More Homophobic Bullshit from Itawamba

[evolveme]

Originally Posted by Selenay

What do you know of Exchange Theory? One of the criticisms of that paradigm is that for it to be entirely plausible, we would have to weigh the benefits of every single action we do--and some don't believe it's possible to do that. Others believe that when you make decisions on a frequent enough basis that you unconsciously make a decision based on your experiences. So yes, I understand your belief that the neural paths are branded by our common behaviors, but I cannot believe that any teenager could have made the decision to step on the rights of others enough time to create a new pathway contrasting what they (theoretically) have been taught about right and wrong; I think that takes more than eight years of conscious decisionmaking.

Sociology gets me goin', man.

Okay. So, let's talk (loosely) of Exchange Theory for a moment. Provided that a teenager has been given what we might term a moral framework around which to center her or his own ethical compass (and many have not...also media directed toward the teenager does not foster it), the external pressure to engage in unethical behaviors are strong enough in our society (and others) to steer one away from what one knows to be "right," while creating varying (and progressively greater) degrees of cognitive dissonance. We could get philosophical for a moment and discuss whether and if these are perhaps the years in which the human is meant to learn the very essential need for social order by employing all manner of instinctual behaviors against it (while still under the protection of the family), thereby learning her/his value to the self and the group. A sense of ethics is both taught and built. Often, it must be repaired.

Rational choice is a matter of development and, person-to-person, a matter of degree. It too, must be taught, built, sometimes repaired.

I think that what the teenager is getting from negative social behaviors (acts of social aggression such as the homophobia directed toward Constance), thus why s/he does it, is a kind of peer approval. Acceptance. Validation that one believes correctly and that one is also safe from the kind of derision one is party to. I think that the need for these things guides this decision making - however many times, and however unconsciously - and that until the desire not to be party to something so ugly and painful becomes greater than the need for approval and acceptance, then these behaviors will only continue.

Admittedly, I have an evolutionary perspective on all of this, as I do on most things.

[Daryn]

I am going to tackle this from a slightly different perspective. It comes from my views of how personal change is the first step to all kinds of other change. Most people and especially teens hold a lot of unexamined beliefs. I did.

While I did not grow up in the South, I did grow up in rural, red neck, stupid f**k Amerika and many decades ago. So all I ever heard was that queers were bad, immoral, etc. And mostly the concern was with gay males. Everyone I knew thought that way, pretty much. And if you wanted to insult someone a lot than throw in a homophobic pejorative.

While I did not believe in a lot of the standard local b.s. (I was against the war in Viet Nam and had my black arm band torn off the day of the Moratorium - my frosh year), I still bought into homophobia. So it's not like I needed my high school peer's approval or even my parents'. That belief was just unexamined and deep seated.

In June of 1969, Time mag ran a cover story about Homosexuality in America after the Stonewall uprising. I was finishing 9th grade. I read it. I had to look up a lot of words (sexual terms). My reaction was - those people should have rights but I don't want them around me. At that time I was had dreams of joining the SDS and blowing up banks and taking LSD. Well, I never did any of those three things. But......... here I am.

And what changed my thinking was my senior year I started hanging out with college students and grad students who were not from my home town (most of them were from very large cities). Some of them were involved in the theater. And I heard a lot of discussion where the narrowness of the locals (and that includes the next town over where this college was) was the butt of jokes. So essentially, I realized there was a different point of view than the only one I had ever been exposed to.

So the first part of any change is to change the way you think about things.

One of my mother's friends read me as queer before I was even 13. At the time, I had no concept of queer. But my behavior got a lot of attention and I did learn what was concerning them. And that's where I started learning gay was not OK.

And more years went by (and that many) I found the freedom (some people have told me courage but I've never seen it that way) to be with women. Coming to my masculine identity was a much longer and trickier journey.

There are openly queer kids in my hometown now and their parents don't disown them or kick them out.

So for the most part, I guess I'd blame the parents here. Not that teenagers cannot be cruel and mean. They can. And what is tolerated and what goes on is apparently a lot worse than what it was years ago. As a geek I got excluded from a lot of things but no one was ever too overt or in my face or anyone else's. Probably just as well as just about every teenager in the county had easy access to guns. While I don't condone kids who go ballistic, I think I can understand it as a response to bullying.

[Toughy]

For 30 years, my Dad was teacher, coach, athletic director with a Master's in Natural Sciences and a Master's in Education He spent half of his teaching and coaching time in junior high school (7th, 8th, 9th grade). This was in small town of 9,000 where he was born and raised.

He always said that you could talk to teenagers until your tongue couldn't move and they never learned or heard any of it. What kids learned was from the actions of the adults around them......parents, parents of friends, teachers, school administrators, church folks........the example set by those 'older' and 'in charge'.

that old saying.........actions speak louder than words.........it is very true when it comes to kids.