I am left-handed; a southpaw. Living amongst right-handed people my entire life led to my conditioned ambidexterity. I call it "conditioned" because in my childhood I was taught by right-handers to use my right hand. I found that using my left hand for such tasks as writing, eating, throwing a ball, et cetera were executed more easily and comfortably with my left hand, but my family and teachers didn't pay particular attention to that. They were not being oppressive; rather, they just didn't realize how different I was.
I do enjoy some benefits from their oversight. I can do many things with my right hand that I otherwise wouldn't be able to do. I can throw a ball, swing a bat, shoot a basketball, throw a solid punch right-handed, even though I'm still more comfortable left-handed. Interesting fact: I rarely go bowling. In fact, I went bowling with friends a few months ago. Last time I went bowling before that was nine years ago. However, my lifetime mean average score in bowling is approximately 150 (in the two games we played recently, I scored 158 and 149), and I always bowl right-handed. In fact, I don't think I can bowl lefty. I've never tried. My ability to bowl right-handed is due to 1) bowling balls at bowling alleys are always drilled for right hands; and, 2) I was taught to bowl by my dad, who's right-handed.
[Left-handed people] are known as southpaws, gallock-handers, chickie paws and scrammies—and on down a whole list of slangy synonyms whose very length testifies to the fact that for centuries left-handers have been looked upon with suspicion, if not with actual mistrust.
In the Middle Ages, for instance, the left-hander lived in danger of being accused of practicing witchcraft. The Devil himself was considered a southpaw, and he and other evil spirits were always conjured up by left-handed gestures. Even today, language expresses the general prejudice against lefthanders. A lefthanded compliment is actually an insult, the Latin word sinister (left) has taken on a, well, sinister cast, and the French word gauche, which means left, is used to describe a socially awkward person. In Moslem societies, the left hand is considered unclean...
Sports, as it happens, is one of the few areas where the southpaw has even mild advantages. Port-siding boxers and tennis players generally enjoy at least a mild advantage over a right-handed foe.
In social situations, however, there are distinct drawbacks: at dinner parties, left-handers find themselves tangling elbows with their partners unless they have had the foresight to seize a chair at the left end of the table. The constant irritations of domestic life are multiplied for the southpaw. Scissors do not work properly, and neither do can openers. Subway turnstiles are right-hand oriented, soldiers salute with the right hand and solemn oaths are sworn the same way.
[Characteristics: Left in a Right-Handed World. Retrieved March 6, 2011, from http://www.time.com]
Since my return to the martial arts, I have found my left-handedness to be a hindrance I must overcome. My Sensei is right-handed, and when he instructs the class, he directs them to do things as he does, explaining the techniques in right-handed terminology. The difficulty is multiplied when I'm working with a right-handed partner who becomes unsure how to work with me because I'm "standing wrong."
To his credit, my Sensei tries very hard to accomodate my left-handedness. Sometimes though, especially in larger classes, I'm left in a fog, wondering exactly how I should perform a move. Later on, should I decide to compete, my southpaw tendencies will serve me well against my mostly right-handed competition. For now, however, I face times in which I literally feel I am training with a handicap.
It is commonly observed that while hoofer Fred Astaire received most of the attention and fame, his partner Ginger Rogers was doing everything he was doing, only she was doing it backwards and in high heels. Not a bad observation to begin a description of the situation for left-handers and ambidextrals... [gauche!]
My own experience as a southpaw in a right-handed world hasn't been much more than an annoyance, much like having to adjust one's pants constantly because they don't fit right. I'm white, male, and heterosexual: I don't know what real oppression feels like. Being left-handed means I have experienced just a very small taste of what it's like to be different - what being a minority feels like. I have felt that a little more since accepting the atheist label. If people didn't think I was in league with the devil for being a southpaw, I'm sure some of them think so now.
But my atheism is like my left-handedness: it's just who I am. I can't deny what I think any more than I can deny which hand I use to sign my name. My former Christian faith is much like my conditioned ambidexterity: the key word here is conditioned. I was taught to assume that Christianity is correct. I was never taught to think for myself. Honest inquiry was never encouraged. I was conditioned in my youth - as most Christians are who are indoctrinated as children - to believe, just as I was conditioned to use my right hand.
In a perfect world, people would realize that being an atheist, or a homosexual, or a different ethnicity, or left-handed, isn't wrong, gauche, or unclean. We may never achieve perfection, but we can at least achieve better understanding. We can put aside indoctrination and prejudice in exchange for compassion and love.
Dead-Logic.com
