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Christianity
2 years ago
Some people are terribly trapped in dogma. They resort to intimidation in an attempt to harass, bully, and silence people that don't agree with them. They believe their cause is so just that no one is allowed to question them. Many people will quietly support this belief system not because they agree with it, but out of fear. They keep their head down and become very reclusive for fear of angering the mob. It is in this oppressive environment that individuality is suppressed and people don't want to to express themselves for fear of not even saying the wrong thing, but having their speech interpreted the wrong way.
Most of the culprits of these terrible behaviors are in it for selfish reasons. These systems let them flex their narcissism using a variety of tools and makes them feel powerful for their own self-serving ends.
Many culprits aren't even using Christianity.
Christianity gets a lot of hate for it's anti science and anti LGBT stance, but the same kind of dogma that makes Christianity inflexible and emboldens bullies and narcissists exists on the other side of the coin too. In the furry fandom, people that aren't 100% liberal are expected to stay in the closet. People that express dissent are regularly excommunicated. The kind of otherization we're told to be wary of is practiced by these narcissists. The parallels are critical for people to understand that the Furry fandom is not the kind of escape from this oppression that it appears to be. It's exchanging one set of traps for another.
Just as Christians are driven by fear, so are furries. The media has decades, if not centuries of experience for how to control people with fear. These techniques work just as well as they always have, even though the specific boogeymen have changed over the years. Creating enemies where there are none is a common tool to gain power. And narcissists will do this, declaring an enemy so that they have someone to rally behind in a 1984 style 2 minute hate fest.
Next time anyone tells you to block someone and distance from them, you need to consider why they're telling you this. No matter what evidence they provide, a lot of that is easily faked. They're probably doing it to cover their own crimes. They might be the terrible person engaging in terrible crimes that you need to call avoid.
Most of the culprits of these terrible behaviors are in it for selfish reasons. These systems let them flex their narcissism using a variety of tools and makes them feel powerful for their own self-serving ends.
Many culprits aren't even using Christianity.
Christianity gets a lot of hate for it's anti science and anti LGBT stance, but the same kind of dogma that makes Christianity inflexible and emboldens bullies and narcissists exists on the other side of the coin too. In the furry fandom, people that aren't 100% liberal are expected to stay in the closet. People that express dissent are regularly excommunicated. The kind of otherization we're told to be wary of is practiced by these narcissists. The parallels are critical for people to understand that the Furry fandom is not the kind of escape from this oppression that it appears to be. It's exchanging one set of traps for another.
Just as Christians are driven by fear, so are furries. The media has decades, if not centuries of experience for how to control people with fear. These techniques work just as well as they always have, even though the specific boogeymen have changed over the years. Creating enemies where there are none is a common tool to gain power. And narcissists will do this, declaring an enemy so that they have someone to rally behind in a 1984 style 2 minute hate fest.
Next time anyone tells you to block someone and distance from them, you need to consider why they're telling you this. No matter what evidence they provide, a lot of that is easily faked. They're probably doing it to cover their own crimes. They might be the terrible person engaging in terrible crimes that you need to call avoid.
I have been on the receiving end of no small amount of vitriol and bile pertaining to my expressing anything that isn't 100% groupthink, and viewed as significantly worse for even hinting at solutions or ideas that weren't popular. It is, unfortunately, rampant in the fandom, and has been growing more so for the last 5 or so years at an alarming rate.
I've been seeing this trend take a hard dive away from why I enjoyed the fandom. This trend is very worrying and I refuse to cave into these narcissists that demand I submit to their new inflexible religion.
I will give this as a warning borne of someone who has seen similar in the past, being that I've been in the fandom since 1984, and likely will be in it until the day I pass from this fertile (or not so fertile!) earth - please, while being of unyielding will, have caution and care. Be ready to trade in robes for a blade, so to speak, because I am nigh unto certain that should the fandom on the whole choose to overcome its' ennui, mark my words they will be a violent and bloodthirsty mob. Have care, be wary, even in your determination. To quote a wise proverb: "Think of the going-out before the going-in."
I'm way past your warning. I refuse to live in the closet. I will not life a life a fear. I've had people attack me before and I will not bow to their absurd demands and dogma. That's why I have no qualms about expressing myself. Because more people need to know that this kind of extreme dogma is exactly that: It is the exact kind of manipulation and intimidation that has intimidated LGBT people in the past and to see fellow LGBT people use it themselves is abhorrent.