Day +2: Talking to the news!

23-24 Sep 2010

I woke up around 2:00 PM, so I got a little less sleep than usual, but it was a pretty good day. A reporter from the local paper stopped by to interview me for a profile piece. We didn't really talk about the specific issues I cover, but more about my background, upbringing, how and why I got started on YouTube, the vibrant online atheist community, my future plans, and so on. It was pretty fun, and they agreed to use only my female name with appropriate pronouns (I'm usually fine with either, but I didn't want it to be confusing - wait, since when do I not want to confuse people?). On the advice of viewers, I did request to see an advance copy if possible, just to make sure there's nothing blatantly inaccurate. I'll let you know when they publish it.

Later, I worked on a response to a particularly irritating sports column. I know, that's usually not the sort of thing I get into, but this was chiefly about LGBT issues, with some really obvious privilege-flaunting. I was actually going to watch TV, but I got distracted and ended up writing about this for a couple hours, since I was in the mood for it - and once you're in the mood, you can't just stop. Isn't it funny to get distracted by something you're supposed to be working on anyway, while ignoring whatever else you were going to waste time on?

I've started reading Stephen King's Rage, and it made me think about the power of ideas. King actually had it taken out of print because various school shooters were reportedly found to have the book in their possession, and he believed it may have influenced them. Meanwhile, my family was still very insistent that they not be connected to the story about me in any way whatsoever. They're completely supportive, they're just worried that what I do could reflect poorly on them and their standing in the community. It forced me to imagine the ripples that my subject matter would create in a generally conservative-leaning area that's unaccustomed to such things.

If I had instead made shallow and comedic videos (which certainly have their place), even of the gross or lowbrow variety, and gotten popular for it, this would still be at least somewhat acceptable to talk about openly as the kind of the thing you spend your time doing. It's more or less a socially approved activity. But if you only became successful for sharing your thoughts - provocative thoughts, messages with ideas about how the people you find perverse and revolting are actually normal human beings much like yourself, or how you've based your entire life around believing in what's really a preposterous myth, or that you're not really going to live forever like you thought you were - this can sometimes fall outside the window of acceptable discussion. It's not the sort of thing you bring up in polite conversation. It's something that other people don't even want to be tangentially affiliated with, for fear of the consequences that could result. It's enough to challenge, disturb and even frighten people. It can threaten things that they consider very important, with the negative reactions that follow. Understandably, some people just don't want to get caught in the crossfire (or the fallout) when you start eviscerating someone's deeply valued beliefs.

Bertrand Russell put it better than I could:

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid.... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

And a lot of people just don't really want to touch that.