How old were you when you first learned that the real monsters come in human forms?
0 Boosts
0 Likes
@mayintoronto Better to bloom away from ignorance than into more of it. Real glad you learned & started speaking out too.
@PhoenixSerenity Before then, everything felt so historical, theoretical. It was "Some people did bad things" as opposed to so many of these bad things could have entirely been prevented if we cared about society as a whole and stood with our ethics.
@PhoenixSerenity I was 7. In hebrew school we were shown those black-and-white films of what the soldiers discovered in the Nazi concentration camps. My younger sisters and I were not threatened or beat up - because we killed Jesus - until we were a little older.
@CuriousMagpie Were you taught anything about Palestinians in that school?
@PhoenixSerenity that was in the early 1960s, I don't believe the word Palestinian was ever used. I don't know if the adults around us even knew the actual history of the formation of Israel.
We were taught the party line. Jews are good and Arabs are bad. In fact, the whole world is bad because everyone wants to kill us.
@PhoenixSerenity @CuriousMagpie it’s such an insidious indoctrination isn’t it? ‘As a persecuted minority you must do anything needed to maintain the coherence of the tribe’.
And anyone else outside the group - or especially the folks the group has decided are the enemy: they’re not really human. We had it as RCs in Protestant England. We knew we were right. And the others? Lesser.
We didn’t have recent Jewish history so not life and death. But the same instinct
@JimmyB yes, there were generations and generations of persecution and the protective attitudes that developed out of it. Plus, you know, religion, and everyone believes they are the chosen folks.
But, with a more compassionate view, nothing that happened to the Jewish people through history, not the Babylonians, not the Romans, not the Spaniards, not the Russian pogroms, none of that prepared them for the holocaust. The natural, knee jerk, human reaction was to circle the wagons and push everyone out who wasn't part of the group. Simple human desire to survive.
I was lucky because while my mom was Jewish, my dad was not, so I was born into a broader perspective already.
@PhoenixSerenity @CuriousMagpie yes. The history of the Jews is horrific. I won’t say uniquely coz there have been a few others too but truly awful. And I understand the waggon circling. Reading Herzl and it all makes sense. Sadly tho the desire for a homeland *at any cost* was always going to be a nightmare whether Palestine or Argentina…
@CuriousMagpie That is just awful. No wonder many people need deprogramming education.
@PhoenixSerenity also, not to excuse anything, but I was part of the first generation born after the holocaust. All of the Jewish adults around me were deeply traumatized.
@PhoenixSerenity it always surprises me that people don't/can't/won't just take a look around the world and see that their views are not at all correct. It takes consistent monitoring of attitude, but it's not rocket science.
@CuriousMagpie I'm grateful to those who helped me to learn more, widen my perspectives & understanding of people who are vastly different than me/my peoples & who have shared their lived learning experiences with me 🙌💗
@PhoenixSerenity @CuriousMagpie yes! Exactly this!
When I deconverted I came to a moment where I realised all my old certainties had no basis. And then…this was the key for me: the chances, statistically, that my views and ‘knowledge’ were all correct were zero.
I’ve stood by that ever since and if I don’t update my views regularly I know I’m not looking hard enough. And still it’s not really enough. But everyone can try I suppose?
When I got attacked on the streets by bullies. People who thought it was fun to beat up kids younger and smaller than themselves. For whom cruelty was the point.
From age about 6, to 15, the last time it happened to me, though I've had to intervene when it happened to others.
The bystanders who did nothing were just as bad.
@EricLawton Silent bystanders are the worst.
@PhoenixSerenity three years old. Mother married a pedophile+sociopath. Took seven years before I could find the words to tell my grandmother what was happening to me.
@PhoenixSerenity I was about 16-17yo when I learned of the Finnish eugenics programs and how they survived into the 1960's
@miiamustang I do not know much about that Finnish eugenics programs. Something I need to learn about.
@PhoenixSerenity @miiamustang I guess that Sámi is the search phrase you are looking for. The ethnic group being marginalised through the whole north: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.
@agturcz @miiamustang I know a bit about the Sami peoples but not about the other ethnic groups affected.
@PhoenixSerenity
I'd say in my mid-twenties. This was in the mid-1980s when I really started looking into what the US government and the CIA were doing in Central America.
@wannabemystiker Diving into CIA dirty tricks history is not for the weak of heart. It's really horrific stuff.
@PhoenixSerenity
It is. And I was still naive enough to think that if the average US citizen knew about all those atrocities they would rise up and put a stop to it. After a few years, I realized how wrong I was.
@wannabemystiker I'm less idealistic because of witnessing similar apathy from fellow citizens.
@PhoenixSerenity
Yeah, my idealism took quite a hit that decade. There *is* a little bit still left, though. 🙂
@PollyWaugh You & several others were robbed of a safe childhood, without traumas🫂
@PhoenixSerenity being abused by my parents did that for me. Also all the people who used homophobic slurs against me in elementary school.
@jackielovescompchem32 Childhood traumas = forced emotional maturity before we finished elementary school.
@PhoenixSerenity
I was a weirdly grounded kid. I don't think I ever believed in fantasy monsters or santa or... well... god. My first grade teacher said having me in class was a bit like having an adult man sit in.
As for when I realized humans were the monsters, I think it was gradual, but it was always kinda there. Growing into a useful awareness of the world in the Reagan years probably played a part.
@TheGreatLlama I blame Reagan for a lot of awful stuff too.
@PhoenixSerenity
I think what aggravates me most about Reagan is that I suspect he didn't really believe much of what he said. Nixon was an evil, hateful bastard who would have done everything Trump has done if anyone had let him. Trump is obviously a malignant narcissist. But so much of the shit Reagan did sold out people who were supposedly friends of his.
@TheGreatLlama I remember Mulroney & Reagan got on pretty well. I didn't like either of them.
@PhoenixSerenity Six, when the yard duty I asked for protection against bullies told me I was disgusting and weak.
@foolishowl Terrible treatment towards you 😔
@PhoenixSerenity If you defend yourself against bullies, you're worse than the bullies and deserve punishment.
If you don't defend yourself against bullies, you're contemptible and deserve to be bullied.
@foolishowl I experienced something similar in elementary school.
@PhoenixSerenity @foolishowl Likewise. It's universal, and difficult to rationalize.
I learnt about it when I was a kid.... my mom was one.😢
Pretty much from birth
People think it's "amazing" I started cooking at three, cuz they haven't really thought about the fact I started cooking at three.
@PhoenixSerenity
i learned that unwell, troubled humans could act like monsters before i can even remember. but as for actually being them, a little older but still single digits. in horror at all the violence and suffering that was carried out — unlike the violence in my house — almost gleefully all over the world. toward humans and animals and trees and all.
@moonrabbit I can relate to your thoughts.
@moonrabbit I'm reminded of that quote about it being both a blessing & a curse to feel/care so much.
@PhoenixSerenity imo to care is absolutely to feel, in some tiny way, the pain of those suffering. to feel your own heart tearing at how others must be feeling. which is. hard. but somehow necessary? i suppose some people might respond logically — killing people is bad, therefore this is bad and i must Do Something — but i'm not sure whether that can drive the sense of outrage and despair at injustice that some people have?
@moonrabbit I deal with ongoing despair by trying to help others & the planet whenever possible. It helps me to feel less helpless when seeing so much inhumanity happening around here & the world at large.
@PhoenixSerenity you do so much! 
✨
i'm limited by disability and location, but i do what i can. and i hope that my sculptures act as ambassadors and carry goodness and hope with them out into the world, seeing as i can't really go myself.
@moonrabbit I see what you do & appreciate you a lot!
@PhoenixSerenity 🥺 bless you, friend, thank you. and i you! 🙏
@PhoenixSerenity @moonrabbit love to you both. Appreciate all you do and share on here.
@IcooIey @moonrabbit Thank you, for understanding who we are & what we believe in/will defend.
@PhoenixSerenity The hunch existed earlier, but getting pushed down the stairs at church and ending up in the emergency room was the confirmation. I was four.
@YakyuNightOwl I think many of us have suffered from early childhood church related traumas. I have a few.
@PhoenixSerenity I was a late bloomer. My teaching years, mid 20s. The systemic suffering of children, neglect, poverty, and how attached it all is to our so-called "justice" system.