Make the life choices that will make you happy, and not the life choices that will make someone else happy.
Do not let anyone live life for you, because this life is yours.

The "luxury" to care

More than a half decade has gone since I stopped eating meat. Occasionally my mum still thinks vegetarianism is about being spoiled or picky. When she gets that idea, she keeps on talking about her childhood during the post-world war II recession, when meat was a luxury. So, today I told my mum that vegetarianism is not about choosiness and it has never been. At 19 I had times when I craved chicken, but I told myself that I couldn't have any of it. When the barbeque season came a half year later, I no longer had any cravings for meat. Instead I felt ill and lost my appetite (and lost weight). I became underweight. I created problems for myself. I was a lousy chef and made food that my mum said our dog wouldn't even eat. She was right - the food I cooked tasted awful. Yet I chose to eat it (so much for being picky about the food, huh?). 

Today I no longer feel an aversion to the smell of meat. I'm normal weight and in overall healthy. I realize I have been privileged though. I haven't been spoiled, but definitely privileged. I have had the time, health and effort to make this transition. My over-stressed big sister has told me that lack of time is one reason why she can't become a vegetarian (she doesn't have the time to learn about veggie cooking and nutrition).

This post is not meant to be about vegetarianism (it's not something I'm very passionate about these days) but about being privileged to care about issues that do not immediately effect me. I didn't become a vegetarian because I cared for animals (I hated our dog back then and called him "black rat"), but because I had had the time to study environmental ethics. I came to a point when I no longer could justify doing what I had always done: eating meat. I was in conflict with myself, and in order to find peace I had to stop eating meat. Note: it took me at least 3 years to get there. I had had vegan friends back in high school, so I had long known about the affordable alternatives (soy, quorn, beans, chick-peas). Not until college did I stop eating meat. The 3 years it took for me, were years I had been able to afford to think the issue through. I hadn't had many worries or concerns.

Richard Rorty (1993), a brilliant philosopher, explains why some people can afford to have sympathy for others:

Security and sympathy go together, for the same reasons that peace and economic productivity go together.The tougher things are, the more you have to be afraid of, the more dangerous your situation, the less you can afford the time or effort to think about what things might be like for people with whom you do not immediately identify.

I think there's a lot of truth to that statement. I have and have always had security in my life. I have never had to go hungry or sleep outside in the cold. I have not been through a war, or any life-threatening danger.

It's likely that I hold many of the opinions that I do, because I have been lucky in the circumstances of my upbringing. That doesn't mean I have been lucky to be indoctrinated one way or another. Neither have I come to certain conclusions because I'm rational (it's not about that). Since I have had basic security, I haven't had any need to fight for issues that I could gain something from. I didn't become a vegetarian because I thought I could gain something from it. Neither did I become passionate about LGBTQ-issues because I wanted to have the right to marry a same-sex-partner (I'm heterosexual). Why I'm a social democrat has also little to do with my own personal gain. I can easily provide for myself as long as my health is with me. I'm not a social democrat because I believe the purpose of the government is to provide for my needs. I'm a social democrat because I believe in social justice for all. I'm just a little part of "all".

To my final conclusion; I care about issues which I have little to no personal profit from, because I can afford to do so. I believe that as long as I can, there's simply no reason why I shouldn't.

LGTB-rights

Let's get one thing straight. The claim that homosexual people want special rights, is unfounded and false. 
If LGTB-people are not allowed to marry their partners, they are denied the following benefits* and rights:

*The right to the next-of-kin in hospital visitations
*Decisions about burial
*The right to bring a wrongful death action upon the negligent death of a spouse
*The spousal privilege exception when giving testimony
*Favourable tax
*Inheritance and insurance status
*Immigration rights
*Custody rights

Why should people who live in a commitment/partnership with each other not have those rights? 

*There's a sole exception of a few countries, where registered same-sex-partners have marriage benefits.

Dear Muba

Dear little person,
you bring joy to my life. You have a curiosity for the world around you. I used to be like you too, bursting with curiosity for all the things I did not yet understand. My mum told me I was a little philosopher, since I always had new questions. You know what? Life was more interesting back then. 

There are many things I would like to teach you. 

1. Sense of belonging outside of your comfort zone: you do not belong to an isolated part of the whole. You belong to the whole, just like any random kid at the street does. You belong to the society, just like I do. 

2.  You have a great sense of fairness and I want you to grow in your moral courage. Yet, I want you to act wisely and consider real threats. When you pointed out to me that a little person was being beaten down on the street, I know you expected me to do something. I wanted to interfere by walking towards the grown-up bully and the victim. I wanted to confront the bully, but I reminded myself that I am chance-less at fighting. Instead I picked up my cell-phone. I acted by taking precautionary measures. Whether dialing 112 or actually stepping into the fight zone is the best choice, depends on what you know you can handle and what risks you are willing to take. When you do not know how to handle a certain situation, turn to someone else for help. 

3. The values of our society: our societal values about equality stretches far and need to be respected. I think you understand the importance of women and men having the same rights, since we are human beings first and foremost. I think your mum would agree with me that any faith which puts men above women, is a misguided faith (this applies to both Christianity and Islam). 

Another kind of equality is about recognizing the rights of the people who have been considered deviants by others. Our language structure is changing because of two main reasons: a) a gathered effort to introduce a new pronoun which is not limited to sex b) people have advocated the importance of including people from all gender identities in our linguistic usage. All of my teachers (professors, doctors) use this new pronoun in their writings. This gender-neutral pronoun is widely accepted by now, although our national language academy has been resistant. The society has spoken: we want a gender-neutral language (the national language academy has been shown the way and has no other choice than to conform). 

Another important social value is that all love is equal. You know the book I gave you about those two male penguins who adopted a baby penguin? It's a simple but yet so powerful book. As the first book you have ever read in English, I think you will remember it and the valuable message that love doesn't discriminate. I also think you have the cognitive abilities to see that. On the other hand, I had several prejudices when I was a kid. I didn't understand better, until I learned to challenge all the prejudices I had. I learned that there is no such thing as "a deviation from normal", since there is no "normal". We are all equally normal in that sense, or equally weird. If you someday find that your peers will make fun of the openly gay kid in the class, I hope you will be the one to sit down next to him/her and say: "There's nothing wrong with you. They just don't understand better."

4. Intersectionality is the next step after equality, isn't it? With this I want to point out the ugly reality: social inequality. We are constantly judged, which is why we should avoid judging other people. We live in a system of oppression. Back in the day when our country was considered the most equal in the world, my teacher (professor) handed me an article with the title "A woman will earn more by investing in a sex reassignment surgery than in a college degree". That was my first day at Lund university and I learned that we have no reason to brag about the equality and justice in this country. Our equality might be better than in most countries, but it's still not good enough. The ugly reality is this: a white man is valued the most in our society. As a white woman I am valued less than a white man, but valued more than a black woman. As a black man, you will one day be valued less than a white man, but valued more than a black woman. Skin colour and gender are not the only factors we will be judged for though. Cultural background, social background and sexual orientation are other factors. I won't go through a sex-operation, because I don't think I should change. Neither should you change who you are. The system is what has to change - not us. We should not adapt to the system. However, since we both score less in the intersectionality hierarchy, we have to be prepared for the obstacles which we will face.  

The best way to defeat oppression is with knowledge. Fear of knowledge leads to oppression. Look at the women who belong to fundamental Christianity or fundamental Islam. There you will notice all of the following: internalized misogyny, learned helplessness and learned incompetence. Those women believe they can not handle power or independence. Within fundamental Christianity, children have been home-schooled and "protected" from knowledge. If they would choose to live out in the real world someday, they would need all sorts of special help to adapt to that kind of life. Their lack of education and knowledge disables them. While this is an extreme example of what happens when you do not get access to reality-based knowledge, we can also learn something from it. Those women believe a husband is the head of the wife. You see, they discredit their own heads (brains) that way. People who aren't educated don't know their own power and therefore surrender it to others. There's definitely a lesson to be learned here. Without a great amount of knowledge, you will find yourself fulfilling society's limited expectations.

While the idea to protect someone from inconvenient facts, could be well-intended, it's not ethical. I don't believe in "protecting" a child from knowledge. There's no good or bad knowledge. Of course, there are things I haven't told you. I hesitated in writing this letter to you, because I wanted you to be unaware of certain aspects of reality a little longer. Then I realized that a little more knowledge never hurt anybody. Knowledge is supposed to prepare you for reality (among other things). All knowledge helps you understand the world a little better. 

I do not doubt that you will become a football pro someday, if that is what you want. All it takes is motivation and will-power (and a good health obviously). However, we always need a back-up-plan. For whatever reason, things don't always work out the way we want them to. An education (e.g. university) is always a good back-up plan. The knowledge you gain can never be taken away from you. I hope I have managed to prepare you for that idea. 
 

Love,

me

Two lessons

Two important lessons my mum has given me:

1. Never rely on anyone else. Learn to depend on yourself. That's the best gift you can ever give yourself. 

2. Never compromise on eating well. Don't ever go hungry. The money you could save on food today, will become a threefold cost tomorrow - when your health has taken a turn for the worse.

Pro-reality

What humanity needs is more parents. 

What humanity doesn't need is more children starving to death.

What humanity doesn't need is more children dying from preventable and curable diseases.

What humanity doesn't need is more children being sold into human trafficking.

What humanity doesn't need is more children being beaten to death. 
   
What humanity needs is children who live - not just survive. 

Until every single child on this earth has a parent, the "pro-life"-movement will be nothing other than an elitist philosophy, where the compassion ends once the baby is born. 

Living children should take precedence over the not-yet-living (the unborn). 

Ten things