It’s not just that we live in a time of nonjudgmental acceptance of diversity, but that liberal ideals preclude skepticism of alternative lifestyles. So why not vampires? A study (yes, there’s a study) addresses the dilemmas facing “real vampires.”
“Real vampires” are people who think they must feed on the energies of others, either physically or psychically, for their own wellbeing. Feeding takes a variety of forms. Some will drink blood from consenting human donors, others will rely on physical contact. For some, being in a crowded room is enough to recharge their batteries.
Okay. But as bizarre as this may seem, why is this any more bizarre a self-identification, or less worthy of acceptance, than any other?
The study’s authors identify two beliefs held by helping professionals that are central to a person’s reticence to “come out of the coffin” and disclose their “real vampirism”.
First, that vampires aren’t actually real.
And second, that identifying as a vampire is indicative of a deeper mental health issue.
A sane reaction to an insane identification, obviously. But this is where it gets a bit trickier, as will become apparent, and where the issues raised by identification as a vampire muddle with broader societal issues of diversity and acceptance.
To deal with the first belief, the authors argue that, to the “real vampires” themselves, their self-identity is indeed very real: “Real vampires believe that they do not choose their vampiric condition; they are born with it, somewhat akin to sexual orientation.”
At first sight, the comparison seems laughable, if not deeply offensive to those who have fought – and continue to fight – to have their orientations respected and afforded equal moral, legal, and political rights. But still, I suspect many would hesitate to give public voice to their scepticism.
This is because our scepticism rubs up against liberal demands to tolerate a broad range of different beliefs and choices. And it’s hard to have it both ways.
Identification as a vampire is, well, crazy because we’re allowed to be skeptical about vampirism. It’s not yet an -ism that’s gained sufficient acceptance to require tolerance as a valid choice. But plenty of others have, and that has precluded us from questioning them, or any aspect of them, for fear of being politically incorrect and intolerant.
To the “real vampire,” their identities are real, as is their lack of social acceptance. Why can we hate them but not others? What distinguishes them, beyond the hatred that precludes their social acceptance?
The reason it is hard is because we lack a coherent, objective framework that builds on an amalgamation of historical, cultural, philosophical, artistic, and scientific accounts of what it means to be a human being, and what it is to live in human community.
Instead, society determines legitimate forms of self-determination or identity on the basis of consensus. If sufficient numbers of people demand recognition, they are rewarded it, but until then, they won’t be treated legitimately. People have the right to be bigots, depending on who they’re being bigoted toward.
It used to be that immutable and undeniable characteristics were used to distinguish classes of people worthy of identity protection. Race and gender were beyond dispute. But we’ve since moved far away from that concept, into dark holes where not even gender is an undeniable characteristic anymore.
But then we get into transitory characteristics. What about fat shaming? A subreddit was pulled, r/fatpeoplehate, while weight is a transitory characteristic and, well, has issues that impact others, whether it’s fair or not. Why is it acceptable to be bigoted against vampires but not the obese?
In some sense, vampirism reveals the difficulties of human self-definition in a time of tolerance. Few are prepared to accept vampirism as an authentic mode of being, but, having done away with most traditions of objective value, it’s hard to mount a sustained critique of the pseudo-undead.
Indeed, using the “pseudo-undead” as a means of making this point is quite effective, as other examples raise hackles among those who fail to think deeply enough to realize that there is little intellectual justification to blindly accept people’s beliefs without regard to objective value.
We used to believe that there were identities that were objectively real enough to warrant societal protection. We now believe that society imposing objective value on people’s self-identification is a wrong in itself. So vampires.
Who are you to deny them their identify? How do people arrive at this conclusion that every individual gets to create his or her or its own identity, and it is immune from question and challenge?
The shrill insistence that education not impose particular values on young people has some intellectual basis, but it tends to leave them stranded without a guide in the difficult task of self-knowledge and understanding. No surprises that it occasionally goes awry.
Rather, I think it’s the task of teachers, and those responsible for the education system to provide not only knowledge, but formation. At the very least the lack of formative education is likely to be a major part of how identities like “real vampirism” form in the first place.
Higher ed is both teaching and indulging a belief system that is not only devoid of objective values, but demonizes objective values. Does identification as a vampire deserve equivalency to race? One is an immutable characteristic. The other exists only in the deluded mind of a person in need of treatment. At least, it used to.
How goofy has this adoration of tolerance and diversity gotten? Well, you don’t need to be black to self-identify as black. And you get to make up your own personal pronouns, even though it defeats the essential purpose of language.
Then there is the bias-free guide to language, which not only notes that using “American” is un-American, but that “Ciscentrism includes the lack of gender-neutral restrooms, locker rooms, and residences.” It’s bad enough that there are words we can no longer utter without someone taking offense, but the women who prefer not to pee in front of non-binary men are screwed. We all have feelz, but they don’t necessarily play well together.
When self-identity is untethered from objective value-laden choices, there really isn’t any justification for not having vampire locker rooms. To do so, however, is nuts. It’s got to stop;
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I see that the link for Stephanie West Allen goes to a blog where the first post is to the current edition of Mindfulness Research Monthly. Wut? Are you now a mindfulness kinda guy?
Figures you would pick up on that. Steph has been involved in mindfulness research and implementation from the neuroscientific perspective for years, and has been one of my biggest influences in addressing the distinction between real mindfulness and the voodoo flavor of the month crap being sold as “mindfulness for idiot” in $199.99 packages by people who have no clue what they’re doing or talking about, and gush only shallow, insipid narcissistic feelz nonsense to suck in the foolish and similarly clueless.
Sadly, even people who I thought were better than to enable such scams are allowing themselves to be used to promote them. Steph, on the other hand, is the real McCoy, but isn’t in the business of selling snake oil to idiots. She’s been a driving force in my understanding the dangers of the mindfulness scam.
I just went to that link. It was horrible. I won’t mention names, but I have lost all respect for the individual interviewed, and am disgusted that he would be involved with such a moron. It’s not just that she’s inadequate, but she’s truly stupid.
She’s very nice. She’s also vapid, shallow and clueless. I’ve met her, and she is every bit as sweet and simplistic and she appears.
I have very slowly come to the realization that a lot of people buy snake oil because it works. At least for them. And snake oil sold by sweet people is probably the best kind of placebo. But it probably wouldn’t work all that well for you or most of your incredulous audience.
As this isn’t a discussion of the underlying reason why it’s a problem, a subject that has been discussed here before, it might be more useful to learn about the problem than blindly offer a foolishly generic response.
You’re right — my comment was foolishly generic, because I foolishly assumed that the subject matter of the post and the subject matter of the sub-thread were generic enough to be untethered from your previous posts (and I should have known better).
Yes, we have a pusher, and what she is pushing will cause some damage — and when it does, as you have pointed out, some of that damage may be done to her customers’ customers, and that’s a terrible thing when her customers are lawyers, so most lawyers shouldn’t snort the hard stuff, because they can’t handle it. Yet other lawyers are apparently barely holding it together (but, granted, it could give at any moment) only by snorting the hard stuff.
As with any drug, the pushers are often addicts themselves, and the effects on each individual are quite variable. The same words that mean “you don’t need to try at all” to one individual may mean “you lost; get over it because your next client needs you” to another individual, and are obviously just dangerous-sounding claptrap to most of the individuals around here — precisely because of that effect on the first individual.
Certainly, lawyers shouldn’t be exposed to these words in a vacuum. But they aren’t, are they? Isn’t professional responsibility taught and even retaught for continuing education? Plus, you’re doing your part here. If it’s not enough, maybe you need to form the lawers against snake oil version of MADD.
Two people seek out and study and listen to pro-Islamic propaganda. One of them finds some solace in it and joins a local mosque. The other one travels to join ISIS. If he hadn’t heard the propaganda, would the second one have possibly made a good lawyer, or would it have just looked like he was doing OK on the surface? How about the first one?
Notice how we’ve gone from a one step tangent to the post to a full-blown, completely irrelevant discussion since you took a second step away? And now, to defend your point, we’re going to leave the topic of the post entirely and go even further down that path?
Since you still seem to miss the problem, I’m going to give it one last try. Someone decides to become a car marker. There are other car makers, but she wants to make her own kind of car. The car looks pretty, but it has mechincal problems that make it dangerous. She doesn’t actually know much about cars or why all the mechanical stuff that keeps cars from killing us is in there, but she’s very passionate about them and knows what’s pretty.
I know a lot about cars, so I can see things about the car that makes it dangerous. People see it and go, “my, it’s a very pretty car.” I tell people not to buy that car, even though it looks pretty, because it’s dangerous.
Your comment to me is that I must not like cars, or that if people like the way it looks, they’re allowed and so the danger shouldn’t matter. I have nothing against cars, but I have a problem with people buying something dangerous because they lack the ability to realize that it’s dangerous.
Then, someone with credibility, a person you and I respect, goes on TV on behalf of the car maker and lends their credence to the car, saying “it’s a very pretty car and I like it,” with no mention of its dangers. People buy the pretty but dangerous car. People crash and burn. Sometimes the car driver. Sometimes, the people the car strikes (that’s “clients” for the analogy impaired). All because of a pretty but dangerous car.
This isn’t a story about cars. It’s a story about cars that aren’t dangerous. That’s the difference. I don’t find this acceptable.
And when some defendant gets life in prison because his lawyer dropped the ball, because his happiness and mental health was more important than doing the job of saving his client’s life, I’ll remind you that you thought it was an acceptable choice for the lawyer to make, and it’s fine by you.
No, I see the problem, and agree it’s a huge problem. Great car analogy, btw. I don’t find it acceptable, but I do find it understandable. What to do about it is a whole ‘nother ball of whacks. While we’re on cars, sorry about the hijack.
It’s more of a problem when credible people lend their credence to problematic things. That people promote bad ideas happens. That good people support them is what I do not find “understandable.” Think of the Edmund Burke quote, “all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” Now take it a step further, “for good men to support it.” That’s my problem.
And you are not forgiven for the hijack. I expect an act of contrition and three hail Moseses.
I find it understandable because, if she is a pusher, what does that make him?
I can’t bring myself to think that he couldn’t rise above it. That’s why it disturbed me so much.
Unfortunately, the real world is multi-dimensional. You could tell me that that particular person was a founding member of NAMBLA who believes in the tooth fairy, and I’d still have a lot of respect for his other accomplishments.
His other accomplishments stand on their own. As does this. The real world is multi-dimensional, and this adds a surprising dimension that undermines what one would have expected of an otherwise intelligent and accomplished person. You are free to give it as much or as little weight as you choose. So is David.
Funny, I keep arguing that denial that group exists does not automatically equal being bigoted against the people who claim to be from that group.
I question whether female homosexuality is a real thing, at least as long as those who claim that seem overwhelmingly into advanced dildonics. But I don’t advocate any policies against them. Same as I would with horses who identify as unicorns because they attached prosthetics on their foreheads.
Maybe I’m wrong. Who cares? Social tolerance does not require that everyone agree what is and is not a real thing (which would be impossible). Only that we not try to fuck particular people over.
Therefore sick of “celebrating” transgenderism and homo marriage. I will start doing that when everyone starts celebrating my bachelor lifestyle.
The politically correct social line is we must buy into everyone’s purported sexuality as a real thing without question. I usually respond with objectum sexuality, a sincerely identified not real thing.