I need to make an apology. To Niki Whiting, to the organizers and attendees of Many Gods West, to Rhyd Wildermuth and to all of my readers.
Last week I made a series of posts that crossed a line and caused some good people harm. I thought the posts were exaggerated to the point of absurdity, but a number of folks didn’t see them as satire – or if satire, a sort that was in very poor taste. Satire is a tricky thing to pull off well and I blundered badly. Really, really badly. I am currently dealing with the consequences of that blunder, part of which involves publicly admitting wrong-doing, so here goes: I’m sorry.
I would like to assure folks that I never intended violence towards anyone; that’s just not my style. I may rant and mock and fume behind the scenes, but running around vandalizing shit while screaming, “The raccoon is in the hot tub!” Well, that simply isn’t me. Many years ago Dionysos taught me a valuable lesson – be careful what you pretend to be or you may become that thing.
The irony of this situation, of course, is that those posts were intended to highlight the dangers of our increasingly polarized environment and the toxic rhetoric that people are letting fly without any thought for consequences. I’ve tried having civil conversations with folks, I’ve tried making rants and cryptic posts condemning it, I’ve tried leading by example and yet the situation just gets increasingly worse. So I figured I would try on the persona of the ontological terrorist to show where such madness inevitably leads – and apparently I played the part so well people believed that’s who I am, and got scared.
Thus proving, once again, how wise the Lord Dionysos truly is.
I don’t put the blame for this on any of you. I chose the words and imagery that I did to communicate my ideas, poorly as it turned out, so the fault is all mine. Hopefully some day I’ll be able to atone for the tremendous sin of not being funny. Until that day I shall strive to make my little corner of the world that much better.
