The success (by my current standards) of my previous post on our need of freaks made me think that I am not alone in thinking that this society lacks variety. Better said: it is not that it lacks variety: it REJECTS variety. It denies variety as someone who tried to deny the law of gravity. But such variety is a treasure, and we should not be ashamed of it, as I will defend in this post.
An additional reason to discuss the issue again is because the narrow format of a blog post, though great in other aspects, always presents a danger of extreme generalization. Here I will try to clarify certain misconceptions and apply a slight variation in the angle of view. Ahem.
A freak cannot be defined. By definition.
The “freak” term was created by non-freaks, as a “cage” to put inside everything that they cannot understand. The Average Joe needs easy answers, predefined paths of action in order to avoid personal responsibility. The weird one, the exaggerated, the unpredictable, threatens that state of things. But it is easy to bully him; labels are the weaponry for the mediocre ones (which are a crowd).
“Freak” is just a statistic term
Before the term acquired its pejorative connotations, “freak” was synonymous with “prodigy”. Something really rare to see, unusual. A cow flying, for example. There is nothing pejorative about a cow flying.
Freaks are fruitful
Michaelangelo was a freak. Einstein was a freak. Galileo was a freak. Can you imagine it? “It is the Earth which turns around the sun and not the opposite? This guy is nuts!” (By that time they hadn’t invented the freak term, so they used to burn people alive. Now that’s what I call progress.)
“Nature advances through its weirdest specimens”, said the poet Paul Valéry. Many of the most spectacular discoveries and theories that are nowadays considered common ground, had a rough birth as inconvenient, weird, and prosecuted ideas.
Freaks are necessary to the social tissue
One of the biggest contradictions of human community is that it requires difference, variety, in order to reach new achievements, but it does not encourage such variety and difference. On the contrary, it prosecutes, sieges, vilifies and isolates anyone who is different. Taken to the extreme, the establishment of one and only one acceptable model of human being is what we call fascism. When the Nazi party got the power in Germany, one of its first strategies was destroying private life; every citizen, every family, was supposed to live in the streets, with sports, collective events, parades… Individuality was badly looked upon, it was considered selfish, and the reasoning behind was: “given that we are all alike (because if you are not, you are sick and must be exterminated), what do you want spare time for? What are you hiding?”. The novelist Stefan Zweig tells us also about the regime of terror established by John Calvin in Geneva in the XVIst century: the citizens were obliged to keep their doors always opened, as the forces of the law had carte blanche to make searches at any moment, to check that everything was according to Their-One-And-Only-Model.
I would also add that, in a way, we all are freaks, because nature, unlike computers, never shows neat, distinct categories, but very discreet ones (0.000001 of this, 1.0000034572 of that…) And it is better to admit and celebrate one’s own freak side because otherwise it will manifest just the same, but playing tricks on us in addition.
So, next time someone calls you freak, think how lucky you are. Think that your life will be more plentiful, intense, of a higher resolution, yet a bit more lonely, perhaps. And pity those who use words as if they were stones.
What do you stuff about all this freakin’ think?
What was your freakiest moment ever (and proud of it, man)?
Related posts:
There’s nothing wrong with being a freak
Life right after removing the wrapper
Nacho and the primal forces
One quote and two warnings
The key, if you ask me…