The Age of the Pigeonhole

I am a Trekkie.

I do not need to be psychic to see the images and concepts flashing through your minds:  an overweight, possibly unwashed, geek with pointed ears or Klingon ridges and a zillion t-shirts, out of touch with reality, watching reruns in Mom's basement, buried in 20-year-old fanzines that feature bizarre and unlikely relationship pairings.

Anyone who actually knows me will tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.  Just go look at the picture of me on my first post.  For starters, I am out of doors, and  everyone knows that Trekkies never, ever go outside unless it's to attend a convention, right?

Behold the power of the label.

Humans love to classify things; classification begs labels; and labels are dicey business.  On the one hand they help us to describe with great specificity what we want; on the other hand they encourage the very human tendency to try and "pigeonhole" everything--and everyone.  These days the"pigeonholes" have become more like those really cool plastic tackle boxes with bunches of dividers you insert into slots to create sections of whatever size we want.  Each box has its main classification, say, "Apples", and then upon opening the box you can view all the different sorts of apples, from Macintosh to Red Delicious, each in its own section.  This system is great, because then I can tell my husband to pick up not only Golden Delicious apples for a pie but also several Fujis and Braeburns, because using a variety of apples makes for a better tasting pie; it enables me to say exactly what kind of fabric I need or whether I want oil paints or watercolors or gouache.

Unfortunately, humans don't just classify things:  pretty much since the beginning of civilization we have been classifying ourselves and each other, often with disastrous results.  Man, woman, hunter, farmer, warrior, husband, wife, priest, foreigner, have, have-not, friend, enemy:  these labels--and their subsets--have served as the basis for every conflict in history, and the more specific our classifications have become, the worse the ensuing conflicts.

But after all that, these days the trend seems to be that people have begun to return to the "pigeonhole" mentality.  The people in my circles often bandy about terms like "Republican", "Democrat", "conservative", "liberal", "Christian", and "Pagan",  without even qualifiers like "some Republicans" or "some Christians".

Let me present you with the "Christian" tackle box.  It's one of those HUGE ones, with multiple levels and drawers you can pull out.  The two main drawers would be (despite the Great Schism) Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Catholic, and Protestant.  From these simple divisions would rise the myriad sections (though the Roman Catholics remain largely undivided):  Baptists, Anabaptists, Calvinists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc.--each with their own set of beliefs and practices.  I am also fairly certain that a number of these groups would object strenuously to being in the same tackle box as some of the others--and I won't get into groups like the Mormons, Scientologists, or Jehovah's Witnesses.

In my community, whose varied groups and people embrace Earth Spirituality, I have friends who toss the entire "Christian" tackle box onto the table, point at it and declare, "They hate us and they want to kill us!"

Uh, no.

I agree there are whacked-out Christians, like the Westboro Baptist Church group, who picket the funerals of soldiers killed in combat not because the soldiers themselves were gay, but because the military allows (in a twisted and ass-backwards fashion) gays into their ranks.  There are whacked-out Earth Spirituality people too:  no group, and no one, is perfect.

By definition, real Christians follow the word of Jesus:  Jesus was a wise and kind individual whose ideas were far ahead of his time (and, it appears, far ahead of ours).  From time to time he had a heck of a temper, but by all accounts it only surfaced when it was needed.  Real Christians walk the walk, following Jesus'  example of tolerance and kindness towards those less fortunate.  Real Christians don't want to kill anyone.

The Real World doesn't always allow for strict adherence to these tenets, especially the latter one.  I am not talking about the killings that would have Jesus deploying his temper in spades like the Crusades or witch burnings or the Spanish Inquisition:  I am talking about wars like WWII, where evil threatened the core of civilization.  And each of the events mentioned was brought about by labels:  Christians killing Moslems; Christians torturing and killing people they perceived to be witches; Christians torturing and killing Jews and Moslems and others because they wanted to be "sure" that they had given up their old religions; Nazis killing people who didn't meet their idea of ethnic perfection .  (Looking back at my examples it appears to me that the Christians have an awful track record...that's because my education was largely focused on Western Civilization:  one only has to look to Russian history to read about Uncle Joe Stalin's non-Christian pogroms.  No worries:  Christians haven't cornered the market by a long shot.)

I don't want to digress into the reasons that people find it important to self-identify as a member of any religion.  In my previous blog I discussed the escalating numbers of "Jesus fish" I see on vehicles and business cards. and pentacles the size of dinner plates hanging from the necks of Pagans.  Back in the day, before crosses and crucifixes became fashion accessories, these were almost always blessed by a Catholic priest and worn by the faithful.  In fact, even today, most crosses and crucifixes (and Stars of David) are small and tasteful, because most members of traditional religions--like Presbyterians, Jews, Catholics and Greek Orthodox Catholics--don't feel a need to throw their spirituality in anyone's face.  The "Jesus fish" however, is symbolic of evangelical Christians, and I believe that it is in response to this burgeoning presence and their sometimes extreme views (i.e.,  "YOU ARE A PAGAN--THAT MEANS YOU ARE A SATAN WORSHIPPER!" ) that Pagans find it necessary to wear jewelry that screams "I AM A PAGAN, AND I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK!"

Gah.

If we don't want to be labeled by others, why do we label ourselves?

Here's my label:

I am a person.

Find a tackle box big enough for that.