It so happens that I was about to complain at length about the following, one of the worst things we do to one another in our advocacy of various causes, before Senator Marco Rubio obliged me by indulging in the sin himself.

He tweeted, “Look at all this outrage over a dead lion, but where is all our outrage over the Planned Parenthood dead babies.”

Now, as it happens, the so-called Pro-Life people happen to adore this kind of rhetoric. Every time there’s a humanitarian issue of any kind, that doesn’t have to do with abortion, you can bet your last yodel that before very long some jackass will complain that you shouldn’t be thinking about that, because of all the dead babies. You can set your watch by it.

But this is not limited to their side of the political spectrum. Even as I went to bed last night, I saw the outrage over poor Cecil the lion attacked from another political direction. “Look at all the white people worried about a lion,” this one went, “and not caring at all about what happened to poor Sandra Bland!”

It is pernicious nonsense in both cases.

Look. Let’s pick a random human being. Me. (Whoops, I think that was not quite random.)

On any given moment I could be talking about, or writing about, any number of subjects. Some of them are subjects to stir my outrage. Some are not. I am indeed pissed off at the pathology of those who think there is no higher entertainment than going to a distant place, luring a specimen of a fast-dwindling species out of its place of safety, killing it, and feeling personal vindication in the moment. This loathing is not directed at all hunting. I understand that some people hunt for food and some people hunt for ritual, and that there are places where hunting is necessary to cull excess, and I have no problem with any of those things. But I think trophy hunting, especially at a time when most experts believe we will have no lions at all in a decade or two, is a pastime for assholes.

I am also pissed off at the tragedy of poor Sandra Bland, arrested for having a poor attitude while Black and later found mysteriously dead in her cell; a pattern of “committed suicide in her cell” that has occurred a number of times around this country. That is suspicious, that is horrifying, and that is emblematic of a significant and systematic brutality on the part of law enforcement. I believe it is a sickness in the system that we have yet to address, and yes, when I see people argue about whether she had it coming, I am pissed off by that too. I think the pattern of which this is a part is a significant danger to the future of our Democracy.

Because I am a human being, it is possible for me to simultaneously keep other concerns, some just as important, some far less important, in my head. The planet’s continued slide into the environmental abyss is one concern, a major one. The continued horrifying revelations about a man I once idolized, Bill Cosby, is another. I am also concerned about the upcoming Presidential election and whether my cat really likes me and my blood sugar level and what’s going to happen on GAME OF THRONES and finishing my next story and what I am going to have for breakfast and if the latest Netflix disk is going to arrive today.

Some of these concerns are clearly more global in impact than others; some are just personal; and some are downright silly. (I spend more time than is healthy for me thinking about Squirrel Girl.)

I do not equate the tragedy of Sandra Bland with my vague worry over whether I am going to have a bagel or cereal for breakfast. That would be grotesque. I do, however, say, that as a human being I am used to keeping more than one concern in my head at a time, and that this is one of the functions of sentience and that it is a factor to keep in mind even when you’re dealing with fanatics.

Senator Marco Rubio thinks we should think of nothing but all the dead babies, but I assure you that he also spends some brain energy thinking of his family and about the storm clouds on the horizon and his favorite music and the growing leaden weight in his abdomen that lets him know, right now, that sooner or later he’ll have to make his way to a toilet.

We can think about, we can worry about, more than one thing at a time. And so I hate this thing we do to each other in our rhetoric, this incredibly arrogant and short-sighted thing that we do, when we tell other people that whatever else they’re worried about is nothing for a thinking person to be worried about.

WHY ARE YOU DEVOTING SO MUCH TIME TO FRETTING OVER X WHEN YOU SHOULD BE FRETTING OVER Y? DON’T YOU THINK Y IS IMPORTANT?

Yes, I think Y is important.

THEN WHY ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT X?

Because I think X is important. I can have more than one concern on my agenda.

YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT NOTHING BUT Y!

First: not a possibility.

Second: fuck you, you don’t think about one thing 24/7 either, why should I?

Third: nobody ever gave you the right to type up my daily brain agenda and cross out line items that concern you not at all.

Fourth: I can often discern a political attempt to distract by your angry declarations that I should not be thinking about X because I should be thinking about Y. See: repeated cries of BENGHAZI!

People, we all ride a particular concern, from time to time, and we all feel the frustration of trying to get other people to listen, to the degree we want them to listen. But telling other people that whatever they’re concerned with at any given moment is unworthy, in favor of what we prefer them to care about, is a hostile act. It’s an attempt to brain-hijack. Advance your own agenda on its merits and do so without attacking any others. If your agenda has any urgency at all, you will gain ground.

You will LOSE ground by telling people that whatever else they care about is stupid.

I know that when I hear anybody say, WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT X WHEN YOU SHOULD BE THINKING ABOUT Y, I have no trouble thinking that the speaker is a jackass who I should remove from my long list of concerns as soon as possible. So don’t do that.

And for God’s sake don’t go straight to ridiculing whatever harmless obsession the people you’re talking to possess, that you find silliest in the context of whatever you find most important. We all have our Squirrel Girls, or our STAR TREKs, or our legends of early twentieth-century Jazz, somewhere in our heads. I promise you. You do too.

Tags: Assholes, Cecil The Lion, Democracy, Game of Thrones, Life Wisdom, Politics, Race, Sandra Bland, Squirrel Girl, Star Trek | Category Commentary, Life Wisdom, Politics, Sneaky Metaphors, TV, Uncategorized