Of Morals, Atheists, and Agnostics - A Reply to a Question About Where Morals Come From

Of Morals, Atheists, and Agnostics - A Reply to a Question About Where Morals Come From

Conspiracy Theories

I don't think too many of today's adults (especially, maybe, Americans and especially those who grew up past the 1960's regardless of what country they lived in) "just believe everything the government, or anyone else, puts out there".   Suggesting that "the masses" do "just believe and accept" insults their intelligence and/or "worldliness".  Most people I know will say that they really never quite know what to believe or not believe that gets put out there (and they're usually right to think that way).

The problem is, though, that finding that place on the spectrum between believing everything without question and thinking everything is a lie isn't easy (isn't possible, I don't think) for most people or in most cases.  I think some lies are told for "legitimate" reasons (telling the truth could cause major problems for masses of people, innocent people, and/or a nation's security).  Some lies are told for less-than-"legitimate" reasons, that's for sure.  Sometimes lies are unfolded a little at a time, either because the time changes or because they're exposed.

The fact that a lot of people don't go around talking about all the things "they wouldn't be surprised about if they found out" shouldn't lead conspiracy theorists (the mentally sound ones OR the ridiculous ones) to think everyone else just believes everything.  Most people feel they have little choice but to go with whatever is being presented at the time, see what comes out, do their own thing as far as settling on some version of a not-too-certain belief about what's true, and take it from there.  What are the options?  Not read newspapers or pay attention to other news?  Make up conspiracy theories based on guesses and incomplete/inadequate information?

My main point here is that just because some people don’t jump in on conspiracy theory conversations, or just because they don’t say much about what they do or don’t believe; that doesn’t mean some people believe everything they’ve ever been told.  Much of the time, they don’t quite know what to believe, and prefer to be cautious about how wrapped up in some theories they allow themselves to become.  I just kind of resent the implication that people who don’t jump on board with some conspiracy theories are “too stupid” or “too naïve” to know better and “just believe everything presented to them”.

Just A Note About A Couple of New Blogs I Started, and Why I Started Them

I don't want "Straight Talk Sort Of" to become yet another bunch of writing about writing.  As it is, I've been in the process of deleting some writing-about-writing.  If there's one thing I've learned, it's that if I want to feel as if I'm saying what I want to say then I can't not say it (and instead, write about writing yet again).  However, just a note about two blogs I've started recently:

One of the blogs is "Unfinished Feminism".   It will focus on something I've wanted to write about for a long time, and that is the fact that "the world" so often seems to believe that The Women's Movement came in, fixed up a good part of things as far as attitudes towards women go, and that was it.  Lots of progress has been made since, and these days nobody has to worry much about women (at least those in Western cultures)  Things haven't really come anywhere near as far as a lot of people think they've come for women.  In fact, I'd venture to say that things can be pretty, pretty, bad for a lot of women (and for women nobody would ever imagine they're bad for).  So, even though "Unfinished Feminism" is new I'm kind of excited about actually doing something serious with it.

The other new blog is "Relationship Glitches".  This is another area in which I've had so many ideas for so long, but haven't quite known how to address it.  As with the "Feminism thing", this is another area in which things go on that, so often, people don't realize they do.  Some of the ways people misinterpret others' actions/words, for example, have always amazed, disturbed, and irked the heck out of me.   I'm not going to write more about it here, because I'll save that for there.  The point is, this is another area that really interests me, and about which I have a lot to say and share.  Finally, after "a zillion" blogs, I've decided to take to take an approach to newer ones that will feel right to me.    In the past, I've mostly tried to categorize writing and give each subject area a blog of its own (which I don't think is a bad thing to do).  The problem has been that it's been writing that's all been done that determined which blogs I'd start and how I'd make them look.

As I said elsewhere in these first posts/introductory notes, I'm now changing how I'm approach all my writing.  Now I'm going to do things my way - and only my way.  In the past, I've done things my-way-but-heavily-influenced-by-Internet-culture-and-other-people's-ways".  That's changing, and I feel good about it.  That's a positive thing, of course (so I'm not always negative).  (Insert smile-face emoticon here)

I Hate Most of My Online Writing (Not All of It, But Most of It)

When I first started writing online I didn't have any real plan.  It seemed like writing on a couple of writing sites would be a good way to spend some spare time (or else time I skimmed from time I should have been spending doing serious writing).  So, I had no plan.  I just wrote and wrote and ended up with a bunch of stuff that needed to be organized (which is why I started "Lisa's Collection", a blog).  All of this is explained there; and if there's one thing I don't want to do here, it's write the same kind of "nothing" on here that I've written in so many other places.

Around five years into online writing, I now do have a plan.  Part of that plan (but it's only a small part) is to get rid of a lot of the stuff I have online.  Another part of the plan is to polish up some of the things that could be better if they were presented in a more polished way.  Yet another part:  Leave some things, but bury them "behind" newer, more polished, things.

One problem I've had is that when I'm on a site where there are other writers I don't want to emphasize how much I hate my stuff, because it's negative.  I have kind of hard time not being a negative person (although, offline I'm actually a pretty positive person - although not entirely at all times).  Also, most of us have heard how it's not good to point out our own flaws to other people who might not notice them if we didn't point them out.

On a positive note, I have noticed that sometimes one reason I hate my writing is the way it looks online.  I may not always hate the writing - only the way it's packaged up and presented.  So, that's something I need to work on and clean up.  Or course, with some of the writing, I hate the writing.  That's because I've usually tried to make it what I think someone else wants it to be (or thinks it should be). Or I should say, I've often tried to sort of stay within the limits of what might possibly be considered "sort of what some people think is OK".  You know?

So that's it.  Negative and honest:  I hate most of my writing.  Hey - that wasn't difficult at all.  (insert smile-face emoticon here)