Thought I'd post something!
...That is, since I don't want to take the time right now to read the EULA for a blogging site that I should probably join... <!-- s
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Heheh. Something that's come up in skorpio's thread and which I've noticed in myself and in lemur's responses, is the fact that without cultural support structures, it looks like people tend to migrate back to a more...eh, "human?" self-concept. It's not really confined to otherkin phenomena, either -- I've seen it happening with myself in the context of gender, with the plurality community, and with religious communities. When the support's taken away, I think part of...I don't know if I'd call it, the self-awareness; or the cultural backing which gives context to the thoughts and behavior; goes with it.
The thing is, it seems very noticeable in my case when a subcultural enclave doesn't fit me well. Example would be when I tried to attend a Queer Women's group and felt exterior to the cohesion everyone else had, leading me to really want to leave instead of trying to integrate (even though I think I did try to integrate, and there was something in my body that said that it wasn't right). This is contrasted with when I joined a transgender/genderqueer group and everyone seemed immediately to understand and empathize with what I was talking about, which was not the case at all in the Women's group. Ironically what has occurred in the transgender group is an identification that's so strong that it's difficult to resist the urge to medically transition, like many others are doing. And why resist that urge, you may ask? Because should I go through with medical transition, I suspect that I won't be universally welcomed by other people who currently consider me part of their "community," but consistently misapprehend what I am.
As regards religion, I continually run up against elements in non-Pagan alternative religion scenes who think they're better than everyone else. *cough* To not get too deeply into it. However, I generally have found that places which educated Pagans frequent, or fora which are run by people who used to be Pagan, are very easy for me to become enmeshed within. And I mean, you know, maybe that's the reason why I found Satanism initially to be so welcoming -- because the groups that I gravitated to were run by a person who had *been* Pagan.
But there's this whole other element of Satanism which is about rebellion for rebellion's sake and being "dark" and "scary" and radically "self-reliant" (an oxymoron in my view, when your pants are made in Bangladesh) and prideful (normally based on the radical "self-reliance"), which then can tie into this racist rhetoric as a justification for why one should be prideful -- and I've sort of partially been there? I've tried to see from that perspective, which probably lost me some contacts? But it's not a life worth living, in my view, and from what I can tell, it's based in ignorance.
Concepts of "demons" (demons such as Aeshma Daeva; I'm talking about the religious and pop-culture concepts, here) just don't seem to stand up to intellectual scrutiny; particularly as demons are generally used to signify concepts of "evil" to blame for human failings, natural disasters, or traits that some humans want to discourage other humans from having (such as the phenomena currently known as homosexuality). That is, they're created for the purposes of enabling people to have some figure to point a finger at and blame for all the (perceived or actual) troubles or dissatisfactions they have.
As for the reasons why some people side with the scapegoats, in my own case it's obvious -- because I *was* a scapegoat. And to me, at 17, the name of Lucifer -- as the idea of a beautiful angel cast-out for having his own mind -- was comforting. But -- I was 17. I didn't have the maturity or resources to see how messed up the entire system was -- that I was being targeted for hate because others saw me as an embodiment of a societal ill; as something or someone who should not have existed. As an adult now, it doesn't make sense to try and make the concept of the demonic be more than it is. Popular culture is very rarely a well-thought-out thing.
As is especially apparent when you see yourself as a man and everyone else sees you as a woman or as a lesbian (as that's all you can be as a gender-nonconforming person who appears to have female anatomy).
When taking on the role of Devil's advocate is new, it's often entertaining, especially when you're freaking out the people who would otherwise try and grind you into the earth; but rebelling for rebellion's sake isn't a feasible point of view to hold for one's entire life. Not to say I can't do it, but life isn't a role-playing game. Games can be based on faulty logic and fabricated propositions provisionally taken as truth. Life -- if you're living it for yourself -- can't be. BUT. If you're mired down in that, and you're with a lot of other people who are also mired down in it, and you're getting external reinforcement which tells you that you *are* what you think you are (a scapegoat, less than human) -- even if it's because of your own attitudes, it's easy to continue on as though one's own faulty worldview is true...because it's never challenged, and people who believe otherwise often will just silently disappear, like I did, rather than risk confrontation with someone who may welcome it as an identity-reinforcing exercise. You can't argue reason against devotion, identity, and community; and expect a positive outcome.
That's not to say that I'm calling all alternative worldviews or philosophies, faulty. My own sense of myself and my own story doesn't permit me to say, offhand, that things like spirits don't exist, or that there's no possibility that anyone could literally be not human in a human body (though I still don't know what would define "human" if not for the body). It's not to say that popular understandings are right and that transgender people are "really" their birth sex no matter what, or that otherkin are confused humans no matter what, or that plural people are all role-players. Because I don't have the insider information to look into other peoples' heads and know that. It's like some Congressman looking at me and telling me that I'm not really mostly gynephilic, I'm actually heterosexual and, "just haven't found the right man yet." This, when the only man I've ever really loved was transgender -- and very obviously not transsexual, at that. (When I was younger and closer to being gay[-female]-identified, I thought that the perfect "man" for me would be someone who was male and entirely a woman inside. Is that what we're talking about? Gay people should love transsexuals, and transsexuals shouldn't transition? That way all will be right with the LORD [which by the way I don't have faith in, because of people like said Congressman]?)
What I find on this board is that there actually are people here who substantively have experienced some of the same things I have. Does that mean that the concept of "otherkin" has to be literally true, though? I don't think it does. This is one of those sites where I marginally fit in because of my view of myself, though it's hard for me to say exactly *what* I am, if not human. What I see myself as, is a spirit, acting through a body...which I'm thinking I may need to update my profile to say.
The point is that I am who and what I am, even though the ways I may explain who and what I am may vary. Without community backing for any one of these identities, the identity category itself will weaken in the mind, and it seems that one simply becomes, "themselves." Even if, without cultural context...which may be the only way any one of us has any identity, at all.
It's looking like, physically, I may be moving into one of these cultural spaces previously only accorded to other outsiders of the man/woman binary. As hard as I'm expecting that to be, it's still really exciting to have the option to self-determine and attempt to claim my own space; instead of being forced out to the edges, replaced by everyone else's expectations and demands and illusions. But even this aspect of self-knowledge was not gained in a vacuum -- I couldn't have known that I was not a woman without knowing what women *were*.
At this point, I'm wondering about the utility of this space, in practicality. If we subtract the identity-based portion of it -- phantom limbs, past-life recollection -- do we still have a viable community? Even now, though, I'm running up against the question of how much we can subtract and still maintain the lifeblood of the space (bioenergetics? spirit contact? Things like this actually impact *me*, to my surprise, whereas phantom limbs and recovered memories do not). I'm just thinking that, as quiet as it is -- I don't know, maybe it will pick up, but otherwise...could it be time to re-vision the forum so that it more precisely focuses on us as beings in a matured community; maybe so that it is of a slightly more relevant, but still inclusive, focus?
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Dependence of self-concept upon others of like mind
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