I am beginning to see social media as a marketplace, a place where most of us go daily, open shop, with the singular purpose of airing our views, opinions and perspectives. We urge people to buy what we have to sell to them, employ the use of gimmicks to ensure that we are noticed, liked and followed and mostly project our opinions as the only right one, insinuating or even stating outright that contrary opinions are totally wrong.
Nigerians are well known for being adamant, sometimes stupidly so, about their positions on different subjects. We tend to think we know it all and that we have an insight to all the variables of life. We are quick to look down at people who hold a different perspective from our own, often abusive in our reproach of their viewpoint (I always find it ridiculous that someone who is noticeably ignorant and without the requisite experience can argue authoritatively on issues with someone about their own truth on their own walls). We have the penchant of automatically concluding on issues or believing one rendition without giving deep thought and reflections to what we have been told. We would rather substantiate and regurgitate what our favorite clergy, mentor or idol has said (he or she also without much research) than think objectively or even question their assertions.
Two topics trended this past week that made me think about the importance of not making absolute rules of our opinions or experiences . One is the issue of the pastor Mrs who berated single women with natural hair who want to get married, and the other was that of Patra the lady who came to social media to rant about her alleged deadbeat husband.
Pastor Mrs was very categorical in her statement that women that wear their natural hair would find it nigh impossible to get men to marry them. She made no exceptions at all, choosing to disregard the fact that some men may and do like their women as natural as possible and that some wigs rather than make some women look attractive make them look like masquerades( by the way I so hate those baby curl edges that most women have on the side of their wigs nowadays. Most of them look so artificial and tell without words a tale of being a wannabe and low class mentality but hey!! that’s just my opinion). She gave her opinion and made it the general rule, but she was very wrong and there are ready examples to show she is. There are women with natural hair that have good men and women with wigs reaching to the floor that don’t have men whether good or bad.
Patra’s post generated the issue about marrying down or up. Many women using her example and that of a number of other women they know or have heard about, stated that women should never marry down which by the way means that they should only marry men that have at the minimum, the same background, wealth and opportunities as theirs and they should marry up meaning they should marry men that are richer, more exposed, have an influential background or name than them. But many women have married men that they had much more than in terms of education, family name and wealth and the marriages have lasted and many women have married deadbeat men with similar backgrounds or even richer than them and their marriages have failed.
I am by training a lawyer, and one thing we are taught is that there is always an exception to a general rule. General rules being the rules governing how things ought to be or the usual way of doing things, and they are formulated to suit the times they are made and the people or circumstances they need to address.
General rules exist because there is a need to put some form of stability and uniformity in situations, business, commerce and law so that they can be applicable to the majority of the classes of people or the situations they are addressing. These rules are formulated by people who act based on their present knowledge and experience at the time and even though they may extrapolate into the future, they can’t say for certain how the future will turn out nor can they consider all its possible or impossible variables. Imagine for instance how bewildered and shocked a man who lived in the 1800s would feel if he were to wake up in 2023. The general rules of conducting business or even ruling his affairs in his time have changed drastically and may now even be the exception in today’s world.
For every general rule in law, there is a recognized exception. Exceptions are not bad, in-fact they help to ensure that the minorities and deviants amongst us are taken care of, that unforeseen circumstances are mitigated or addressed and that people are not adversely affected or impacted by the general rule through no fault of theirs or due to circumstances beyond their control. Exceptions have made for the growth of the general rules in many cases and society in general as people who have refused to or cannot for one reason or the other, adhere to the established norms have become headliners for change.
Exceptions are very necessary and can be likened to the many shades of grey that lie between the colors white and black. Nothing is cast in stone, what we know as good today can change tomorrow and vice versa so it will do us all a lot of good to listen, study, reflect and be cautious in projecting our opinions on others or issues as the gospel truth. We should be more accommodating of different opinions and be ready to acknowledge that we will not always be right and that two or more different versions of truth can stand side by side because
- People are different and will have different experiences from us and their experiences will invalidate ours.
- What works or has worked for us will not work for others and it is possible for many people to reach the same destination even though they took different routes.
- There will always be deviants from the natural course of things and that, that deviance brings for development of the society as a whole.
As I see it, the only person who has the right to be absolute is God almighty and then I think that’s because he makes up the rules and the exceptions.