Silly Day

Uh-oh, it's a silly day at the office. We're making up new lyrics to "America the Beautiful," including:

America, America,
God shed on the settee
And left a stain that never could
Be cleaned up properly

Explaining Fuckism

I changed my journal name without employing much wit. I meant to explain at the time, but ginalin asked, so I explained.

Gina:	What is Fuckism anyway? Did you make that up? LOL
TTL:	“Fuckism” is an infantile response to the whole concept of “isms”. I am sick of being aligned by belief systems anymore. It's one thing for me to say that some socialist policies make sense to me, and another thing for me to be a Socialist. Ditto Atheist, etc. At some point, the identity subsumes the the philosophies behind it, and then you're not thinking anymore, you're living a role and trying to fit into a group, even if the fit is imperfect.
Gina:	NO, I like it. I hate that stuff too. I just didn't have an appropriate infantile response for it. LOL One of the big problems with labels is it creates an almost automatic bigotry on the image associated with it. If you say Atheist, it's going to be one reaction if you've got a bad impression of Atheists, and another if you have a good one. But, none of that has much to do with the person you are. If I say, “I'm a Christian” that's going to get all kinds of responses depending on a person's notion of what that means. I hate walking that minefield too, it takes too much precious time to get past the labels to the person. And yeah, what you said about it also being an obstacle to self awareness for the bearer of the label.
TTL:	Good point. And the impression people have, based on their preconceptions and experience, is never going to be accurate. If, instead of saying “I'm an atheist”, I say “I don't believe in God,” I'm making a statement about myself, not a group I belong to. I think the reaction among many will be more nuanced. I think it puts peoples backs up less if you're not saying, “Don't fuck with me and MY PEOPLE.”