There’s a dangerous habit sweeping through the ranks of young, open-minded and logical people.

It’s the habit of thinking in an anachronistic, closed-minded and illogical way.

The mentality that there are “good thoughts”, with which “good people” obviously agree. And that there are “bad thoughts”, with which only “bad people” agree. A particularly poisonous strain of liberal fascism.
Like this young girl attacking a young man for, basically, not living his life on her terms. There’s a name for this — it’s called dogma. And I would know — having been a particularly judgmental strain of Christian.

We make the terrible mistake of attaching supreme moral value to causes with which we identify, then pressuring everyone else to agree with them.

Things are sometimes as simple as right and wrong — but often, they aren’t.

And a failure to acknowledge this complexity, in my experience, comes from a failure to understand the difference between knowing what to think and knowing how to think.

The difference between “knowing what to think” and “knowing how to think”
Knowing what to think is believing that Afrocentrism and feminism (for example) are inherently good things, which must be supported by any good person.

Knowing how to think is believing in the ideas of equality for all, as well as the freedoms of expression, thought and self determination.

One is being told what’s right and what’s wrong. The other is developing the aptitude to figure both out for yourself. One shouts at the world for not being right. The other rights the world.

Focussing on what to think gave us Christian colonialism and religious terrorism. It gave us the blind conviction that “We are right and they are wrong,” — fuelled by the deceptive momentum of majority support.

Focussing on how to think gave us the Slavery Abolition Act, universal suffrage and same-sex marriage — despite, in many cases, a lack of majority support and mass appeal.

I remember being asked whether I was a feminist. I answered, “No.”

The girl who’d asked the question almost took my head off, “Do you have sisters?! A mother?! How can you live in this world and not be a feminist?”

She’d asked me the wrong question and assumed that because I didn’t define myself according to the “ism” known as feminism, I didn’t support the ideas of wellbeing, equality and progress for women.

She thought I dissociated myself from feminism because it was about the empowerment of women — in fact, I’m not a feminist because it’s an ism.

Isms often turn into breeding grounds for hate, propaganda and worst of all, dogma.

When you commit to an ism, you become chained not only to the idea you believe in, but also the ideas adopted by those driving the agenda of that ism.

When I was younger, I’d always considered myself a feminist. I’m a man who was raised by women — a mother and four sisters — how could I make sense of not being a feminist?

As well as feminism, I defined myself (at various times) as being an adherent of Afrocentrism, liberalism, atheism… a longer list of isms than my very long list of Nigerian names.

Then I got tired. Tired of keeping up with all the things I was “supposed” to be if I were to remain a part of these isms. Things that were defined for and forced on me. Things that were more about propaganda than the truth.

If I wanted to be afrocentric, I needed to believe in the idea of the “white devil” (I don’t). If I wanted to be a feminist, I needed to believe in the idea of the “man devil” (I don’t). If I wanted to be an atheist, I needed to believe in the idea of the “theist devil” (I don’t).

With isms, there’s always an “Other” and this “Other” is always to blame.

I’ve broken down the other reasons why I don’t live by isms into 3 parts.

1. [b]Isms have agendas, not goal[/b]s
An idea is a point of view at which one arrives, through the application of aptitude and reason. An ism is a collection of ideas combined into a doctrine, designed to promote a certain outcome.

The former is a tool you use to interpret the world (you’re in control). The latter is a tool used for telling you how to interpret the world (you’re being controlled).

Isms are institutions and institutions tend to push agendas that preserve their relevance and existence. In other words, the goal of an institution is to remain relevant and alive for as long as possible.

It’s why we’ve ended up with different institutions of afrocentrism, feminism, monotheism etc. — all pushing different, and in many cases antagonistic, agendas.

Institutions might achieve some goals along the way (and many do)… but they hardly want to see the day when they can mark all their goals as “complete” and seal their own irrelevance. At a certain point, their reason for being becomes, simply, being.

To that end, institutions will conflate problems. Exaggerate them. Distort them. Invent them. Corrupt them. To convince us that they’re needed, institutions will do everything to push the agenda that a problem exists — and that it’s worse than ever.

The saddest thing about this style of manipulation, is that it gravely hurts the underlying goal. It turns a genuine problem into a questionable agenda.

For example, it shifts our focus from the goal that says, “No matter how low the instances of rape (or racism), they can and should be lower.” Instead, we focus on the (largely) irrelevant question, “How extreme and prevalent is the problem of rape (or racism) really?”

Focussing on improving how we think keeps us focussed on a goal, not an agenda.

I don’t care about making modern day white people — who never enslaved anyone and have no desire to do so — feel bad about what their great, great grand daddy did.

I don’t care about convincing the world that racism is worse than ever so Jesse Jackson, Khalid Abdul Muhammad (now deceased), and the Society of Black Lawyers can con people into giving them money and support.

Racism is certainly alive (I’ve felt its sting). But until white people can get away with padlocking my lips and setting me to work on a field, I won’t undermine the cause by telling the lie that racism is worse than ever.

Instances of racism don’t need to be higher than ever for us to agree that there should be fewer still.

Agendas get fed with hate, lies and dogma… and swell into uncontrollable, shapeless monsters that no one can control. Agendas pander to our insecurities and use them as leverage for controlling us. Ideas merely need to be coherent— agendas need to be right.

“Are you black? A woman? Homosexual? Transgender? Are things bad? It’s the Others’ fault — blame them! It’s not your responsibility to deal with the problem — you’re perfect little snowflakes, with unique minds and pure hearts. Lend me your voice and I will shout the Other into submission.”

We surrender our powers of self-determination to divisive, political rhetoric.

We surrender our powers of self-expression to be locked away in the institutions these agendas exist to protect.

2. Isms create a false image of virtue and vice
Even in this article, I’ve tended towards examples involving “blackness” or “black people” because, being a black man, that’s the only issue I’m safely allowed to talk about.

Being a man, I expect a backlash for having the temerity to make the few mentions of feminism I have here — even though I only make them because it’s a movement with an underlying idea (empowerment of women) that I wish to succeed.

I don’t have a card for the other groups. Except “white Western European men”. Everyone can have a go at that group and it’s OK. Apparently because some white Western European men have done some terrible things over the years.

Is there any group of people that hasn’t had a huge number of evil bastards within it? Should they be similarly trapped by their identities? I know I wouldn’t want the sins of evil Africans and black people hanging over me forever.

Isms try to convince us of the inherent virtuosity of the supposedly oppressed, and the inherent evil of the supposed oppressors.

But that’s a terrifyingly dangerous position because — here’s the kicker — there are evil black people.

There are evil women. There are evil gay people. There are evil transgender people. There are evil people.

Every person has a responsibility to question every ism, otherwise these evil people will happily destroy society.

There are violent feminists (at least that’s what they call themselves) who attack and threaten the lives of innocent men, because they disagree with their views. There are violent black nationalists who want to purge the Earth of all white people… simply because they’re white.

It’s easy to feel good about yourself, especially if you’re one of the supposed oppressors, for uncritically supporting an ism which claims to empower the supposedly oppressed.

But sure enough as there are evil people in the world, there are evil people perverting these isms into monsters which suit their agendas. Follow any isms blindly and you’ll risk walking off a moral cliff edge.

Remain vigilant. Question everything. Commit to improving how you think, not what you think.

And if people judge you for not sheepishly believing what they see as obviously “right” or “true”…

Hell, they’ll judge you anyway.

3. Isms create more labels than ever, in a world that needs fewer labels
I’m sure you’ve seen them everywhere too — reasons for every group to hate another.

Opportunities to cause offence (even where none was meant) are available with every word. Opportunities to take offence are available with every breath.

I’m a black, male, cisgender, proto-feminist, millennial, race-neutral, kyriarchical, mononormative… blah blah blah.

Blah.

“The proto-feminist in me hates that thing you just said, but the black person in me was even more offended by that other thing you think. How dare you hold opinions and say things that don’t agree with my views and sensibilities!”

We see dramas like these playing out all the time —like Margaret Atwood getting labelled a bad feminist by other feminists, simply because she thinks people—including men—should be treated fairly (I’m not kidding). Or like feminists attacking one type of feminist for apparently attacking another type of feminist . Yeah… it’s exhausting.

You’re not defined by your labels — don’t hold on so preciously to them. Don’t bury them under your skin and become attached to them, like extreme body modifications.

They aren’t really you — just an imperfect mechanism used to express some deeper aspect of yourself. It’s far more important (and harder) to get to know that deeper aspect of ourselves, which we try so hard to project to the world. In the equation of your life, you are the variable on which you possess the greatest level of control.

Trump may be trying to build a wall on the US border with Mexico, but just as sad are the walls we’ve let people like him trick us into building in our minds. Walls that are hundreds of millions of people long.

How can we unite in any real way, when we’ve built these walls around ourselves — and a strict (sometimes violent) intolerance for anything on the other side?

The fight is not with people who think differently from you (independent thinkers) — it’s with those who try to stop you from thinking differently yourself (thought police).

And those people come in all shapes and colours — not just as men, women, white, black, straight… or whatever form we’ve come to expect the “enemy” to take. Sometimes, what you fear looks exactly like you.

But we do have a choice. We can interact on a person-to-person basis. We don’t have to arrive at interactions with a back-breaking bag of judgements and predispositions.

Being a part of an ism does not make you wrong or bad — but neither does opting out of them
So I don’t become guilty of the thing I so despise, I’ll close this article by saying I don’t think being a feminist, or atheist… or part of any other ism is a bad thing.

This essay is not an attack on afrocentrism or feminism, in particular. It’s an analysis of isms, in general.

I’m saying isms aren’t for me and that shouldn’t be shocking to anyone. It doesn’t mean I’m anti-women, or anti-black… or anti anything else that’s good for society.

And because I believe in improving how I think, not what I think, I’ll leave the door wide open to the possibility that I’m completely wrong.

I wanted to read it but it's too long.