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I've posted before on kittens. Or more to the point, why I like kittens and will not eat them, but why I will still be your friend if you decided to eat one. Or, for that fact, if you decide to eat a whale. But I think I would struggle to remain your friend if you decided to get a puppy. Puppies are stupid. They eat shoes, knock over valuable household objects, demand that you take time out of your day to take them for walks, and they are unable to control their bowels. Worse, they grow up into dogs, which are just like puppies only they are not even slightly cute, and may without warning maul the mailman. Or your small cousin. I like dogs in the limited capacity of 'working dogs' - they are an acceptable, if unreliable tool to enhance human labour in the fields of agriculture, security or blind people. But not as pets. They are terrible pets. The only people who keep dogs as pets are control freaks who yearn to return to the days when their children were helpless and needed them to cater to their every whim, or patched gang members. Cats, the grown-up version of kittens, are much better pets - almost entirely self-reliant, and just checking up on you every now and then for a friendly scratch, or to keep you warm by sleeping at the foot of your bed at night. People who own cats are smart, urban,professionals - busy people who want a low-maintenance but comforting pet.
I'm not going to de-friend you on Facebook if I found out you own a dog, but I would think less of you, and say mean things about you behind your back. Owning a dog is, in my opinion, an epic fail character flaw. And you would think I was a jerk, and acting completely unfairly. BUT, if I went one step further - and refused to hire you as an employee at my textile factory because I didn't like the fact you owned a dog, then you would claim I was being unfairly discriminatory. After all, owning a dog bears no relevance to your ability to sew, and be a good maker of textiles, does it?
Now, lets suppose I like sandwiches - which I do. Lets say, hypothetically, after a trip to the the sunny shores of Gisborne, I developed a liking for 'Pie Sandwiches' - a mince and cheese pie between two slices of bread. You may think this weird, a risk to my arteries, evidence of a broken man's retreat into depravity, whatever. I would understand. In fact I realise that my esteemed co-blogger, Paul D, a man who has blogged ad nausem on the issue of fine dining as evidence of a higher being, think pie sandwiches are epic fail. I appreciate this policy difference, and am pleased our friendship has prospered regardless. I am also pleased that Paul D did not refuse to start this co-blog with me, on account of my partiality to pie sandwiches. After all, what foods I find delicious has no bearing on my ability to write concise, witty posts on popular and current issues.
Whats the point of all this? Well, obviously theres a range of things in modern society that require us to choose the best person based on a range of objective criteria - say for instance, a job. And all people would freely agree that some criteria are really relevant for people looking to apply for a job - like your skill level at that particular job, your ability to be available at the required times, your work ethic, whether or not you are punctual etc. And there are some things that you cannot BY LAW, and by any conception of popular morality, take into consideration when deciding who to employ - like race, gender, sexuality, political orientation, age etc. Then there are things that everyone would consider to be ridiculous things to add to a criteria - such as what pets you own, or how you choose to eat your pies.
But theres a fourth category of things. Things that have no bearing on a persons ability to do a job, but which get taken into consideration as relevant, because its socially normal to find them yucky. This post isn't about kitten sandwiches, its about smoking. I think smoking is gross. But it is legal. And whether or not you smoke has no bearing on your ability to drive a forklift, or your knowledge of tax law, or your ability to be President of the United States. And yet, we would find it perfectly acceptable if someone was denied a job because they smoked. We would some way, say it was indicative of a seedy and unsavoury aspect of someone's character, and that it was perfectly justified to not want to hire them. But its wrong.
Our generation likes to think that we are less bigoted than our parents. That's wrong. We are bigoted, just about different things. Just as our grandparents generation thought it ok to discriminate on the basis of race, and our parents on the basis of sexuality, we consider it ok to discriminate on the basis of people making choices we don't like. That's wrong.
I hope I made some kind of point here. I'm not sure if I have, beyond proving that these poll thingy's are ridiculous. I've managed to wank on for about a thousand words on this stupid topic. And given that a picture says a thousand words...maybe I shall leave you with one that, I think sums up my views on kittens and sandwiches quite nicely, thank you very much.
He still smokes. Lol.Alex
1 comment:
Alex, I did in fact read ALL of your post, and found it entertaining. The twist at the end was like.. "Bam in your face"
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