radical political idea!

okay, so, like, why do we* have societies in the first place?

i mean, the easy answer is we evolved from a bunch of animals who lived and worked together because it gave them an advantage over other animals that wanted to chow down on the same grub or straight up eat us. but you could also dig into that a little deeper and say that the instinct for each one of those animals only developed because it was good for the animals as individuals to belong to a group.

and for sure, once we got smart enough, we could totally decide for ourselves whether to keep hanging out together or go our separate ways.

but we didn't.

(at least, most of us didn't. and the ones that did, didn't stick around.)

so why is that?

obviously, it's at least partly because we mostly kinda like each other. (i don't mean we all like all of each other, but overall, we get some kind of kick out of being part of a group to some extent or another or we just wouldn't put up with all the ways we're also really annoying.)

so why is it, if being part of a group is how we're born**, and also if we mostly kinda like each other, that some of us also get so steamy-ears pissed off about having to be in a group with people who are just a little bit different from us?***

sure, part of it is that some of those "just a little bit different" things are the same things that make us really annoying to each other. ("why do you always leave the freakin' toilet seat up?" "you know i can't stand that song ... do you have to keep humming it?" etc.) but annoyed and angry are actually pretty separate emotions. one of them can turn into the other over time, but you can be annoyed without being angry and you can be angry without being annoyed. and sometimes, it's actually ways that we're the same that make us annoyed or angry. ("can't you just admit you're wrong for once?" "can't you just admit you're wrong?")

so what's the specific deal with people not being able to stand people being different, when the fact is we're all different and it would be pretty ding-dong boring if we weren't?

my theory is: there are some people who don't actually like other people. they like the benefits that come from being in a society, but they have something missing that's there in all the rest of us, which is the part where we mostly kinda like each other.

and those people have learned that they can get more of the benefits they like if they encourage other people to not like each other.

so they work at convincing other people that things that are maybe just annoying, or maybe not annoying at all but just different, are worth getting hoppity-hop mad about.

if you can get somebody mad about something, and get them to feel like you're on their side about being mad over that thing, it's way easier to convince them to do stuff you want. and the madder you get them, the less brainergy they have to think about whether they actually ought to be mad, or to think about whether it makes sense for them to do the things you're telling them to do.

so here's my big idea.

why don't we all just make sure we're on the lookout for those people and call them on it when we see them trying to make us mad? and warn each other off of them when we recognize them? like, "hey, man, i think that dude's just trying to get us mad to take advantage of us."

because while there's lots of reasons for us to be annoyed at each other****, there are a lot fewer reasons for us to actually be mad.

99.9% of all our political problems would go away, i bet, if we just said, "whoa up there, pardner. how about if we just dial it back and remember that we all mostly kinda like each other here and see if we can't figure out a solution nobody needs to be pissed off about?"

anyway, if you agree, please spread the news.

there's way more of us who are mostly happy getting along with each other than there are of the people who don't actually like other people.

xoxo,
claire

(*and by "we" i guess i technically mean you non-doll people, since the reason i have a society is, i was deliberately made by one. but you know sometimes i kinda forget that and think, hey, i'm a person and you're all people, which makes us an us and means i get to say "we" about us even if, you know, i'm a little more literally a product of my society than you guys are.)

(**slash, popped out of the factory mold)

(***confession time: duh, i personally am way more than "just a little bit different" from a lot of folks, so maybe i'm not the best gal to be trying to ask or answer this question. but i'm the gal i am, so kinda i can't help it.)

(****i live with and love the dickens out of six other people, so trust me that i know what i'm talking about here!)