#Ignorance is a disease
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 11:47AM#TalkNerdyToMeLover's JenSquared
Here is the video in question:
Oh man, where to start on this one. First of all let me say that I don’t know this person, so I can’t fully infer her intent. But I don’t think I am misreading this.
I feel really sad that your intolerance has blinded you to the beauty that is a different culture. Why exactly are these beliefs silly? Because you don’t share them? Honestly, which is sillier: believing that the mother’s blood is retained from birth and needs to be purged to become a man, or the belief that an invisible man in the sky took a rib from a man to create a woman?
ALL cultures inflict unnecessary pain. We pierce our daughters’ ears for the sake of beauty. Our elite athletes train through injuries just for sport and entertainment. Absolutely unnecessary. While you may see their infliction of pain as unnecessary, I’m sure they disagree. They want to become men, and that is their rite of passage. It isn’t pretty, but they aren’t asking you to participate (which is more than I can say for most Westernized cultures). Their beliefs, as hard as they may be for us to understand, aren’t ours to understand. And there are far worse things they could be doing. I think it is commendable that they aren’t being asked to murder, torture or rape rival tribesmen. Body mutilation = historical, common across many cultures, and relatively harmless.
You are right. I don’t want to shove reeds up my nose. But it has nothing to do with the fact that I have a shred of knowledge about my anatomy. It’s because I’m a puss. I really think that as Americans we are fairly culture-less. I know, I know, we do have culture. I little bit. We have traditions, and a few customs. But the foundation of what we are as a melting pot means that in general we do not have a unique culture. Unless being ignorant, intolerant and judgmental could be considered “cultural”.
The loss of unique indigenous cultures is as devastating to our world as the loss of rainforest and 
oceans. We just don’t see it as such because they are different. We don’t get it. And we don’t try. We are missing out on things like spoken and written languages, customs dating back thousands of years, medicinal and ritualistic practices that could honestly hold the key to solving our greatest mysteries. Somehow these people are surviving in the harshest conditions on Earth – without shoes, without the internet, without modern medicine, and without assholes telling them to change. I have seen firsthand the strength, kindness and depth of soul that comes from an indigenous person. Their connection to the Earth and the nature that surrounds them is something we could all learn from.
Also…you aren’t okay with their rituals, but you beLIEve in spirit animals? What the frick is that about?
Ignorance is a disease. And so is intolerance. They may not kill you, but they are communicable, and they are dangerous.
Education is also a disease. A good kind of disease. Like if there was a disease that gave you perky boobs or the ability to read minds. This one is also communicable. So catch it and infect your friends. I recommend we all start a tolerance epidemic. No more judgements. No more ignorance. No more distrust of the things we don’t understand.
Unite with me, nerds. Let's start a new cult.
#DrinkTheKoolAid
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