By Bill Collier- I stumbled across a piece on Buzzfeed about how anorexia “communities” are cropping up actually urging young people to get super skinny, or “perfect”. One of the images showed a skinny girl with the words “because food doesn't define you.”
That’s just silly, because, biologically speaking, food DOES define us and if we don’t eat right, well, we get sick or we die. But that seems to be the new “mantra”, that we don’t let anything “define” us. In other words, we don’t want who we are, what we are, or, worse, WHAT WE DO to be subject to any objective standard.
What caught my attention was this little ditty- “Pro-Anorexia bloggers say they write online to escape judgment.” Seriously?
First, there is the very notion of someone being a “Pro-Anorexia Blogger”. Why not be a pro-killing yourself blogger? But, sadly, that’s already been done. What about being pro-pedophilia? Also been done. You name it, no matter how sick, twisted, perverted, or deadly it is, there are people out there blogging about how great it is and why anyone who doesn't agree is a “this or that phobe.”
Second, there is this notion of escaping “judgment”. That really gets to the heart of the problem. Our God-given consciences CAN be turned off, so we don’t allow ourselves to feel the guilt, which is not a pleasant feeling, but it takes a LOT to turn them off, namely:
1. You have to repetitively and loudly say that what you are doing is right and good and that there is nothing wrong with it, you have to be “proud” of that thing and say so, lots of times, to everyone
2. You have to avoid, as much as possible, anyone or anything that questions or undermines your “pride” narrative, even if that means cutting close friends and family off
3. Your have to reverse things, paint everyone who questions your “pride” as unenlightened, intolerant, stupid, bigoted, or what have you
4. You MUST get as many people as possible to agree with and support that thing you are “proud” of and it really helps if you can get the legal system to officially “recognize” you as “normal”
5. You have to marginalize those stubborn fools who refuse to go along with all this and make society look down upon and punish them for daring to say that which you are proud of is wrong or unhealthy
The whole thing is about escaping guilt, at any cost.
When all of this fails, however, and it will, there are only two choice left.
First, you can actually “repent” and admit that what you are doing is wrong or unhealthy, or both, and turn away from it. On the other hand, you might take even more extreme measures to end your feeling of guilt. These extreme measures include drinking, taking drugs, engaging in more extreme versions of the same behavior, hurting yourself, and, lastly, suicide.
Every tragic ending caused by this spiraling cycle of guilt is written off as somehow being the fault of society for not “understanding” or not “accepting” the immoral or harmful behavior, so more and more calls spring forth to “regulate” things so that people HAVE TO accept the behavior. Not accepting it is "bullying" or a "hate crime".
You might notice that people who don’t have guilty feelings about their lifestyle choices aren't really worried about people who don’t agree with them. Nobody is pushing to label people who condemn marriage between one man and woman as “marriage phobes” and then making the mere speaking of their opinion a "hate crime.”
So, guilt avoidance at any price is the name of the game, and now it is enshrined in our culture and even our laws. It will only lead to more tragic endings and more excuses and more loss of freedom for anyone who is willing to stand in the path of our ship of state and say “don’t go there….here there be beasties!"
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