Explaining “Anti-maskers/vacciners” to Pro-maskers/vacciners

In a continuation of my previous blog, “Explaining ‘Get Woke, Go Broke’ to Woke People”, I’ll be attempting in this blog to explain to pro-mask people, people who are against government mandates for things like masks, vaccines, lockdowns, etc., using only emotional arguments. I’ll do my best to stay away from logic, facts and reason, since those things apparently do nothing to persuade people who believe the government should be mandating these things. I hesitate to call these people “woke”, as while there may be a lot of crossover, I also see a lot of non-political people on the side of big government in this case. Again, these people do not arrive at this position through logic and reason, so reasonable and logical rebuttals are useless.

As a logical person, I find this exorcise to be challenging and fun. If it also helps someone out there to understand that those of us who do not agree with the government having the power to force the world economy to shut down, or to dictate what you must wear, or what health steps you must take, are not evil and the enemy, all the better. Also, to those pro-mask et al people, this writing is not to persuade you to come over to the dark side with us malcontents. I just want you to be able to read this with an open mind and see that we are just people who have a different opinion and that’s it. I’m not trying to dismantle your opinion.

I will be addressing the most common objection to masks that I have come across (outside of the Love thy Neighbor argument). The argument, which I have seen and heard from so many people, goes something like this: Asking you to wear a mask is a tiny thing and is not equal to the civil rights movement, or fighting against segregated water fountains, it’s just a mask. Get over it and wear the stupid mask. The “Love thy Neighbor” argument is much more prevalent, but I couldn’t think of a way to counter without using facts and logic, so I went with number 2. I’m sure you’ve seen or even said some form of the “Muh Civil Liberties” counter-attack.

My response is to say, sure, your right. The government forcing you to wear a mask or take a vaccine isn’t segregated water fountains or women gaining the right to vote, or Martin Luther King marching for Black people to have the right to live with dignity. Sure, it’s a seemingly and comparatively small thing, but it’s still a thing. After thinking about it for a while, I came to the realization that you don’t think it’s a big deal because it’s an equal order. What I mean is that these mandates are not singling out anyone. If it affects everyone equally, it can’t be that bad. We’re all in this together, right? This notion is the heart of my argument against mask mandates.

What would you say if the government mandated that only black people had to wear masks? Or only women? Or only gay people? Or only the group you consider yourself to be in? Would that be fair? If not, what would be your argument against it?

Would you tell that black person who is being forced to wear the mask that it’s only a mask, not segregated water fountains and to just wear the stupid mask? Somehow, I don’t think so. I imagine that a typical good-hearted person would say it’s not fair that only this group or that group be forced to wear masks. I would also imagine that it would be a small minority of people clamoring for the government to please force everyone to wear masks and not just (insert singled out group here). Most people, I believe, would think it better in this situation that nobody be forced to wear a mask and everyone abide by the “love thy neighbor” method. I would be among you.

I’m not in your head, so you only have to answer to yourself. In the scenario above, would you ask the government to also force you to wear a mask, or would you ask the government to stop forcing the singled out group to wear a mask?

If my example resonates with you, my question for you pro-maskers/vacciners, etc., is to ask why, if you would have one stance if only one group is being forced into doing something, that your position on that government force would change only because they are forcing all of us to do that thing? The fact that the force is being applied to all of us shouldn’t really make a difference, should it? It’s not really about the mask, the vaccine or the lockdowns, its about the force.

I would like to hear from pro-maskers to see if my argument, first of all, made any sense to you, and secondly, gives you a better understanding of how the “Muh civil liberties” side thinks about this issue. Also, what would be another topic where you might think an argument from emotion might help bridge the gap between the left and the right?

Explaining “Get Woke, Go Broke” to Woke People

Most people have doubtlessly heard the phrase, “get woke, go broke”. It has become somewhat of a truism as of late. As we see corporations like Disney, ruin beloved franchises like Star Wars and Marvel with a “woke” agenda, the proponents of “woke”, seem to have a massive disconnect as to why there is resistance with fans. Most of the time, woke people tend to blame the fans, and former fans of these franchises for their failures. On the dumpster fire that is Twitter, you will see these people called things like, “toxic man-babies”, “alt-right Nazis”, “trolls”, etc. I’m sure the un-woke fans of these franchises give just as good as they get, so no harm, no foul, I guess.

The purpose of this blog is to try to explain to woke people why this is happening. Why are people rejecting the woke agenda? If you consider yourself “woke”, this blog is for you. Just so we’re clear, what I take “woke” to mean is an adherence to the, emotion based, political philosophy of social justice. You believe in things like “white privilege”, “marginalized groups”, “systematic racism”, etc. You know the buzzwords. I’ve written before about this belief system is racist and wrong. Look at my previous blogs if you want to find out why. The purpose of this blog is not to argue about the merits of social justice, it is about why social justice ruins entertainment. For this blog I offer a temporary truce, for the purpose of explaining why social justice is ruining entertainment, hopefully in a way you can understand.

I’m a logical person. Social justice is an emotion-based philosophy. If you don’t think it is, there’s not much I can do for you. It just is. It is very hard for logic-based arguments to get through the haze of an emotion-based person, and vice-versa, but I think I may have found a way. I’ll give it my best shot, anyway.

Why do people like stories like Star Wars and Marvel comics, or any of the various TV, movie, book genres in the first place?

I would guess that most of us lead fairly boring, monotonous lives. Most of us live paycheck to paycheck. Most of us are average looking, regular people. We get invested in these stories to escape our regular people lives. Watching beautiful, heroic, rich people do beautiful, heroic, rich things, is fun. When these people fail, make mistakes, get beaten, make bad choices, etc., it makes the story that much more believable. People need faults to overcome, to truly be heroic. When these beautiful, heroic people go through all these hardships and still figure out a way to redeem themselves and come out on top, we cheer. People love a come from behind victory. We love an underdog. We love redemption stories. All this is the long version of just saying the story is what matters. Story is king.

Hopefully, so far we can agree on this. If you don’t agree, then I hope you can at least see how other people may see entertainment this way. We put ourselves into the story. We don’t care if the characters are men, women, gay, straight, black, white, or anything else. We care about the story.

So what’s wrong with woke storytelling?

The problem lies with the fact that woke writers care more about representation that they do about the story. When your goal is representation, it kills the story. Why can’t you have both? Well, if a character in your story is a representation for someone, especially a marginalized group, how can you put faults into that character? Putting faults into that character is basically saying everyone in that marginalized group has those faults. Doing that would get you cancelled. Because of this we see nothing but one-dimensional characters. “Hi, I’m the gay character, I’m good at everything and everyone loves me, except for that bad guy, who I defeat with ease.” “Hi, I’m the female character, I’m good at everything and everyone loves me, except for that bad guy, who I defeat with ease.” “Hi, I’m the black character, I’m good at everything and everyone loves me, except for that bad guy, who I defeat with ease.”

The only characters in woke writing that are allowed to have human feelings and faults are the white male characters. When I say human feelings and faults, take that to mean the bad guy. I’m not mad about it, white people are at the top of the privilege mountain, so making them the bad guys is a given. Given that it is a given also makes your story boring. That’s the real problem.

Woke writers are terrified of black people. You can tell by how they portray black characters in their stories. Black women are almost always genius level, hyper-competent characters. They are also, for some reason, lesbian or bi, well over half the time. Black male characters are essentially treated as household pets for the female characters. They are accessories, much like a purse, or lipstick, there only to assist in a very passive, good guy way. Never threatening, always docile. You will only see a black villain if the hero is also black. Both are very rare. Even in a black male hero story, the female characters will usually take charge, especially black female characters.

When you put representation over storytelling, it immediately lets us know what will happen. There are no surprises. It’s boring. Boring does not make for a good story. Boring is about the worst thing a story can be.

What can you do to make it better?

Like I said before. Nobody cares about your characters race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or anything else. When I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’m a teenage white girl for 45 minutes. When I watch Black Panther, I’m an African black guy for 2 hours. When I watch Rocky, I’m a white guy. See how it works? You can put this middle-aged white guy into any body you wish, just like you can put the Afro-Latina trans person into Captain America. Just make it compelling. It’s hard, I know.

In good storytelling, a diverse set of characters will emerge naturally. You don’t need to force the diversity. There are a lot of red flags that let us, the reader/viewer know that this is not a good story. Women are as strong as men. How many times do we have to watch a 115 pound woman one punch knockout a 250 pound trained killer? Red flag. None of the black guys are cool? Red flag. All the white people are evil or incompetent? Red flag. None of the minority characters are evil/incompetent? Red flag. None of the women are evil/incompetent? Red flag.

The solution is to have all the diversity you want in the story. Just don’t make the characters represent their group. Have them be an individual. Give them flaws. Let them fail, no matter what they look like on the outside. Allow these characters the courtesy of getting put in their place by someone bigger, stronger, faster, more skilled, then figure out a creative way for them to work around their weakness to get the job done. Stop writing stories where only white people get to grow and learn by defeat.

Conclusion

Woke writing, while trying to be inclusive to everyone, is essentially white supremacy thinking, put on film or paper. I know that’s not your intention, but that is what’s happening. In your fear of offending marginalized peoples, you refuse to make them real people in your writing. Since white males don’t need your protection, these are the only real characters you can make with any depth. Bad guys are the most fun characters to write and to play, according to many actors. Minority, gay, female, trans, whatever, are people just like the rest of us. They can handle being depicted as real characters with flaws. The 12 people on Twitter that your story will upset don’t matter at all. My best advice is to get off Twitter. It’s just a hate filled dumpster fire.

Don’t be afraid of people who don’t look like you. I promise you that they are full functioning adults, with adult brains, who love a good story, just like we all do. A good story with good characters will transcend race, gender and sexual orientation.