Hierarchy is to keep order and productivity. In itself it’s a good thing leave it to us humans to wreck a great system. With “pecking order” comes pride and judgment. A universal experience, from school days to work schedules there’s social order. I’m not a fan because a ranking system means someone outranks someone. It’s a better-than system, I do not believe in that. No one person is better than another but society makes it seem that way.
Mean Girls is a pretty perfect illustration of social order. The movie exaggerates but sadly not by much. The pretty ones are popular and the artists, writers, and gamers-the ones that will probably influence the world rather than peak in high school like the egotistical athletes-are the losers. Judgments like that are so backwards. People should build each other up, no matter their differences.
It’s easy not to care about the food chain when you’re the top predator. Nobody should be prey or predator that stuff is for the animals, yet we tend to act just like them. Ladies flaunt what they’ve got and guys puff out their chests to be the biggest and baddest. Oddities get ridiculed. The unique get pushed aside.
Anybody who is not quite average gets pitied. Words cannot express how much that angers me, which is saying something because I have a nack for arguing plus I’m a writer so I know how to work my words. Pity leaves me dumbfounded. Just like I can’t fathom the purpose behind Lady Gaga or why men feel comfortable wearing kilts when really they’re just plaid skirts. Pity seems utterly useless to me. I have experienced a lot of it in my life. As much I don’t mind my disability and I use the way it makes me stand out to my advantage, pity still hurts.
That look in someone’s eyes when they see a kid in a wheelchair with a breathing tube, and it’s all over their face that because they personally don’t struggle to breathe their life will be better. Or when I see someone grimace at the scars on a person’s arms because they assume those cuts are the whole story. When I get looked at like a Martian because my legs don’t move like everyone else’s and the person who’s obnoxiously gawking, thinking they’re discreet, feels superior because they walk normal, I’m so viciously tempted to shout how dare you. It’s disrespectful and insulting which provokes me to act the same. Kids look at me like I’m a Polar Bear at Brookfield Zoo because they know no better than to be curious. If you don’t know ask, and if you ask be polite, be even more polite than you think you should be. That’s what I learned from my mom when I made my bonehead assumptions of ignorance as a child and that’s what I’ll teach my kids.
The denotation of pity is “to have compassion for” however the world, at least as I’ve known it, goes by the connotation of “having sorrow towards.” What gives anyone the right to put themselves above another and think; you poor thing? What exactly is gained through feeling bad for someone? It certainly does not help whoever is the pity target. If people started with pity, an emotion meant to evoke compassion, which is supposed to lead to someone’s benefit, some type of positive change; pity would not disgust me like it does.
If nothing else is remembered from my article this week, remember this; we’re all capable of pitying and none of should dare do it. Judging a person does not define them, it defines you, don’t ever help someone because you think you can do it better and you feel bad. For the love of God do that person a favor and walk away. Help because you care not because you’re riding some hypothetical high-horse. For the record, pity is obvious and nobody wants it. More importantly, no one deserves it. To place pity is a personal assumption and you know what they say about those who assume. You never know, that person you feel sorry for could be feeling sorry for you.
Mindless Peace 