It’s Boxing Day for some of us (Happy Boxing Day!), the first day of Kwanzaa for some of us (Happy Kwanzaa!), the day after Christmas for most of us, whether or not we celebrate, and my second cup of coffee is on the brew. It’s gray and I think there maybe some rain on the way.
Or maybe not.
Ah and there is the beep of my coffee. I’ll be right back, though you likely won’t notice a thing.
See? Didn’t even take a paragraph.
After mostly going through our first major holiday season on Spoutible, I’m struck by what the world looks like when people who value diversity get to celebrate that diversity. Celebrate.
Not tolerate.
And let’s take that little side trip for a moment. I’ve never been a fan of the use of the word “tolerance” when it comes to people who are different from you in some way. “Tolerance” makes it sound like something that you cannot stand, that it makes sense you cannot stand, yet you bravely don’t do active harm, which would be the natural inclination.
“Tolerance” sounds like there is a base, a “norm,” a position of power that “allows” others to exist in another state, through gritted teeth and an attention-starved benevolence.
I prefer embracing, celebrating, and at a very minimum “accepting.” Not totally thrilled at that last one because again, it sounds like someone has the ultimate say rather than starting from a point of innate human rights.
And back to the point of today.
On Spoutible, as everyone’s different holidays roll around and users talk about their various traditions even for the same holiday, we enjoy broadening our spectrum of light. We enjoy it, we embrace it, and the key to Spoutible, the trick to it is thus:
There’s no one around to tell us we can’t.
There are no troll-y wet blankets. There are no wagging fingers about right ways and wrong ways. There are no antagonsists.
I mean they do show up, of course they show up, but for once in this vast science-fiction world of global communication, the odds are stacked in our favor. The structure of the very institution itself…
Celebrates diversity.
It doesn’t tolerate it like a character flaw. It nourishes it, it feeds it, it waters it until we have a lush, verdant endless variety of people being people in all of our different ways.
How beautiful is that?
How revolutionary?
And with that, I wish you a lovely Tuesday.
A Bit to Read 
Leave a comment