and the most diehard National
Socialist converge: they believe that local communities should rule
themselves, avoiding the creation of a linear society that, lacking any
goals outside of its own growth, cancerously expands until it threatens
the very system that birthed and sustains it ("nature"). Even some
fag-hater like Rev. Fred Phelps and an ACT UP activist can agree that
not everywhere on earth needs to tolerate blatant homosexuality, and
that not everywhere on earth needs to be ruled by the Iron Hand of
interpreted Christ. Perhaps some communities will choose to live that
way, and some will be like the Montrose in Houston, so gay friendly
that the parking meters make kissing noises. Perhaps some communities,
even nations, will be happy under future Hitlers, and others will be
perpetual Clintonites. Can they coexist? Definitely; the only thing
keeping them from doing so is the idea that we need large centralized
republics like the USA, EU or China to unite us.

There is an inverse relationship between leadership capability and the
number of people trying to make a decision. In most cases, an
individual will arrive at some "work in progress" decision when
confronted with a problem, and by developing their response, eventually
solve it. Two people take longer, especially if they have different
goals. When you get to a decent-sized committee, it's more likely that
they will reach a compromise that takes no decisive action, unless the
problem is so obvious that response is more reaction that considered
design (giant rubbery monsters attacking Tokyo require dramatic
response). When you get to the point of a nation with 300 million
people all voting on the same issue, some with the wisdom of genius
leaders and others with the knowledge limitations of fry cooks, there's
no chance. They are doomed by the very act of trying to find one rule
that fits all of them.

No clearer example of this problem occurs than in American politics.
The big cities on the coasts have one outlook on the world, which is a
liberal democratic cosmopolitanism, but the other states - where actual
work gets done (just kidding, sort of) - have an entirely different
pragmatic traditionalism. Both groups get yanked around by politicians
who do their best to appear to be one thing, while continuing business
at usual behind the facade of token issues (abortion, civil rights,
evolution in schools, drugs, homosexuals in military). Did George W.
Bush really represent Texas, for example? Or Clinton really represent
liberalism? These guys are showmen, and they're not evil; they're
earning a living like the rest of us, but by being public symbols. This
system created them and perpetuates them.

You'd never think that hippies and Confederates would walk on the same
path, but what's come out of the sensible extremes of leftism,
especially where it converges with environmentalism, is an emphasis on
localization. Not coincidentally, the more traditional elements of
American society (almost exclusively in the South) came up with the
same idea some centuries ago, realizing that a federal coalition of
self-ruling, independent States made more sense than a monolithic
federal entity. What's true in Georgia might be irrelevant in New York,
and vice versa. If we overcome our balkanized identification with a
political outlook, left or right, we can see that above those divisions
common sense alone is king, and that common sense says we are different
in local community as much as in individual spirit. We can work in
parallel, but only if we accept our differences, and the way to do that
is not to force "tolerance" on everyone (thus asking them to give up
their own character) but to tolerate differences between communities,
and to sort according to that agenda. If people really want to be
stoners, they can go to California; extremist Catholic communities that
don't want abortion do not have to have it.

That's individuality. You can either accept it or freak out about it,
but one thing's for sure: modern society crushes individuality and
parallelism by forcing us into linear, gigantic, one-size-fits-all
conglomerations that by representing "all" of our interests, represent
no one, unless you can find a person who naturally is an average of all
other people. Nature's order clashes with the rigid binary logic of
humankind, but is that kneejerk logic really natural to us, or is it a
pit stop through history caused by democracy and the corresponding
consumerism and egomania of a group of individuals trying to find one
standard for all? Think each, not all. Individuality - whether of
belief, behavior, race, sex preference or regionality - is superior to
creating a vast machine and forcing us to conform to an average. It's
the only way to preserve our unique roles and through them, the overall
quality of our species.

November 17, 2005
http://www.*****.com/zine/articles/intolerance/