Accepting Individuals

I'm currently following a video series about Mary Shelly's novel Frankenstein, and it's teaching me some important lessons. One of those lessons is acceptance.

The "monster" in Frankenstein isn't actually a monster. Sure, he looks like a monster, and he does some monstrous things by the end of the book, but that's not because he's a monstrous person bent on doing evil. Rather, he is a good person who tried to do good things, but who got rejected. The monster was lashing out in frustration at not being accepted by society.

I wonder if any modern political individuals (who are, incidentally, often dubbed monsters by their political opponents) might have similar motivations. Humans are social animals. To a certain extent, each of us wants to fit in. When one person is judged as being too different from the others, when one is deemed unacceptable, that person is likely to become upset and may even lash out against those by whom they had wanted to be accepted. This might explain some of the riots and protests we've had over the last few years.

Now, I'm not saying that we should accept anything and everything. There are some practices and ideologies that we should refuse to accept. But I don't think that there are any people we should refuse to accept. Ostracising individuals is generally counterproductive and harmful, both to the individual and to society. Making people feel like outsiders can contribute to behavior that we would rather prevent.

Another disclaimer I should make is that accepting individuals doesn't mean that we accept everything about them. We might welcome a smoker into our homes, for example, but still ask that they not smoke in the house. It is difficult, but I believe it is possible to be welcoming to an individual while making it clear that some behaviors are unacceptable. Frankenstein's monster wasn't bad just for existing, but some of his actions were. When we identify unacceptable behaviors, we should be clear that it's the behavior that's unacceptable, not the individual. Individuals can change their behavior, if we give them opportunities and reasons to.

Too often, I hear political talk that sorts people into groups based on their race, their political beliefs, their religious beliefs, and even their sexual preferences, and then declares that some of those people are good or bad, based solely on which groups they belong to. I argue that this needs to stop. We need to stop categorizing and ostracising people and instead accept them as individuals before addressing any points of contention. A wise man once said "Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." I think that's good advice, even when the problem we have is with the person we should love.

I think that if Frankenstein's monster had been loved, he wouldn't have been or become a monster. I wonder how many other "monsters" would stop being monsters if we stopped treating them like monsters.