Celebrate What?

A new commercial has been airing the last few days, the theme of which is 'celebrate differences'. Yes, we're about to go on that rant again, the one where we ask just what the hell do they mean. It's a personal favorite.

Celebrate differences. Before going any further, we do in fact know what they mean. They mean for us to accept the 'differences among people', and to an extent that's okay. The commercial speaks of loving those of different colors and backgrounds and lifestyles; to wit, whomever they see as worthy of acceptance. Some of those, the ad makes quite clear, are outside right wing celebration.

And there's the rub. Will they accept conservatives who will not accept everyone or every idea they support? Somehow we doubt it. And we haven't even gotten into the notion that merely being asked to celebrate differences is little but a vacuous and hollow platitude. In the first place, we know it because we know they will not support us and our differences along with theirs. In the second place, by themselves the words don't actually mean anything in particular.

Murderers are different than most of us because few people murder. But you know we don't mean that, the celebrators will assert. Well, then, say it, even though it will mean little. The point is simply that any phrase left to itself is innocuous. It's the affects and effects that such trite catchphrases have and cause which matter. Have no doubt in your mind then that such blithe remarks will cause some people to want support for the unsupportable. After all, such would be as different as anything else might be when making mere comparisons between people and concepts.

So, onto the dust heap, celebrate difference. You belong right there with education, peace, liberty, freedom, and all other large sounding words employed by many yet without real meaning. Come celebrate that with us. The bonfire, being fueled with the best fuel (you know what we mean), will burn quite nicely.