What Body Love Isn’t Part II

In a previous post, I highlighted and refuted criticisms of body love that I did not feel held water. Without addressing a specific person, I will continue on that vein.

I have heard people criticize body love on the grounds that it teaches people, especially young girls, that appearance is paramount. Instead we should turn our attention to what’s on the inside. I understand this criticism, but again, under closer scrutiny, it doesn’t hold up.

Can people be vain about their appearance and worship appearance above all else? They most certainly can, but people can be just as vain about accomplishments, social status, athletic prowess, health and disability status, personality, or whatever that person has that the have-nots have not.

Exhibit A:

• Look at you! Singing opera by the age of 15! I couldn’t do that until I was in my 30s!
• You’re going to college to be a doctor? Good for you! My kid’s stuck at community college doing automechanics. I told him to get better grades!
• Okay, you ran a mile in ten minutes but you need to do better than that if you want to stay in shape.
• Wow, you have, like, the healthiest lunches I’ve ever seen! I’m glad SOME teens are responsible enough to care about their health!
• Let’s see, you’re outgoing, you have lots of friends, you’re always getting involved, and you always have a smile! Why shouldn’t people like you?

Discussion:

• In the first example, we are reinforcing the idea that people who do not develop as quickly or who don’t have the same type of voice and musical talents are less than. We are also reinforcing the idea that OH EM GEE, you need to do it while you’re young or else it’s hopeless.
• In the second example, we worship money and high status (which are attained by attending prestigious colleges and getting professional jobs). We look down on those who don’t have a brand name on their degree, who aren’t rich, or who pursue trades instead of professional careers as being less hardworking, less skilled, and less intelligent.
• In the third example, we are teaching young people that if you don’t have the body of a runner or if you aren’t gifted at it, then you are out of shape. It reinforces the idea that everyone can and should be equally physically fit and that not having this physical fitness makes you lazy, stupid, and defective.
• In the fourth example, we send the message that your health and lifestyle determine your worth as a person. If the person is disabled, it creates a double-standard. In order to be a “good” disabled person, you must do everything possible to maximize health and look able-bodied. If you have the nerve to actually be disabled, then you are not trying hard enough and not worth as much.
• In the fifth example, we are operating under the assumption that in order to be desirable to others, you must have an extraverted personality. It sends the message that your ultimate goal in life is to be desirable to others, and it operates under mistaken ideas about what intraversion is about.

They all create pressure on young people to perform at their best, push themselves to the limits, at younger and younger ages, and in all possible areas. Otherwise? You’re a waste of space, full stop.

Are any of these statements substantially different from complimenting someone’s apearance and placing expectations on them to maintain it? Are they any better?

Hardly.

Furthermore, does commenting on someone’s appearance, or paying attention to your own appearance, always have to be shallow? I don’t think so.

Complimenting someone in a way that reinforces existing prejudices is unquestionably shallow. Complimenting a fat person on their weight loss is prejudiced in this culture. Complimenting an African on her newly straightened hair may be prejudiced, but not always. Complimenting someone on their fashion sense or the way they carry themselves isn’t such a bad thing. Our appearance can communicate a lot about ourselves, including what culture, religion, class, and political party we come from. It can tell us about our emotions and hobbies.

Not only our clothes and our accessories, but our bodies can communicate things about us. That is why body modification is practiced in so many cultures in various forms. It is a permanent mark on your person that signifies something important. Scars and deformities are unintentional body modifications that tell stories. Unmodified bodies can reveal information such as what race, culture, or nationality we came from. Posture and facial expressions identify emotions.

Physical features “act” differently. An Asian smile and a Slavic smile look different. Dark skin against bright colors look different from light skin against dark colors. When we combine our unique features with modes of expression like makeup, fashion, etc. gives us a unique character.

Physical features act as symbols, i.e. fat=fertility. Are they accurate 100% of the time? No. Can the body as symbol have negative connotations? Yes. Can the same feature mean different things in different contexts? Yes. Nonetheless, appearance serves a cultural and aesthetic purpose as symbolism, and we would do well to reclaim it in a positive way.

Because appearance is the first thing we notice about someone, it is popular to demonize groups of people by pointing out indesirable physical features. Jews were often portrayed as having hooked noses. It was an easily identifable feature that separated the Jews from others. Their noses were distorted to look monstrous and the feature became synonymous with monstrous qualities such as greed, parasitism, and treachery. The proper solution to that isn’t to say, “Hey, our hooked noses don’t define us.” That allows THEM to control the discussion. You need to reclaim it, make it your own, and make it good.

Our minds may take precedence over our bodies, but they are not separate from us. Our souls LIVE in our bodies. As long as we use our bodies to think, act, and live in the world, our bodies matter. As long as our bodies are the first point of recognition (“Hey, look, it’s Joanna. I can tell the hat!”) then bodies matter. Taking care of them certainly matters, even if you don’t like the way it looks or acts all the time.

Love your body because it’s YOURS. Love it because it is the one possession that no one can ever take from you. You know you live in a totalitarian society when your body is no longer yours. Bodies do matter.

Love it. Love it enough to care for it and peacefully coexist with it. This is your one body and you will live in it forever. There’s no sense not making the most of it.

What Body Love Isn’t: Part I

What does it mean to love one’s body?

It’s not uncommon for social movements to have some element of body politics, and you will often hear the phrase “Love your body” or “body love.” These phrases, innocuous as they are, have not escaped criticism. Critics of feminism claim that the mentality represented by those commands is that it is shallow and elevates the body above all else. Fat acceptance has heard similar criticism when members publicly speak out about “body love.”

I have my fair share of criticisms of “Love your body” campaigns. There are any number of criticisms you might have about them that are entirely valid. Still, some of the criticisms that I have been seeing are, to put it bluntly, BO-GUS. Christina Hoff-Sommers, someone I would ordinarily respect, epitomizes perfectly all the WRONG reasons to be opposed to body love. So I’m going to pick on her, but it applies to so many more. Here is the link. She is also quoted below. She says:

“Nobody should be that comfortable about anything; you shouldn’t love your body. You should love things that will survive the ravages of time: a passion for eternal things. Get beyond yourself and learn to have a passion for higher things. You’re going to get old and your body is going to betray you; it’s never going to be perfect. You’re never going to be as beautiful as Kate Moss or Gwenyth Paltrow, and it’s childish to try to be. There is always going to be one thing that you don’t like and you focus on, you know, the “I’m not as beautiful, my hair is not as lustrous,” and that’s childish. You should value other higher things: things that help other people. People have a way of enjoying each other and finding love. They think they are entitled to be perfectly happy and comfortable. No you don’t, and you should get over that.”

Let’s break that down, shall we?

CHS: Nobody should be that comfortable about anything; you shouldn’t love your body.

JDW: Uh, why not? Because you said so? After all, I have to live with this body from the day I’m born until the day I die. Why not learn to at least appreciate it?

CHS: You should love things that will survive the ravages of time: a passion for eternal things. Get beyond yourself and learn to have a passion for higher things.

JDW: So few words, so many implications. Where to start?

Did you know that it is, in fact, possible to multi-task? You can love your body, have a passion for higher things, AND serve someone besides yourself. Imagine that!

Number one: How do we define “higher things?”

Fashion and body art express artistic vision and political views. They can express emotion. That is hardly trivial or an obsession with appearance. If you take photos or make portraits, the messages you send might even last forever.:) Your physical body does not need to survive for it to be meaningful.

Use of talent? Check. Potentially meaningful communication and activism? Yes. Something that takes effort and skill? Yes. Something that might even last forever if you take the time to preserve it? Yes.

Number two: Why just the body?

You seem to think that only your body will suffer the ravages of time, or that appearance is the only thing you can be shallow or self-obsessed about. Au contraire.

Money and accomplishments will suffer as your ability to work declines with age or illness, but we don’t tell people to not achieve or take pride in those achievements. Most works of art won’t become classics, and technology becomes obsolete. Does that make them worthless? No. It can be a stepping stone to something else.

People can be shallow and self-obsessed about things besides appearance. It could be possessions, money, education, social status, or perceived cultural awareness. Some people are deeply concerned about their families, a few of their friends, and maybe their neighborhood. They have very little concern about the world as a whole or doing anything substantive to change it. Does that mean we don’t encourage people to have families, degrees, or money because it might cause a bad case of magacephalus?

It really isn’t a simple matter of the superficial vs. the deep. You can take just about anything and take a superficial or a deep approach to it. Even though we generally see career as deep and appearance as superficial, you can be an average, vapid, boring person that runs a business. Or a hugely talented, innovative, and politically motivated fashion designer.

Number Three: There’s more to it.

Body love is about self-respect. You need to engage in SOME level of self-care, or else you will not function. You want to teach girls that it is OKAY to help yourself in a culture where we still expect women to be sweet and selfless 100% of the time. So body love actually is productive in two ways: self-preservation and setting a good example.

Body love is not just about what you look like, but what you can do with your body. Dance and sign language heavily emphasize presentation and use of the body.

Again, it’s not as shallow as CHS seems to want it to be.

CHS: You’re going to get old and your body is going to betray you; it’s never going to be perfect.

JDW: Way to miss the point, sweetie pie.

The whole POINT of body image activism is that your body does not have to be perfect, and that the definition of perfect is subjective and ever-changing.

This means that old people can, in fact, be attractive, with or without your golden seal of approval. Some old people “age well” and look much younger for their age and therefore will fit your definition of attractive for longer. But I suppose in your mind, a day on a calendar is a fashion death sentence that means you can never again look in the mirror and not be disgusted. Got it.

I also have to ask a second time: why just the body? People like to say that your body will betray you, so don’t rely too much on it. My response is, again, so what? My money won’t matter once I die. I will not be as flexible or energetic when I get older as i am now. Does that mean I shouldn’t care about it or do anything with it now?

Maybe if people loved themselves enough to care for their bodies and actually had opportunities to do so, regardless of what type of body they have, they would be healthier, more energetic, look better, and be “younger” for longer. Of course, they would do this for themselves, not for you, but guess what? It’s body love that makes people socially acceptable enough to appear in public. So be careful what you wish for.:)

Your mind might be more stable that your body, but it’s not indestructable. Your mind can betray you too. People suffer mental illnesses, get brain injuries, psychological trauma, and physical illness in the brain. It’s frustrating and sad when your body betrays you. It’s earth-shattering and horrifying when your mind does.

CHS: You’re never going to be as beautiful as Kate Moss or Gwenyth Paltrow, and it’s childish to try to be.

JDW: Wow…remember that Mark Twain quote about it being better to be quiet and look like a fool than to remove all doubt? ‘Foolish’ is too generous a word for this material.

Okay, who decided that Kate Moss and Gwyneth Paltrow are objectively attractive? There is no law of physics that says that these people are models for what attractive is. What about personal taste? Time? Place? Culture?

My next, more salient point is that this statement misses the point in spectacular fasion. NO ONE who promotes body love encourages people to look like Kate Moss. We are trying to CHALLENGE the idea that you need to be like them to be attractive, worthy of self-care, and worthy of appearing in public.

CHS: There is always going to be one thing that you don’t like and you focus on, you know, the “I’m not as beautiful, my hair is not as lustrous,” and that’s childish.

JDW: I don’t know what body image activists you have been talking to, but you obviously have a beef with someone that is NOT me…or anyone else I know. That’s the kind of mentality that we want to challenge.

You know what’s childish? Attacking an idea without understanding it. Or building a straw man just to knock it down?

CHS: You should value other higher things: things that help other people.

JDW: Teaching people with disabilities to dance, which might entail teaching them to see their bodies in a new, positive light? Giving them the confidence to appear in public in a leotard? Teaching them how to care for themselves, train for dance, and accomodate their disability? That sounds like a lofty ambition to me.

Art and theatre? Both very body-oriented? Lofty.

CHS: People have a way of enjoying each other and finding love.

JDW: It helps to think of yourself as worthy of love, which body image activism can help with.

CHS: They think they are entitled to be perfectly happy and comfortable. No you don’t, and you should get over that.

JDW: You’re right. No such right exists. We do, however, have the moral right to bodily autonomy and to demand basic respect for our bodies. We have a moral right to engage in self-care and to reasonable opportunities to pursue it.

As for being happy and comfortabe, we may not have an absolute right to be comfortable with others. Other people have the right to be offensive or displeasing to us. We may not have an absolute right to demand that others make us “perfectly happy and comfortable.” But we DO have an absolute right to be perfectly happy and comfortable with OURSELVES.

It sounds to me like Hoff-Sommers had an axe to grind and was too lazy to know what she was talking about. At least I know it’s not because she’s obsessed with her appearance.

 

Take Back Healthy Eating

I hate being complimented on my weight loss, real or perceived. I hate it as much as, if not more than, being criticized for weight gain.

The obvious reason is that I hate the intended insult. They think I look great NOW, after I lost some weight, but before, they couldn’t stand what a fat pig I was. Point that out, and people will deny it vociferously. Whether they like it or not, that’s the message being sent.

Something else I hate just as much is when people comment on stereotypically healthy habits. Whenever a fat person goes out for a jog, chooses a salad over some other, less morally upright option, people feel the need to comment on it. Usually, these comments involve some element of healthism or fat prejudice.

“Being good today?” (Healthism)

“Finally started that diet?” (Anti-fat douchebaggery)

Sorry, prejudice isn’t a strong enough word for that kind of comment.

The sad part is that most of these women are not what any rational person would consider fat. They are average, but they feel a pressing need to lose weight. Other people, instead of being a voice of reason, are joining in.

The idea that people choose healthy habits because they like them, not because they feel the need for them, is something utterly foreign to some people. I choose that salad because I wanted it. I like lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, feta cheese, and vinegrette together in one bowl. They were meant for each other, dude.

That, and the fact that fat people, like all people, need those nutrients. So that will entail eating a vegetable or two along thr way. Just sayin’.

I don’t have much experience with the vegetarian or vegan communities, so maybe my idea of what it’s like isn’t correct. On the internet,* however, I see instance after instance of fat bigotry. People that “used to be fat” often credit veganism for their newfound slimness and blame the non-vegan junk diet that she perceives most people as eating. Fat people who are bonafide veg/vegan might get told that they must be doing something wrong! They aren’t real veggies or that they have some sort of eating disorder. When someone takes up the veg lifestyle, I have often, personally, heard people comment that that person is trying to get healthy. Now, getting healthy can mean any number of different things, but as the conversation goes on, you know they are talking about weight loss.

When I hear comments about being good about food, it makes me want to feed my salad to some deer (we have a lot of those where I am) and go to McDonald’s. Except I don’t WANT to go to McDonald’s right now. I want something else.

So this is a message to the world: I don’t do healthy to please you. I don’t do it to preserve your tax dollars (or mine, since I do, in fact, work and pay taxes). I don’t do it to be thin. I do it because I want to. When I pick up that poor white-tailed deer’s dinner, I am not looking for comments from the peanut gallery. Okay?

I just want to eat this.

What about you. What do you like in the healthy food department? Do people comment on it when you choose those options? How do you respond?

*This is mostly on YouTube, so it might not be a representative sample.

New Rules: Feel My Bloody, Bloody Saw

Note: I use strong language in this post. It is a rant.

I have established, again and again, that when you read my blog, you follow my rules.

Most of my readers are great. You read well, you make good comments, you follow the rules, and I like you. Still, I’m having some issues and I want to send out a general notice.

I try to give people wide latitude on my site, but I feel like some people are taking that as an opportunity to write condescending comments. After all, they are not truly insulting anyone, are they? Well, guess what. Enough is enough and anyone who writes such comments will be subject to the feel of my bloody, bloody (verbal) saw. Or just get deleted.

I mostly have this problem when I write posts about healthism. I often have this problem with liberals: not all, but some liberals assume that if you don’t agree with them about something, that you are just too stupid or brainwashed to understand it.

Get this. I don’t agree with organic activists who attack food processing or conventional farming methods. I DO have knowledge of biology and chemistry. I have knowledge of medicine. Probably more than many of my commenters. Of course, if I didn’t, that would not necessarily make me wrong. All the same, I bring it up to prove that I’m not as dumb as some want to believe.

I am well aware of what food used to be like before regulations existed-anyone remember Sinclair’s Jungle?

I HAVE heard all of the talking points of organic activists. I used to believe them myself. I don’t anymore. Your not-so-earth-shattering revelations aren’t news to me, okay?

For that matter, I have never claimed that all foods are equally healthy, and in my post about attachment therapy, I explicitly claimed otherwise. I HAVE claimed that just because food is processed, or has a long, scary chemical name, does not necessarily make it bad. After all, when you cook in your home kitchen, THAT’S food processing. I could write out all the ingredients in their scientific names, and they would look horrifying. If you are going to claim that any processing out of a home kitchen is bad for you, or that any chemical additives at all should not be in food, the burden of proof is on you to prove it. It’s not on me to prove that processed food ISN’T bad for you.

Yes, I know that processed foods are “associated” with health problems. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Correlation does not equal causation. The population that consumes processed foods differ in class, values, ethnic background, might already have health problems, etc. Again, I never said that all foods contain all the same nutrients in all the same amounts. I said that there might be other factors to concern ourselves with that are more important than the purity of the food consumed. Focusing on the wrong problem isn’t just misguided; it can actively hurt people while the real problems go unrecognized. I have said more than once that, yes, let’s make WIC coupons redeemable at farmers’ markets. Yes, let all grocery stores have fresh produce. Great! Is that the most serious problem facing poor people today? Should we really devote billions of dollars and government resolutions to solve it? Those are my questions.

I have said that many beliefs about food are potentially healthist and classist. For the millionth time, this is not a statement endorsing the equality of all foods. This is pointing out that perceptions and research are often informed, unconsciously, by biases and that these biases spill over into beliefs about health, food, and the people that consume it. Does this mean all such statements are wrong? No, but the prevalence of these biases and the current panic over health and food should give us pause. That’s it.

I have said that many food interventions are classist and healthist. And they are. Saying that some foods have more or less of this or that is not prejudiced in itself. However, the prevalent assumption among posh foodies that all poor people are falling over themselves to be saved from their food and their lifestyles is. I know, I know. You just want to give them the “option.’ Maybe they want to give themselves the option? Maybe they want another option entirely? Maybe they want you to butt out and let them solve their own problems?

What do you consider an option, anyway? Most people espouse some sort of government solution or an increased dependence on welfare. Yeah, that’s not an “option,” that’s government coercion. We will just have to agree to disagree on that one.

Granted, I have said that some processed foods are healthier than some non-processed foods, at least for some people. That’s true. Fortified bread is one example. Another example is food high in sodium for those with certain medical conditions or deficiencies. Once more, not a blanket statement about processed vs. non-processed foods. Just pointing out that fact that people differ in their needs and generalized advice, especially those with the force of law, can hurt people. Not controversial, really.

What about the cultural issue? Some cultures indulge in unhealthy habits such as the use of MSG and the excessive use of fats. At what point do we give up cultural cuisine, or living in general, to panic about food? Should government be giving us those directions and using tax and zoning policies to nanny us?

The gist of what I have been saying all along is that good intentions have negative consequences that are not immediately visible and that what seems correct to us can be dead wrong and prejudiced to boot. Not controversial.

Oh, and by the way, I don’t talk about global warming, environmentalism, or animal rights on my blog. They matter, and I’m glad people out there are writing about them. I’m not one of them. So for those of you who criticize my ignorance of those ethical issues surrounding food, you need to read my blog posts in context. When I talk about their no being moral issues around food, I am talking specifically about healthism and classism.

I have had people accuse me of being brainwashed by Big Food. As though everyone who has anything tangenitally in common with someone is somehow connected to them. It’s like how anyone who supports contraception is brainwashed by Planned Parenthood and is a shill for them. I don’t accuse my opponents of being brainwashed by Greenpeace or by the liberal New World Order. I assume my readers are intelligent enough to form their own opinions, even if they’re wrong. I would like the same courtesy.

And what makes you think the government, famous foodies, organic food producers, and their partners can’t, or don’t, have special interests? That Big Food is the only party that could have special interests? Profit is a powerful motivator, but so are reputations, careers, grants, ego, and good intentions. There are lots of motivators besides profit that could appy to organic advocates, and some of them could be motivated by profit as well. So sorry, you’re going to need to do a better job than that when arguing with me.

Having special interests should cause you to take certain claims with a grain of salt. At the same time, having special interests does not automatically make you wrong, either. You need to focus on the argument and not get into pissing matches about who is involved in what conspiracy. It’s old and intellectually lazy.

If you want to have a discussion about certain chemicals, certain practices, certain processed foods, go ahead. I’m sure not everything the food industry does is healthy or efficient. What I’m seeing, though, is not so much arguments about specific issues but a generalized techno/chemophobia around the subject. It has a long, scary, scientific name, so it must be bad. I have never heard of this company, so it must be bad. We didn’t do this back in the day, so it must be bad. I want to challenge this thinking, not because I like to start shit, but because I really think it can harm people.

And no, my criticizing political foodie-ism isn’t silencing you. I am not asking anyone to stop being a foodie and I never have asked that. You have every right to promote political foodie-sim, and I have every right to criticize it.

Some of my readers are going to have to get used to the fact that not everyone agrees with you, and it’s not always because they are stupid, brainwashed, or part of some insidious conspiracy. It’s called growing up. So argue with me or not, but make it worth my time.

But the next time a political foodie comes sniveling on my blog about how I’m a shill for Big Food, shitting out talking points I have heard a thousand times, not reading my posts accurately and making accusations, I won’t be so nice about it. I’m tired of being nice about it. Now your comment can feel my bloody, bloody saw.

ED: Why “You’re Not Fat!” is Beside the Point

Tags

correcting misconceptions, eating disorders, fat prejudice

I have heard it again and again. Whenever we hear the news that someone in our lives is experimenting with eating disordered behavior, someone makes this unfortunate comment.

“But she’s/you’re/he’s not fat!” someone will say.

*Head desk.*

See that over there? That was the point. Catch it and get back to me.

Let’s demolish this point-by-point, shall we?

Point #1: What do you call fat? Some people begin their eating disordered behavior as a result of being told they were “overweight” by their doctors. What the BMI considers ”overweight” is vastly different from what the average person identifies as such.

People differ in their personal standards as well. What some people call average or “pleasantly plump” might be unacceptably fat to some. Maybe that person’s family has more stringent weight standards than you do.

What culture does that person hail from? Cultures differ in their standards, just like individuals do. Maybe your culture does not consider that person fat, but theirs does.

Culture does not just refer to nationality or ethnicity either. Culture can be influenced by income, hobby, or profession. Those from higher-income areas, vegans, or actors might be less tolerant of fat than lumberjacks, omnivores, and people from working-class neighborhoods. Your mileage may vary, but that is the general pattern.

Point #2: EDs, by definition, distort the patient’s perception of reality. Telling someone with an ED, “You’re not fat! Stop it!” makes about as much sense as telling someone with psychosis, “He’s not real! Stop talking to him!” Some people with EDs are *incapable* of perceiving that they’re not fat. Others know that they are not fat, but are so afraid of getting fat that they see ED behaviors as their only protection against it. You can tell them that having some weight on you is no big deal and that it’s not necessary to go to those extremes to “stay in shape” (I hate that phrase), but they can’t *see* that. It’s noise to them.

Point #3: You don’t need to be fat to be damaged by an ED. For some reason, people think EDs are safe over a certain weight limit. You’re not fat, but THAT person over there that weighs 200 pounds should spend some time with her head in the toilet bowl. He’s not fat, but that chunker over there should NEVER be allowed to eat again!

EDs do not discriminate, and EDs are life-threatening. Period. They are not safe for people of size, and they aren’t safe for the straight sizes.

If I never hear “But she’s not fat!” again, it will be too soon.

 

Why on Earth would I want to do that?

I went to catechism class last night and met up with some old friends. I wasn’t in the best mood, but seeing them made my night.

Correction: It made my night after the first hour.

The first hour was spent in agony as I was subjected to the usual complaints about oppression by secular society of those who dare to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

When I mention that I don’t do that, I am often asked, “Why?”

In most Christian settings, it is uncommon for Christians to object to those things. The assumption is that you are a cowardly Christian who does not want to show his faith. Or that you are an oppressed, brainwashed Christian who needs to be rescued. Or that you are not Christian at all. You are a New Age spiritualist, an atheist, or some other anti-Christian boogeyman. How can I, someone who is none of these things, possibly side with the atheists? A word that, to them, is so filthy that they physically choke on it. I kid you not.

I could have gone the conventional route and politely explained that not everyone is Christian in America and our rituals should reflect our diversity. Instead, I took another approach.

My response: I should be asking you the same question. Pledge allegiance? Why? Why on Earth would I want to do that?

Here is a little bit of my background.

My maternal grandmother is 100% Lithuanian. My mother is half Lithuanian. She even used to be bilingual in Lithuanian and English. This, of course, makes me 1/4 Lithuanian. If my mother remembered the language, I would probably be bilingual in those languages too. Oh well. Never too late.:)

My Lithuanian ancestors fled their home country, like most people, because of the oppression they endured and the hope of a better life. During that time, Lithuanian national and cultural identity were violently oppressed by Czarist Russia, WWII, and the Soviet Union respectively. They endured forced conversions to Orthodox Christianity under the Czars and the suppression of faith in general under the Communists. This is a fresh memory for my ancestral homeland, especially since we only became independent as a nation in 1991. We have a truly breathtaking monument that documents our history of religious oppression known as the Hill of Crosses.

Sorry, but I object to conformity for the greater good. I’m sure many Russians thought they were, in their own twisted ways, saving the souls of Lithuanians by forcibly molding them into Orthodox Christians. I object to the idea that Lithuanians should have been forced to give up their identities for the sake of social stability as in the USSR.

I object to the idea of pledging allegiance to a government. It is one thing to be loyal to the best interests of your country. Preserving an identity and way of life that is under attack by a foreign power is loyalty. It is one thing to refrain from revealing information or participating in activities that endanger your country, i.e. treason. I’m not talking about that.

It is another thing entirely to pledge allegiance to symbols of the state or to a government, as in the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s idolatry, for one thing, and it’s just wrong. You don’t pledge allegiance to a government. Governments can and do have self-serving agendas and commit grave acts of evil to enforce them. Pledging allegiance to governments means, by definition, accepting and advocating the interests and actions of those governments. Governments don’t rise to power by themselves. Citizens have to consent to and promote its causes. What greater joy, what greater solace, can an evil government have than citizen lackies that will do anything for them-worship their symbols, fund their programs, fight in their wars, and die for them…for nothing.

All that is bad enough, no? Well, that’s not all

It is *yet another* thing to suggest that said state or government is blessed by God or somehow has God’s favor. How can any nation “under God” do wrong? If you oppose a nation under God, don’t you oppose God? Don’t you support evil? In the case of Communism, the gods in question were leaders like Stalin, various classes and Communist ideologies. Either way, they are blessed, all-powerful, evil, and can do no wrong.

Oh, and by the way, American Christians need to stop claiming that they are oppressed. My ancestors endured real oppression. They had to flee because of it. Don’t insult me with your claims that you are oppressed because other people don’t derive orgasmic joy from your nationalistic nursery rhymes.

I love this country. I do not engage in acts of treason or espionage. I contribute to it. I embrace its freedoms and its values, including *gasp* tolerance. I promote the common good of my people and promote American ideals in a positive, productive way. A good government can earn respect by communicating effectively and serving the common good. Any government that demands my groveling praises does not deserve my allegiance. As Mark Twain said, “Loyalty to my country? Always. Loyalty to my government? When it deserves it.”

Pledge allegiance to the flag? Why on Earth would I want to do that?

2011 in review: Yay me!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 18,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Thanks to my readers and commenters for making this a success. Happy blogging in 2012!