Why iHATE

Society

The Miscellany

Easy. I don't like people. I can think of a million things I'd rather be doing than standing in a sweaty mob of people, packed together like cattle, swilling their Pale Ales and preventing anyone from traversing the sidewalk. I prefer to stay home on those days, and not elbow my way past Mary and Alice, screaming over the marching band "SO HOW IS LITTLE BILLY? IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I'VE SEEN HIM. HE MUST BE GETTING SO BIG."

People don't even need to have that conversation, anymore. They can tape themselves having it once, and then, on whatever yearly occasion they pass each other on the street, just break out the ole' portable tape player and press play. The questions never change. The answers never change. Little Billy has always grown since the last time, he is sprouting up like a bad weed.

If we aren't part of one another's lives, why do we pretend to be interested in the trivial details of people we don't really know? Mary's going to go home and continue to drink heavily and watch soap operas, and Alice has to run home because she needs to meet her lover promptly and finish up before her husband gets home... they never discuss what goes on in their lives, never anything with personal meaning. They just stand there, pursuing the equivalent of a half-hour handshake.

But not liking people and not liking parades are two different things, aren't they? Aside from the fact that parades draw large crowds of people (which I can, and do, hate all by themselves), iHATE parades simply because of what they are. Allow me to explain:

A parade begins. There are bands and fanfare, and then the floats and displays roll out... The Shriners always show up, barely able to walk a straight line and never keeping in step. Then comes the Harley Davidson Motorcycle Club, which usually is stocked with doctors and lawyers on spotless hogs, all dressed in matching leather vests and well polished boots (and these guys are never what I think of when I think "Harley Davidson." How about you?). Then the classic cars. Then the local churches.

One after another, all of these well dressed, well groomed, successful groups of people are paraded down the street, and the slovenly, impoverished slugs stand off to the sides and ogle them. Does this seem wrong to anyone but me?

Let me make this crystal fucking clear, so that no one misinterprets me on this: parades are putting the Haves on display for the Have-Nots to worship. Very simple.

All of these people walk down the street, and wave at the unwashed masses who have clustered around them to covet their cars and their oneness with whichever group they have sided with. Parades tell us all that we should belong. We should all be cogs in the big machine, we should all find a powerful group to swear allegiance to, and if we all work hard, we will have shiny, expensive things, too. Because isn't that what we all want? Don't we all want to be Haves?

So I stood there, on the roof of one of the stores above the parade (no, I didn't spit on anyone. You would have been very proud of me) watching all of this, I wanted to declare Class War. Not some Marxist wet dream of Communism-- you should all know by now that I really don't care for isms in any form-- but a real, visceral Class War. I wanted to see all of those people on the sidelines stand up and decide that the worshipping of cars and status was disgusting, mob that street, and tear it all down. I wanted to see the little guy win for a change. I wanted to see someone break out of their stupor and scream "Those people are no better than us!" But it never happened. I didn't say it either... I had removed myself from all of them, and rendered myself powerless. You need to be charismatic, not misanthropic, to be a leader, so I could never get the job.

It's just as well. If someone in that crowd had decried the worship of the doctors and their shiny Harley Davidsons, no one would have cared. If he had persisted, all he would have gotten was the consensus of "Shut up" and "What's your problem?" And if he still wouldn't leave the issue alone, if he continued to try to tell the people that they were being used, someone would inevitably lash out at him.

Change is bad, people. Telling anyone the world is anything but nice is punishable by social ostracision and physical violence. In a few years, maybe these enforcers will even have their own float in the town parade.