I went to my dentist yesterday to get my teeth checked for the first time since before the pandemic. I had a few issues Ineeded to take care of back then, but just as I was about to make an appointment, the pandemic hit. Then, life hit. Then, inertia hit. Now, my tooth hit. So, here we are.
I love my dentist. She is great! The dental hygienists are great! The receptionist, who is the dentist’s husband is…not great. He is an aged hippie who has an amalgamation of out-there ideas. One of the reasons I had not gone back in a timely fashion is because he likes to vomit a bunch of these opinions at me.
In fifteen minutes, he told me that COVID was overblown by the government, that people died every day, anyway (including from the flu and SARS), that doctors should not hand out drugs so much, but recommend essential oils because they worked for him. He had a headache? He put essential oil on his forehead and the headache was gone! He didn’t trust doctors, but if he broke his leg, he would go to a doctor.
People were good and he would join in an uprising to make life better for everyone, but people were also deadbeats who no longer wanted to work. They had a position for hygienist that paid good money, and they could not get enough good applicants. Also, one of their hygienists quit at the beginning of the pandemic because she had a baby at home and did not feel safe. He made fun of her concerns in a way I found appalling. In general, his attitude towards COVID was distasteful.
I pushed back when I felt the need to speak up (like I don’t think COVID was ‘overblown’ and I’m allergic to everything so essential oils were not for me. I also said I believed in doctors, which I truly do. Not that they are always right, but that they have specific knowledge in subjects and are, you know, healing people). Like, I’m alive because of them, but it was exhausting. He would not stop talking to me, and I marveled in the back of my mind how he had no qualms about pushing his quackery on me.
Yet, when I said that people weren’t good, he protested and was shocked. Even after all his complaining, he wanted to believe that he believed in the goodness of people. Whereas I did not. I said I didn’t think people were good or bad–they just were people. A combination of good and bad.
But, my god. Give me the confidence of a mediocre white man. Let me add cis het to that. He had absolutely no qualms about spouting all this stuff at me, and my pushback did not deter him in the laast. K pointed out to me that most hippies were wealthy white dudes who could afford to ‘drop out’ of society. Which is true .
This guy talked a big game about how he would be a part of the revolution to help others have better lives. I could barely contain a huge sigh becasue it was such bullshit. There was nothing stopping him from doing it (or any kind of activism), but he wasn’t as far as I could tell.
More importantly, I did not want to have this barrage of nonsense thrown at me as I was waiting to have my teeth taken care of. He didn’t do it to other people–well, I don’t know that for sure. I was the only one actually sitting in the waiting room because I had a late afternoon appointment It was exhausting. I wouldbe much better off if I could just nod and smile, but I have a hard time letting really egregious bullshit sail by me.
It was funny because my brother and I had been talking a few nights ago about his son’s girlfriend’s father who was trying to sell UV lamps as a COVID prevention. No, I don’t know how or why this is a thing, and I don’t really care to know. My brother couldn’t believe he (the father) believed this stuff and was shilling out. I pointed out that he used to believe that fluoride in the water was a government conspiracy to–something or the other.
“I still don’t use fluoride,” my brother announced. Oh. Uh. Awk-ward. Part of his rationale is that he brushed his teeth all the time when we were kids because he got our mother’s terrible teeth whereas I did not brush hardly at all (I had my father’s good teeth), and he got tons of cavities while I got none. That’s genetics! He even mentioned he got our mother’s teeth and I got our father’s!
The point is that most of us cannot see how our own beliefs are contradictory, silly, jarring, or just ill-founded. It’s much easier to see other people’s faulty thinking in part because we are not them. When you are in your own head, you can see the nuances of your own beliefs and why you can see the truth when other people can’t.
I joked with Ian that it was a good thing my own beliefs were so rational and reasonable, and that they were all coherent with each other. This isn’t true, obviously. I am just as irrational as other people, but I will defend my beliefs to my dying day. Although, I will say, while I may not agree with someone when they present an opposing belief to me, I will think about it later. That’s how I change my mind,
Back in W.’s second term, my brother and I were eating fast food Chinese and discussing the election. My brother was a Republican at that time for ‘moral’ reasons (read, abortion, but he put it in terms of Christian values). Every point he brought up, I countered. Such as abortions went down during Democratic president’s reign because pregnant people had more options (grossly simplified). My brother finally got flustered and angry, and snapped, “I’m allowed to have my opinion!” Sure. But it’s a bad opinion so I do not need to respect it.
That’s the thing. Everyone is allowed their own opinions, yes. Everyone else is allowed to push back on said opinions. Granted, I got a bit heated in the debate, but so did he. I will point out that he voted for Obama four years later and now, he’s a very vocal Independent. I take some credit for that, to be honest. I was the one who constantly pushed back against his beliefs (which were wrong).
I try to keep my beliefs coherent, but it’s not always possible because we are messy human beings who don’t fit neatly into seperate categories. That’s part of the beauty of being human in my view–how gloriously irrational we can be.