(no subject)

[randomness]

Occasionally, I get really angry on behalf of some of my friends because of appearance privilege.

Here's what I mean: I have a number of friends who are really sweet, wonderful people. They often get treated badly, however, in part because they don't fit the societal definition of what people (women, particularly--most of them are women) should look like.

On the other hand, there are a few acquaintances who get away with truly obnoxious behavior because they're conventionally attractive. (I can't think of anyone who fits that description who is actually a friend, for the obvious reason that sufficiently obnoxious behavior tends to drive me away, even when I haven't been directly affected by it.)

There's not much I can do about it except try to be a good friend, but it still rankles.

Comments

[dpolicar]

(nods) So, there's two parts to this.

First, that life is difficult for some people in ways they don't deserve.
Second, that life is NOT difficult for some people who deserve it more.

About the first there isn't much to say beyond "Ayup" (and perhaps "come sit with me under this fig tree, and we'll talk about it," if one is up to the job description).

Do you want it not to rankle? Or do you just want to acknowledge that it rankles? (Nothing wrong with the latter; just asking.)

I find that, when I'm having difficulty accepting that sometimes life is difficult for me, it helps to think about the to-a-first-approximation-100% of the people who have ever lived who would do just about anything to get to live my life.

You might find a similar perspective to be helpful when contemplating your friends' lives. Perhaps they suffer for their atypical looks so much the percentage drops to 99%, maybe even as low as 97% (though I find that very unlikely), but they're still doing way better than they deserve. Good for them!

Of course, there's that second aspect. Maybe we're the beneficiaries of Grace, but there exist other people who are even more so, or who we consider less worthy of it, and that rankles.

To which, again, there isn't much to say beyond "Ayup".

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Or do you just want to acknowledge that it rankles?

Mostly, it's that.

I hardly think life is difficult for me. After all, with a few zigs instead of zags in my family history, I'd be knee-deep in a rice paddy, with luck, after my family's having been sent back to the farms for the crime of having the wrong class background. That is if I'd been born at all, since my parents probably wouldn't have met. (But then the whole thing starts to get into the question of who "I" am in that context, which is a different question entirely.)

So it's not merely that my life is better than nearly all the people who have ever lived, and not merely that my life is better than nearly all the people who are currently living (both true), it's that my life is better than any number of possible lives I personally had actual likelihood of living.

In fact my original post was intended more as a "It irritates me that the monkeys are insane in this way, I would like to vent about that, tell the people on my friends list that I have their backs, and give others a place to vent about it".

---

So, yeah, summing up: First: I agree with you that life is unfair, and that people get crap they don't deserve; and second: that life is good for some of the undeserving.

But I do nonetheless want to acknowledge that this particular unfairness pisses me off, and it doesn't necessarily mean I don't acknowledge that other injustices fail to piss me off. (As a practical matter, continual posts on things that piss me off would probably get boring. I don't think I can carry that off as well as some people who have made a living doing it.)

Do I want serenity on this? Not particularly. I'm pissed off on behalf of my friends. It's probably the most okay kind of pissed off I get. :)

[dpolicar]

Cool.