Also, not to be political on main again but, purity culture does so much more harm than any amount of good it could ever do. Hyperstrict black-and-white ideologies that are intent on strict censorship and elimination of all that they define is "evil" is...not helpful.

A streamer I really liked just displayed some absolutely mind-boggling tribalism for the sake of upholding purity culture, and it really does break my heart to see someone I thought was a decent individual be unable to adequately and maturely communicate with others.

I had to witness an astounding lack of compassion, poor judgement, close-mindedness, and extreme lean toward black-and-white morality-- all of which I never expected to see from this person, especially being used as a way to hurt others, and all of which was justified by purity.

And it made me sit back and really think about how widespread this phenomena is, this American Civil Religion-esque idea that there are only two categories in this world: the Good and the Just, and the Evil and the Immoral.

I know how easy it is to fall into those patterns and mindsets, especially for people who come from traditionally more conservative backgrounds but that’s not an excuse or justification.

Purity culture divides us, it turns us against each other for the sake of some fake, ridiculous, uberspecific morality bullshit– we shouldn’t let others define our morality! We each, individually, need to decide where our beliefs fall on any wide number of issues.

The alternative is just defaulting to whatever the largest and more aggressive group says for sake of ease or out of fear, and that's not helpful to anyone. That doesn't encourage growth or discussion, all that does is cultivate tribalism.

We owe it to each other to be better, to do better. To share the responsibility for improving the spaces we inhabit and tackling real injustices, instead of piling blame on scapegoats who, in all likelihood, have no pull or say in the matter at all. We can be better, all of us.