A bit of a weekend rant to follow.
I hate being pigeonholed. I hate people making assumptions about me because of their preconceived stereotypes about certain sorts of people. I’m sure I fit some stereotypes from time to time, there are reasons why stereotypes exist in the first place. But pigeonholing assumes a dichotomous black and white world that is often far from the way things actually are.
Molly over at Adventures in Mercy had a good post this past week on this very issue. She writes on the fallacy of assuming that there exist only two choices in any situation – one “obviously” right and the other depraved and wrong. Such dichotomous choices she finds dangerous include –
There are only two choices: You can either be a submissive wife and have a happy marriage, or you can be a conniving rebellious domineering woman and make your marriage miserable.
There are only two choices: You can either spank your children, rewarding every infraction with swift clear punishment, which we say will produce “godly seed,” or you can not spank and have sniveling brats who run into streets and throw tantrums every five seconds and will grow up to bomb schools and have fifteen illegitimate children before they run straight to the fires of hell.
There are only two choices: You can believe my denomination/group’s theological view (plainly taught by the Bible) and thus be a real Christian and please the Lord, or you can not subscribe to our particular theological view (er, do you even read the Bible?) and be a second-class Christian (if you’re saved at all, that is), and be outside the pale of God’s approval.
These black and white choices impose assumptions and stereotypes upon people and fail to actually become conversant with what a person truly believes. Such assumptions make it easy to dismiss people without engagement and to ridicule/destroy them instead of love them. And I admit to being guilty of falling into this trap from time to time which I need to work to overcome. But I still get fairly annoyed when I encounter such attitudes towards myself. To Molly’s list, I would add the following dangerous assumptions that annoy me –
- Being told that the only reason a person would vote for Obama is because we are young and don’t understand politics.
- Being told that voting for a Democrat means we are pro-baby killing.
- Being told that I ascribe to entire schools of theology if I happen to read a book by an author who does
- Being told that I don’t care about Jesus if I insist on serving people physically and emotionally and not forcing them to say “the prayer”.
- Being told that I am throwing out the Bible if I think women should ever have a voice.
- Being told that I don’t care for the environment or sustainability because I am having children
- Being told that I am rebellious and ungrateful because I strayed from the church tradition my parents raised me in.
I am sick of these assumptions and sick of the dichotomous thinking they betray. I am sick of being dismissed and rejected because of what others think they know about me. Reality is more complex than this.