I could be the lone Eskimo, friend of whales and seals."

The Panopticon

I never knew I liked to be outside so much. I never knew I liked lochs and views and that, but I could seriously handle living in a cottage by the side of somewhere like this."
The Panopticon

This is what one of the founding fathers of sociology, Emile Durkheim, meant when he wrote in 1895 that the establishment of a sense of community is facilitated by a class of actors who carry a stigma and sense of stigmatization and are termed 'deviant.' Unity is provided to any collectivity by uniting against those who are seen as a common threat to the social order and morality of a group. Consequently, the stigma and the stigmatization of some persons demarcates a boundary that reinforces the conduct of conformists. Therefore, a collective sense of morality is achieved by the creation of stigma and stigmatization and deviance.

As a committed Christian, I have always struggled with locked doors—doors by which we on the inside lock out "the others"—Jews, Muslims, Mormons, liberals, doubters, agnostics, gay folks, whomever. The more we insiders succeed in shutting others out, the more I tend to feel locked in, caged, trapped.

I wished on the moon, for something I never knew.

The only stupid question is the question that is never asked.