True love is as mean a concept as Politically Correct. The phrases themselves are innocent enough, I guess, the implications not so much. True love implies that all other love was false and Politically Correct means whoever doesn’t fly that standard is incorrect. Um, before ranting anymore, this is all unprovoked, nothing happened.
Politically Correct isn’t a phrase bandied about anymore, but, that’s in part due to having pissed all over every parade until any offended group can get a white washed title that ends in –American. Besides Orwellian shadow cast on the doubleplusgood-american culture it fucks with the language a bit; American is NOT a suffix for any noun you find offensive.
True love is a little trickier because I don’t want to take anyones stuffed unicorn or shit on their rainbow. It also isn’t really all that modern a concept and yet it hasn’t been dropped from the lexicon either. I imagined I loved my first wife and second wife and even now I’d certainly put them out if they were on fire, though, even with a private jet it’d take me four hours to get there plus at least twenty minutes in a private car or they could come to the airport but it begs the question; why didn’t the driver put out their fire? I sure as hell love my kids and grandkids, still, the oldest being thirty three and the youngest thirteen (almost). I’ve loved them their whole lives. And my dogs, I’ve loved every one of my dogs and some dogs that aren’t mine and some kids that aren’t mine. I know that’s not what true love means, and yet I have never loved truer than the kids, grand kids and dogs.
I am in love now. I refuse to think that I wasted half a century loving falsely and being incorrect politically. Perhaps it’s my own ego but I think of myself as the most correct person who ever lived and my love the most honest you’re likely to ever see. I believe more in a human capacity for love than I do in a humans desire to be correct. That’s another problem with political correctness; it doesn’t change the ugliness of human nature if, for instance, the KKK were to lynch an African American or Neo-Nazis were to burn a swastika onto a Hebrew Americans lawn. For that matter it hasn’t made either hate groups recruitment suffer a loss because people on the fence don’t use offensive language. I’d even submit that a homogenous language makes it easier for people to hide the nature of their hatred.
If the federal government mandated true love and political correctness most of the nation would balk and then rebel. But even if they didn’t, the balking nation, it’s impossible to legislate the hearts and minds. That’s why when that phrase is used it’s “Win the hearts and Minds” not legislate them.
Liberal as I might be in type and action, I had believed I was marrying for life. Both times, though I was cynical by the second time, mostly because I thought I was marrying for life the first time. One of the great things about being human is that when it comes to emotions we don’t have a limited supply. I’m told I have a limited amount of sperm, brain cells and years, but not emotions. The idea that True Love isn’t plural is the same idea as Correct in Politically Correct. It allows no room for growth, alternatives, the immediate situation. This rant is not meant to belittle love but celebrate it, it’s not meant to embrace bigotry so much as denigrate narrow thinking.
Several years ago over a game of pinochle I was having a discussion with a fairly radical African American, I wouldn’t say he was one of my best friends, but we spent our lunch hours together playing pinochle five days a week for six years, so he was more than a casual aquaintence. I wasted all those words because the first thing a closet racist says is some of my best friends are fill-in-the-blank-Americans. We were talking about reparations to descendants of American slaves. We both had good points and we both had good hands of pinochle. I think my best point was “My people weren’t even in this country then, the Tzar was trying to kill us in Poland, why should I as a taxpayer give you a dime? It’s like giving me a parking ticket cause an able bodied white guy parked in a handicap zone.” His response is I should ask for reparations from the Tzar. Pretty weak if you ask me.
His best point was “I’m of the only race that needed special legislation to recognize my rights as a citizen. I don’t mean in 1865, I mean in 1968.” My response was “Huh. You have a point.”
In that respect the whole slipping politically correct language into the national conversation was a bit like the emancipation proclamation, which took a hundred years and some riots and legislation to sort out. Semantics. Yet a lot broader than black and white and, um, sexual harassment legislation came later for, um, penis impaired Americans, wait, no, shapely bottomed Americans? I kid, but the point is the same. And it brings up another PC issue, the percentage of women in the country is higher than the percentage of African Americans (even given the crossover) but in the world the percentage of people who are Americans is considerably less significant.
Which also crosses over into one of the fairy tale parts of True love, mostly reserved for unattractive people and teenagers; there is someone in the world for everyone, everyone has their own true love out there. I might be unattractive, I’ve been told I’m not, but I might be, not that it would change the way I do anything. If I were to choose a single thing that makes me mad every god damned time, it’s being patronized. So, if anyone had ever told me there was someone, a true love, for me out in the world, I would be very angry with that person.
I assume at some time in the history of western civilization the idea of true love was to prevent the spread of STD’s and promote chastity and peace among married peons. Yet, the second oldest profession in the world is bearing the information that prostitution is the oldest profession. Just saying. I am not confusing adultery with love or prostitution, just that if the notion was to deter bad behavior it didn’t work.
Also love and truth is a bit like god, it’s hard to grab a handful and hold it up to the light. And, like god, there are those who think there is no such thing or more common that love and truth are subjective and ephemeral. Atheist is not an insult, misanthrope is. Whereas certain zealots will argue the case for god loudly, everyone sort of shakes their heads when someone says they don’t believe in love. With truth it depends on who is talking to whom. Faith and Fact are the argument for the former and the latter, the poor thing in the middle, love, often is argued with a sniffly nose that there is true love out there.
It’s not true. There are thousands of loves out there, more loves than there are gods or truths. Some are more satisfying than others, but, still. I think what true love means is real love, even so, thousands. There are degrees of satisfaction and healthy, but I think the real love/true love ideal is that you know you haven’t taken a placebo; you feel it all over your skin, in your pulse, in your pants, the ringing of the phone, looking at a picture, when a certain song is played, when she smiles. Also, and not to be gross and not solely to be funny, when they poop their diapers, burp, laugh when you trip, bark because you’re home, curl up at your feet, cling to you at the doctors/vets/school/obedience class. I could on, but I think I already have.
One hopes that a romantic love isn’t pooping diapers or barking but that is a pretty good measuring stick, if you are still in love romantically after that it’s pretty solid.
As for PC, I’m glad no one really talks about it anymore and am horrified that it’s become the standard of behavior mostly because there’s always a backlash.
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