Lb4Lb#11 - The Trouble With Hippies

I was not a "child of the '60's" by any stretch of the imagination.

My exposure to the 1960s was solely through the filter of my very straight-laced parents and their record collection: Dean Martin, The Monkees, Glen Campbell, Cher, Peter, Paul and Mary, and... Leonard Nimoy. Yes. THAT Leonard Nimoy. The Way I Feel (you should find the LP some time and check it out). We had a couple of Beatles records, but as I later discovered, they fell out of favor after John Lennon's remark about being "bigger than Jesus" - and that copy of Rubber Soul was as close as I got to "counter-culture" until high school.
Thinking positivity
If you wanna be with me
I'll take you to the promised land
Come on baby take my hand
Stop Draggin AroundOf course, I did grow up in the 1980s, and nostalgia for "flower power" was all the rage. I missed a lot of that because our family lived out in the sticks, and we didn't have a VCR until 1989 - so while my friends were into the Vietnam-era war pics and Cheech & Chong, I was mostly sitting home, not a part of the whole scene.

Not that I wanted any part of it - that silly hippy-dippy drug culture stuff was for sinners. I was deep into my church and considered myself above all of that nonsense. I saw myself as above it all, and I resisted "temptation" like a good boy.
I've been lost in the name of love
And we kill our brothers daily in the name of god
We'd better chill before we take on some tribulation
And if we realized
Then we'd make a little love
now sing
What The Fuck Are We SayingPuberty changes things. That is an intentional understatement.

It was easy to dismiss the New Age philosophy and all of the political talk of the 1960s with the benefit of hindsight (and lots of coaching from Grandpa and my church family), but hormones bring home a truth that is hard to ignore. Feeling my body take over my mind in so many ways made me understand that "control" is not simply a matter of following rules. I began to recognize that the things people feel are real to them - and unless you've felt what they feel, you can't judge them.
My mama said
That it's good to be fruitful
But my mama said
Don't take more than a mouthful
And my mama said
That it's good to be natural
And my mama said
That it's good to be factual
Always On The RunAfter I started questioning my principles, I was freed to explore things that I had always disdained. Music was the most exciting area to explore, because it felt both defiant and safe; I could try out crazy ideas without necessarily DOING crazy things. I could listen to stories and feelings and see places and pieces of history that had passed me by while I was trying to fit the world inside my Bible.

Some things are easier to get into than others, though, and a lot of the really revolutionary, underground, and radical stuff from the Summer of Love and the early 1970s still shocked my sensibilities. I couldn't get into Lennon's politically charged anthems, I couldn't grasp Jimi's wild guitar work, and I really had no idea what to make of Zeppelin. There were singles that I liked, but there was so much out there - and much of it was so FAR out there - that I couldn't figure out where to start.

And there was another wrinkle to this musical blockage.

A white Southern Baptist kid never feels comfortable with certain things. What it is they are uncomfortable with will vary, but for me, it is Soul music. It's not that I don't like it, but rather that I become self-conciously hyper-aware while I am listening to it that I am an awkward white kid, and that something deeply sexual is happening that I should probably not be exposed to. Much of the Sixties vibe revolves around an exploration of Soul. Sometimes it's more Blues, sometimes it's covered up by the bombast of Rock; but underneath it all is the sexually charged subtext of black people and their freedom from the Puritanical roots that my ancestors instilled in their descendants.
So many tears I've cried
So much pain inside
Baby it ain't over 'til it's over
So many years we've tried
And kept our love alive
'Cause Baby it ain't over 'til it's over
It Ain't Over Til It's OverAll of which brings me to my point: why Mama Said is such an important album to me. With all of these many paragraphs of prologue, you might be expecting something deep, but like the counter-culture, and hippies, and free love and drugs, there's really not much beneath the surface.

There is an important thing inside all of us that sets limits. For people like me, those limits can sometimes be deeply ingrained, almost like a moat, and it takes something special to bridge the gap to the other side. Lenny's sophomore album made these things safe for me.

That was all I needed.
You say you can't trust me
Have you tried?
You say you don't love me
That's a lie
There are so many so many rainbows
That we were to climb
But baby baby why can't we survive?
We've got to get our heads untangled
And free our state of mind
The Difference Is WhyLenny's music is not deep - the lyrics border on vapid, and the rhymes are sometimes forced to the point of ridiculousness. The music has been widely criticized as being derivative of Hendrix and Zeppelin, and there's no doubt that this is true.

But.

For a white suburban Southern Baptist kid intimidated by his sexuality and the wide world he was facing, Mama Said gave me a place to relate and unwind. It didn't matter that this guy was singing - in falsetto! - about sex, because it was relatively harmless. (At least compared to Prince.) And it didn't matter that the guitars were only a little loud (courtesy of Slash), because these songs rocked! It felt to me like what it was for Lenny: a celebration of a lot of really good things.

The trouble with hippies is that they tend to be shallow and frivolous. But somehow, the magic of this album was that it didn't have to be deep or important. It wanders through Fields of Joy, and if you learn to relax, you will find that the limits you set for yourself don't have to be shattered to be softened. You don't have to destroy yourself to grow. You can just take it as it comes.

And there's really nothing wrong with that at all.

You Might Even Have Fun

The Washington Post has this column discussing nine ideas for "fixing" our political problems. First among the ideas they say Won't Work is this persistent notion that a Third Party candidate will come along and topple the equally corrupt and repellent Republican/Democrat paradigm.  As they say, ‎"The third-party fantasy is of a courageous political leader who could persuade Americans to support..." a slate of populist, moderate issues.

If it isn't clear from my earlier writings, I've been hopeful about that happening myself.  But I agree that this non-existent Third Party won't be able to do this from the top down.  Even if a group could rally behind a candidate, that person would have no political support structure in office.  Who would they nominate for the hundreds of Cabinet and judicial positions? Who would a Third Party candidate have in Congress to propose and manage their legislative goals?


The Post also points out how the experiment of Americans Elect to use the internet as a tool to rally around these erstwhile Third Party aspirants has largely failed.  Personally, I think they should have spent their money on a secure website that lets members build a profile of their various beliefs/opinions/expertise, and then "matches" them to local candidates. Something like a "dating" site for voters to find compatible candidates.

There are some sites like this out there already - you can play with sites like Select Smart 2012, Ontheissues.org,  Glassbooth.org, and even the USA Today Match game,  just to name a couple - but they tend to use slanted test questions that lump people into broad categories or offer a superficial percentage of "how similar" they are to the mainstream candidates. I'm talking about a more academically rigorous set of questions designed to get past the labels people adopt and find out what their "ideal candidate" would look like - then compare that "ideal" to the profiles of available candidates. 


Of the sites that exist, Glassbooth starts out close to what I would envision as the "getting started" phase; when you set up your profile on Tad's Educated Voter site, you would get a slate of a dozen or so issues that you can rate on a scale from "Care deeply" to "Deep apathy" - and mark whether you are eligible or willing to run for public office. Then over time, the app would notify members of new questions or issues, send out "straw polls," and basically ask things intended to refine everyone's profile and draw out something deeper than "do you support/oppose gay marriage" or "support/oppose Big Government" - loaded questions with a lot of hidden nuance.


The trick would be to get actual candidates to build a profile, too, so they could be compared in a more realistic way to potential constituents.  This would be easier to do at local levels, in my opinion.  Or, even better, if you want to really harness the 'Net and enable true democracy, this site should match members up with any office for which they are eligible to run.  If they are interested, they can identify themselves on the site as Candidates, and let their profile get matched to those of potential voters - so everyone involved could see a deeper, more accurate comparison with a real candidate AND that candidate could gauge the likely level of support they could get before throwing in their hat.

That part of the site - the collecting of information about people's opinions - has a lot of possibilities, both for use and abuse. Protecting User privacy and avoiding even the faintest whiff of sponsorship-corruption would be crucial.  But if you can build that trust, and give people reliable guidance, I think that would be of enough value to people that they would sign up - at least for the initial curiosity factor.

But my point is that we've already seen viral quiz-taking, political activity apps, and a wide variety of social networking sites that nobody thought would survive take off in the last several years.  If this "Candidate Match-making" site were built, I have no doubt it could be turned into something truly useful for both voter education and for improving voter participation in state & local politics.  To me, the possibility of being able to see what a candidate really thinks before I vote for her would be worth the effort of putting together my own profile. Once there is a large enough community base, I'm sure the idea that any potential candidate could reach out to an anonymous, but still vetted, group of potential voters and ask them to share the link to their campaign materials FOR FREE would be worth the effort of putting together their profile.

Now, to go back to that Post article, think about the other things on their list of ideas that will/won't work that would be fixed by a system like the one I just described.  If the site itself is non-partisan and non-profit, wouldn't that address some of the campaign finance and voter participation issues?  If voters are engaged, AND inspired to run, wouldn't that competition address the Term Limits issue?  And who knows... a lot of people who are bored by our current system might actually enjoy this.

I know a lot of people in web design, and a lot of people who have studied political sciences and sociology - I have no doubt they could join forces (even if they disagree on party politics) and come up with the right mix of questions, the right user interface, and the right API to tie into Facebook and Twitter.  I offer myself as a User/Guinea Pig if you launch one of these sites.

Who knows... it might actually help.  And you might even have fun doing it.

We Are Better Than That

Someone on the radio was pleading his case to change public policy tonight, and while I can't quite recall the topic, I remember thinking, "Yeah, right, buddy.  In today's political climate, even if you're right, you will get shot down for suggesting the government try to change THAT. And then he said something that both won and lost his argument for him all at once:

We're better than that.

I stopped listening to the news at that point, and must have switched over to the ipod.  But I kept hearing him say it, over and over. You could hear in his voice that he didn't just think he was right - he knew it - but he also knew that ultimately he would lose whatever battle he was fighting. He would lose because you can't force people to do the right thing.  We're Americans, and you can't tell us what to do.

We're better than that.

I remember visiting my grandparents in 2001.  Grandpa's health was failing.  He suffered from Alzheimer's, joint ailments, and we didn't know it at the time, but he had lung cancer. That was what killed him - even though he had given up cigarettes in the 1950s.

He and grandma were living in an RV on a campsite located on the San Carlos Apache Reservation near Peridot, Arizona. Uncle Russ was having to drive out there once a week (about 50 miles from Phoenix) to get him, take him to his medical appointments at the VA Clinic in Globe, and take him back home.  It was summer, and we sat with squirming babies in the tiny motor home, visiting beaming elderly people in 95 degree heat with two little vent fans blowing on the six of us.

I asked them why they didn't let the family put them up in a place in town?  We could visit more often, they'd be more comfortable, and we insisted it wouldn't be a financial burden.  Grandma recoiled.  "Oh, we couldn't live in an apartment in the city!" she said, in a tone that said, "That's just too low class."

We're better than that.

These days, I hear people complaining about our alleged "Big Government." They sneer about the so-called nanny state, insisting that if people were given all the options and left alone, they would chose the best path for themselves. This runs against all evidence to the contrary, of course, as most people tend to make their decisions based on everything but logic and reason.

People buy what they want, whether they can afford it or not, because it appeals to them.  They eat what they want because it tastes good, or is cheap - not because it will make them healthy. They rationalize their actions day and night, voting to deny others the right to do what they are sneaking around behind their spouses' backs to do.  They drive too fast, playing with phones and drinks and makeup; they are fine to drive because they only had a few.

We're better than that.

I watched people changing lanes without using turn signals, and speeding through the rain, and I thought about that statement.  What an assertion of defiant, unreasoning hope.  What a ridiculous notion.  Both true and false, the unassailable losing argument of the desperate.

I watch people bristle at civility campaigns, and defend the bullies running for office. I watch states violate individuals' rights to marry, and then watch the same people moan about Big Government intrusions.  I watch people stuff salt & fat-laden foods into bodies already on the verge of developing diabetes while they complain about health care plans.

We're not better than that.  We're exactly that.  We like to tell ourselves that we're above the rest, that we're exceptional.  It's our great pride that makes us think we've got answers and ideals worth invading and imposing on others - as long as no one tries to impose anything on US... because we're better than that.

But are we?

Unsupported [Ass]ertions

I have many friends from across the political spectrum who do not share my point of view on the U.S. economy these days.  Unfortunately, it's hard to pin anyone down for a realistic discussion about what our respective points of view even are - we're all busy, either working or looking for work - and most people don't have time to lay out any kind of cohesive argument.  So most of the time we end up sniping at each other over news items, throwing around straw man arguments, and generally not being very satisfied with the answers on any side.

 

So, since I laid this down on Facebook today, I thought I'd move it here to serve as a "this is what I think your argument is" post for those who wish to present a more thorough representation of their point of view.

 

Let me see if I can do your argument justice:
"No budget should spend more than its income. Spending has been too high for too long, and we count money given to the poor and/or unemployed to be 'spending'. However, we don't count money given in the form of subsidies or tax breaks to large corporations as 'spending,' though, and we object to the idea that those corporations should have to pay their 'fair share' because it's not fair that 51% of the U.S. population doesn't pay taxes either."

Referring to my own blog again (forgive the narcissism), the amounts given away through loopholes to even just a few companies exceeded the amounts paid out to the poor. That tells me that the "spending problem" doesn't lie with the poor.

The real, glaring problem is that quibbling over a few billion here and a few million there doesn't address the trillions in the debt. Arguments like yours try to erode the palatability of "entitlements," building up the image of the government-dependent Welfare Queen as the root of our money problems. While I think that's wrong in and of itself, the logical error is to then try to equate the moneys devoted to actual welfare programs (TANF, SNAP, WIC, Unemployment) with actual entitlement programs - Social Security, and Medicare. These are where the massive amounts of monetary outlays are, and the problem with disparaging entitlements is that unlike the smaller scale, temporary help offered by TANF, SNAP, WIC, et al Social Security and Medicare are actual entitlements. Meaning that the recipients have already paid into the system in previous years, and are entitled to the payments previously agreed to.

The next page of your argument reads like this: "The economy is bad because taxes are excessive, which makes Job Creators afraid to hire more people. If taxes were reduced, they would hire more."

This part of the argument relies on ignoring the[se] facts: effective corporate tax rates are lower than they have been since the 1950s (PDF source - Tax foundation) while corporate profits have more than recovered from the recession (PDF source - BEA).

Meanwhile, critical infrastructure spending - which I think should have been the core of the 2009 Stimulus package still needs to be taken care of. Transportation and (surprise) investing in energy efficiency and technology development should get plussed up - along with adult education to help the jobless find work in an economy that doesn't need as many people doing pre-internet jobs. (Right now, there is a shortage of truck drivers - a~$50k/year job - and truck-driving school can cost several thousand dollars).

Refusing to take steps that would directly boost employment in the name of "protecting Job Creators" who don't need the help is disingenuous, irresponsible, and... unfortunately... the chosen political strategy of the opposition.

Did I represent you well enough...?

Lb4Lb#10: Black & White City Blues

I have no doubt that the city of New York has changed considerably in the nearly 25 years since Lou Reed recorded his album of songs about it - but I would be willing to bet that these songs still describe it pretty well. It's hard to know how well without going, but I do live in Baltimore, and it isn't hard to imagine some of these dark snapshots being taken on the streets here.

Because even though they grow up, die off, move away, or find Jesus in the course of a quarter century, people don't really change.

The man if he marries will batter his child
and have endless excuses
The woman sadly will do much the same
thinking that it's right and it's proper
Better than their mommy or their daddy did
Better than the childhood they suffered
The truth is they're happier when they're in pain
In fact, that's why they got married.
- Endless CycleAt the top of the liner notes, it says "This album was recorded and mixed at Media Sound, Studio B, N.Y.C., in essentially the order you have here. It's meant to be listened to in on 58 minute (14 songs!) sitting as though it were a book or a movie." That's not a bad description at all.

The scenes alternate between angry rockers and bitter down-tempo scenes of life in the Big City. He kicks off with his starker, more realistic take on West Side Story, and then goes to a Halloween Parade - first retelling the Shakespeare story with hoods and thugs, then listing the colorful & wild characters he has watched drop dead of AIDS. As he alternates through each scene, Lou describes the familiar, banal, and frustrating humanity crammed together into any large urban environment - complete with the glimmers of hope.

But they're only glimmers.
Manhattan's sinking like a rock, into the filthy Hudson what a shock
They wrote a book about it, they said it was like ancient Rome
The perfume burned his eyes, holding tightly to her thighs
And something flickered for a minute and then it vanished and was gone.
-Romeo Had JuliettePeople don't change. The names do, the faces do, and sometimes their stories play out in a place that has been cleaned up, rebuilt, or improved. We tell ourselves that things can get better - and we try to make it better - but people don't change. They act selfishly, and almost universally put their short term pleasure ahead of any long term benefits they might get out of life. They sacrifice their health in favor of distraction, and they complain about the surroundings they create.
There's no such thing as human rights
When you walk the N.Y. streets
A cop was shot in the head by a 10 year old kid named Buddah in
Central Park last week
The fathers and daughters are lined up by
The coffins by the Statue of Bigotry
You better hold on something's happening here.
-Hold OnThat's not good news, in itself. But the idea is that as shocking and horrible, and full of irony as that song is, it still feels familiar and immediate. Things don't change much in 25 years because there really is only so far down you can go. I always hear people talking about how we going to hell in a handbasket as if these kinds of things are new. They aren't. They've always happened.
You can't depend on no miracle
You can't depend on the air
You can't depend on a wise man
You can't find them because they're not there
You can depend on cruelty
Crudity of thought and sound
You can depend on the worst always happening
You need a Busload of Faith to get by
-Busload of FaithBad things will always happen, because People don't change. But we keep trusting that someone will save us. We keep thinking it could get better if the right leader or the right team would come along and show all those bad guys a thing or two.

And while you may not get the references made in some of these songs to events and people from 1989 - Oliver North, Kurt Waldheim, Jesse Jackson and even Rudy Giuliani- Lou's name-checking still holds its weight as he describes the world they helped shape.

It's a world you live in.

Well Americans don't care for much of anything
Land and water the least
And animal life is low on the totem pole
With human life not worth more than infected yeast
Americans don't care too much for beauty
They'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
And complain if they can't swim
-Last Great American WhaleThis is an ugly album, and an angry one - it's a photograph of each of us, living in a rundown world we inherited from people who wanted to think they were giving us something better. It's disappointment and disgust, a stark look at ourselves, whether we live in cities or not. But in the middle of it all there is a persistent, defiant hope. He never quite comes out and says it, but you can tell Lou thinks that he is better than this rat-infested garbage pit he sees all around him.

Maybe it wouldn't be so disappointing if we all weren't capable of better. Romeo Rodriquez and Juliette Bell didn't have to make the choices they made, after all, and neither do you.

It might be fun to have a kid I could pass something on to
Something better than rage, pain, anger and hurt
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
She says Lou, it's the Beginning of a Great Adventure
-Beginning of a Great AdventureThe truth is that's how we make it better. People don't change, so it's up to us to make them better from the Beginning.

Maybe following that glimmer will lead us out of the trash.

Damaged Ones - Tale 3, "The Thriller"

(Originally writtern Tuesday, September 12, 2006; the events described would have taken place in the early 1980s.)

This will come as a shock, I'm sure, but I've never been within spitting distance of what you would call "hip." I've always been a couple steps out of phase of the rest of the band... which is fine when you're in 4/4 time. D'oh... there I go again! (You see, it's not really cool to know too much about band!)

But things do change; I have come a long way since the sixth grade and my violent opposition to popular music. What... you didn't hear about the time I bit a kid on a field trip over "Thriller"? Well, sit back:

It was a Christian school in Phoenix, and my parents had sent me there because they didn't like the friends I was making in public school. At the scandalous age of 9, I was learning dirty words and dirty jokes on the playground, MAD magazines were showing up in my school bag, and I was showing signs of interest in female genitalia, so they were worried about my influences.

I spent three years in the Northwest Community Christian School, and to be brutally honest.... it wasn't Christian enough for me! You see, I was Born Again at age 11, which made my family very proud, and I meant it. I was a True Believer, right down to my Holy socks, and it made me angry to see the other kids around me at this supposedly "Christian" school constantly reveling in everything Satan put out in the world to tempt them -- slasher movies, raunchy TV shows, naughty magazines and book, and worst of all Rock music!

I proudly listened only to Family Life Radio, where every night Dr. James Dobson would talk on Focus on the Family about the dangers of letting your children be exposed to harmful and worldly things. I took every word to heart.

 You have to give me credit: I was genuinely worried about my classmates. I honestly believed that their souls were in jeopardy, and that they would end up running around campus with their pants down, setting fire to cars and buildings, doing drugs while they mutilated pets... picture Bill Murray, a la Ghostbusters -- "Dogs and cats, living together... Mass Hysteria!"

That was my fear.

And then came the field trip. One of the girls in my class was the daughter of an extremely wealthy construction mogul in the area, and he sponsored a field trip to his house for our class, complete with a fleet of limousines for the students. Looking back, this makes no sense; I have no idea what the educational value was in tramping about on his huge estate looking at his antique car collection and his enormous pool. But, there we were, and on the way back to the school, someone discovered the radio.

There were several of us in the car: my friends Robert and Scott, and the class bully, Todd. Upon discovering the controls for the radio, they promptly tuned in a Top 40 station. I protested... arugments flew... and I accused them all of loving Satan. This may be where the break-down in civility occured.

Somehow I ended up pinned to the back seat by Scott, while Robert cranked the volume. "I love this song," he crowed. It was "Thriller". You have to understand that in my mind "Thriller" represented everything that was wrong with our society at that time. It was about zombies (the undead, a tool of Satan), it encouraged dancing (think "Church Lady"), and worst of all: Michael Jackson was a Jehovah's Witness!!!

Yeah, lame. But I was so mad that I leaned up and bit a chunk out of Scott's sternum.

In retrospect, it was extremely stupid, and for so many reasons. But until it happened, I didn't realize what a completely unreasoning dogmatic prick I was growing into. Receiving four swats from the principal of the school (I pleaded with him that I was defending the faith while he tried valiantly not to laugh at me) was a wake-up call.

That certainly wasn't the point where I started questioning God. That wouldn't come for at least another 5 years.  But it was the point where I began to doubt myself. It was the point where I realized that being "saved" did not wrap one in a blanket of righteousness where I could do no wrong.  It did, however, wrap my in self-righteousness, and made me an insufferable prick.

I can still be an insufferable, self-righteous prick, but thanks to that experience I learned to watch for the danger signs. When I first discovered Socrates - "it is not in the nature of things that a bad man should injure one better than himself" - I thought back to the kid I was in that limo.  A kid so sure that my attitude and actions were justified, that I could physically assault someone out of righteous rage.

I don't bite people anymore. It's not a very Christian thing to do, of course.  But more importantly, it isn't moral.

But I still don't really care much for Michael Jackson.

My Existence Is Not an Attack On You

You may have noticed a trend in my recent posts. I don't consider myself an activist or "evangelical atheist," but circumstances over the years - like those I've related in the "Damaged Ones" stories - have shaped me and when I feel provoked, I don't usually hesitate to respond.  With increasing frequency I have felt provoked, and the reactions people have had to my responses have been interesting; most of my friends stay silent, while some express relief that they aren't alone. And inevitably, a few react as though I'm attacking them personally, or they at least find my position to be threatening. I'd like to take a whack at explaining why they should not feel that way.

I've used Doctor Who to illustrate points about religion before, and I'm about to do it again. I will tell you this now just so you won't feel shocked and betrayed later: I don't "believe in" the Doctor.  Meaning, of course, that while I thoroughly enjoy the program, I don't think he's real - he does not exist in any concrete way. Of course, I derive a lot of inspiration from the show, and love the stories. I have even purchased "action figures" (aka, "idols") to display in my workplace and my children have created Who-inspired things with Legos and various other media. We all enjoy the time we spend together watching and laughing over the episodes (aka, "worship").  And as you read this, you're witnessing an act of Who-vangelism... sort of.

But let's say you aren't into the Doctor or his story, and you don't understand its value to the millions of fans. Maybe you can't fathom why people would spend time and money going to Gallifrey One to pay homage to the immortal British nerd-god.  Maybe it disturbs you that Dr. Who (or at least his TARDIS) is omnipresent (can travel anywhere in time and space) omniscient (can find anything out) and omnipotent - at least, he hasn't been completely beaten, yet.  The character borders on immortal, and finds his way into the history of our little planet, constantly saving us from disaster (and occasionally causing it) and sacrificing himself because he loves us. Sound familiar?

If you're reasonable about the whole thing, you either get hooked, or you make your nerd jokes and move on.  Maybe you enjoy the shows but ignore the rest of the fan culture as harmless fun. At least no one insists that you believe all of this fantasy to be literally true, and no one insists that you respect their beliefs in a real Doctor by pretending to lend them credence. It's all good, harmless fun! Allons-y!

Or maybe you've run across that one Rabid Super Fan(tm) who ruins it for everyone around him. The guy who wears the 20-foot rainbow scarf and trenchcoat everywhere, and shows everyone his scrapbook of "actual" Doctor sightings; the guy who insists that the whole premise is real and that the Doctor is going to show up and take him away some day.  Nutter, right?

Consider though: what if everyone was that guy? What if everyone you knew believed at some level that the Doctor was a real person? Maybe they don't all dress up and go to the cons, but they get uncomfortable when you question their belief system - which is clearly built on nothing but a TV show. What if they all treated you like an amoral outsider, and when you ask for evidence backing up their claim that the DVDs and numerous fansites and BBC-produced encyclopedias are all factual they accuse you of attacking them.  How frustrating would it be to watch them get angry at you for not believing in what, to them, seems so obvious and logical - and for that anger to become irrational when you ask them to tone it down, or not bring it up in schools, courtrooms, or other public arenas where it really has no place.

Sadly, it's not much of a stretch to suggest that this could happen. It has happened before - fantasy intruding on reality.  Take the lady who insisted on showing up for jury duty in Starfleet uniform in 1996. Or take the example of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard's fabricated faith, against which a French court upheld a fraud conviction recently. Or consider the Mormon church... and at what point do you stop me and say, "But you're not talking about something that's made up for entertainment any more. You're talking about religion!"

You would be right to ask where the line between the two is located, and if you saw that coming from the second paragraph, good on you.

You see, from my point of view, there isn't any substantial difference between religion and sci-fi/fantasy fandom. I can't blame you if my saying that makes you mad; emotions tend to run high when you appear to slight something that someone else holds dear. I've seen the heated arguments that can break out after someone confuses Star Trek and Star Wars around a pack of nerds.

Consider, though: to the intense Trekkie and the Old Republic padawan there is a huge difference between their chosen worlds, just like there is a huge difference between being Catholic and Protestant, or Shiite and Sunni. To the objective outside observer, it's all just spaceships and weird aliens, or different flavors of Jesus or Allah.

And that's supposed to be Okay! As long as no rogue Jedi show up to the Star Trek Hilton strapped with thermal detonators and a yen to join the glowing line of martyrs on Dagobah, we should all be able to get along. There is room in the real world for your chosen fantasy role play - and in that real world, it's okay for the objective observer to call it that.  Or at least it should be.

Because while it should be perfectly acceptable for me to say that all of this fiction IS fiction, many of you with deeply held religious faith will inevitably take it as an attack on your identity. In reality, though, my failure to buy into your fantasy world is not the same thing as hating, attacking, or attempting to legally ban your freedom to enjoy it as you see fit. If you were to strip away the artificial status and respect that is reserved for religion, it would be no more or less valuable to me - a non-believer or non-fan - than Doctor Who is to someone who doesn't like the show.

I am sorry if that comparison offends you, but all I can offer you as consolation is the assurance that I don't say that in order to mock you. After all, I really like the Doctor, remember? It's not like I'm comparing your holy faith to something I find repugnant - like WWE.

Regardless, by this point the Faithful are already complaining about a lack of tolerance on my part. This is not fair, because really, I already tolerate quite a lot of fandom around me every day. There are plenty of cultural touchstones that I ignore because they simply don't do anything for me; I shy away from Dungeons & Dragons, Mech Warriors, and various other fad franchises even when they are being constantly thrust in front of me.

But I don't have to leave "Thundercats, ho!" out of the Pledge at Scout meetings, and my money doesn't change value depending on the roll of a 20-sided die. And after marketing campaigns wind down, most of these cultural pleas for my fealty fade away.  Religion is different, because no matter where I go or who I talk to, I have to face it - and I have to give it a layer of respect that I don't feel, and don't have to pretend to hold for these other cultural artifacts.

There is another wrinkle: I used to be one of the Faithful. If you read my stories, you should be able to see how painful that was for me, and how hard it was for me to leave behind. And it's never really gone, because of all of the well meaning friends and family who think they are helping me by trying to "win me back to the Lord". That's something that's not an issue with other kinds of fandom. But I put up with that behavior as politely as I can for their sake. I don't yell or argue with those who care about me; heck, I'm even nice to the strangers who show up on my door step with leaflets.

If you saw the earlier post about my little Foursquare stunt, you see that if I really couldn't tolerate religion, I wouldn't really have many options for leaving my house. In our culture, I'm surrounded by churches, church people, and Jesus at every turn. If I "hated" religion or religious people, I couldn't enjoy a lot of things I enjoy doing with my family, like taking the kids to Scouts; I couldn't enjoy old gospel songs that mention God or Jesus.

But I do those things, and mostly don't complain. I only really get angry about it when there are clear lines drawn - like the U.S. Constitution - which are supposed to keep one group's fandom from intruding on everyone else's reality. Or when my sons are faced with a false choice between "duty to God" in their Scout requirements and their own reasoned non-belief. When it comes to a point where I either have to lie and say "sure, I believe" or tell the truth, I will tell the truth - and that's when things seem to go wrong.

All I really want is the same tolerance I show all the time - which isn't often forthcoming.

You see, for all of the unreality that people embrace, there is a common ground we should all be able to agree on. We have a universe around us in which we all live, and it has rules we can see and prove. You may take great comfort in your belief in an afterlife, and you may require an ancient authority to compel you to be good, and that's fine. But you can't belong to them and ignore what they do in your name. Even if you aren't personally forcing your beliefs on people like me, you need to recognize that your church often is - and by extension, I'm perfectly right to ask you to stop trying to make me pretend that your beliefs stand on the same solid ground that the rest of our real universe stands on.

That's what science is supposed to be for - establishing that common ground.  It doesn't require any "belief" or "faith" - just study.  When we learn things about the world around us, and can demonstrate through repeatable experimentation that certain physical laws hold true, that makes it possible for us to understand the real world. Some concepts are harder to demonstrate than others. Some experiments you wouldn't want to repeat. Some ideas involve complex systems that defy conventional wisdom. Too often people who don't understand how all of this works confuse the worlds of science and fiction, or they begin comparing the acceptance of scientific facts they don't understand with taking them "on faith." It is this confusion which allows them to start classifying reality as just another set of beliefs.

"Believing in Science" is not about belief - there's no leap of faith, there's not really any need for it. You observe, you predict, you test. Sometimes you have to accept a specialist's word for things you can't test or observe for yourself, but that's about trust, not belief. Trust, but verify, if possible. Of course, I can attest that when you start doing that and applying even a little bit of rigor to your less concrete beliefs, the mystical tends to suffer.

It's worth recalling the case against Scientology in this context. Very few of the religious folks I know would consider that to be a "real" religion, and because of that, it makes a good candidate to test the legal waters. If people of faith are willing to punish Scientologists for conning followers, doesn't that open their own churches up to the same legal inquiry? If we all band together - believers and non-believers alike - to protect Scientologists's beliefs without challenging their validity, doesn't that leave us all vulnerable to any con man who "sincerely believes" his own con? And how do you measure or prove sincerity?

A lot of people making this point come off as if it's a foregone conclusion that you have to accept Science and abandon Religion - but I still think that there is room in our society for that to be up to each individual. Because I understand how people use faith to get through difficulty, I would not presume to force them to give it up - no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. And because I know how much everyone values imagination and fantasy, I wouldn't take those things away, either.  They are a part of us that I value, too.

So while I will push back when I see your chosen fandom intruding on my life, I have no intention of "attacking" your faith. I would never deprive you of your lofty dreams, your exciting tales, or your darker escapist fantasies.  But at some point, everyone has to decide what world they actually live in.

And in reality, we don't really have a choice in that matter.

(Note: this has been edited for grammar and to update/remove dead links.)