Society: December 2005 Archives

So let's say that there's this jerk. He's always a jerk. Let's say he's a bigot, a white guy that doesn't like blacks, Jews and gays. He sometimes goes out of his way to verbally attack or antagonize them. But he says up front that he feels this way, and therefore decides that everything is fine since he has his disclaimer, as if to say, "You know what you're getting with me by being black, Jewish or gay, so if you feel bad, that's your problem." But is everything fine? Let's examine this. There may be several situations in which it is.

Something bad or very annoying just happened, and you warn everyone around you that you may be a little on edge. Fair enough. These things happen. And it's not like you're always a jerk, like a bigot. However, this doesn't excuse just any behaviour. It only gets you off the hook for being a little snippy.
1. You have good reason not to like a particular person or well-defined group of people. Like people who routinely abuse you, or screw you over. And you have no problem letting them know it. Being mean to such people should be used very sparingly, however. And I don't mean well-defined group as in GERMANS, or people from Victoriaville.
2. You are out of patience because someone is incredibly dense. This is a very, VERY, shaky reason. You had best make absolutely sure that you aren't the one that's stupid. Or that you aren't ever stupid, for that matter. You are rarely as smart as you think you are, or the other person is rarely as stupid as you think they are. This goes quadruple if the other person is in a relationship with you.

So if a person is just a jerk, and that is that, then what reason could excuse them? If a person tells you that they are going to be shitty, and implies that that is all the justification that they need, it doesn't change the fact that they are still shitty people. Are they saying that they aren't shitty because they are being "honest"? Does that trump a crappy attitude? How does this make them less guilty? How does this make them feel less guilty?

At age six, I was surprisingly aware of certain things. In Ontario, Remembrance Day used to be a holiday. It was one of the three saddest days of the year (the other two being the Jerry Lewis Telethon). I felt that it was my civic duty to pay homage to all those that fell during the Great Wars. All day, literally, ALL DAY, I would watch black and white footage of aggression, sacrifice, valour, selfishness and always twisted, grisly death. Every so often a tear would escape my eyes. I felt as though it were my responsibility, because if I didn't remember them that way, somehow, I would be a damned soul doomed to suffer in unspeakable ways. Maybe I would share the fate of the poor people on TV. Remembrance Day was always a rainy, cloudy, colourless day. I don't remember any colours from those days, honestly.

But 25 years ago today was different. Worse, somehow. While with Remembrance Day, I was alone watching TV, feeling morose, doing my annual duty (which I didn't really mind, since it was only once a year), the day that John Lennon died, I went to school. I remember hearing the news some time between six and seven A.M. John Lennon was shot dead by a crazed fan. I knew that John Lennon made music, and that the adults all knew who he was, and loved him. He was their...something-or-other. Someone really, really important and well-liked. When I got to school, the colours seemed to flee. It wasn't just a grey day, but a distinctly black day. The teachers all seemed to look as though they had lost their best friend; later I would realize that they had probably lost a good part of their youth, and that they then realized that they were quite mortal. They walked around stunned. They didn't seem to know what to do anymore. My teacher seemed to have trouble doing her job. At the end of the day when other kids parents picked up their children, they were stone-faced and silent. Every single one of them.

When I got home, the news breaks had exactly one story. John Lennon was dead. When the news came on, there was exactly one story. John Lennon was dead. There was nothing else to talk about. But the blackness! I guess I was much more sensitive then, and things would manifest themselves in colour, or lack thereof. Maybe this is how mediums can sense spirits. There was definitely a spirit of sorts that day. The last times I felt that darkness apart from Remembrance Day was a few months later when Anwar Sadat, Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan were shot (same calendar year). I wonder whatever happened to that sensitivity.