Total honesty
Jul. 15th, 2010 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootAnd therefore, not very nice.
It's been on my mind for some time, and even as I write it, I wonder if I should leave it for later. I've got a lot of pregnant friends now, and I congratulate them with all my heart. So please, if you are one of those friends, understand this post is not aimed at you, at criticism of you personally, or disrespect for your decisions. It is an examination of my own feelings, and an attempt not to be hypocritical. Be warned, I do use the word 'You' generically behind this cut.
This feeling I've had crystallised into harsh form when reading the programme for WARHORSE. An interesting fact; a million horses shipped across to the war...and do you think most of the survivors, having been forced into the most disgusting conditions, facing bombs and bullets, starvation and horrors they couldn't comprehend, were then brought home? Most were rewarded for their valour by being sold off to French butchers for sausage meat.
That's humanity for you. Who is proud about adding to that?
I have a lot of chums on the show; Got to love humanity, they say, love humanity. Why? What humanity does wrong is so much greater than what humanity does right. Humanity is cruel, ugly, evil. I am not talking about rapists and child molesters and murderers, I'm not talking Darth Vader. I mean everyday evil...bullies in the playground, cowards who fall in with the crowd. Banal evil.
Ah yes, but look at the grand things Humanity does...let's talk music and art...all for humanity's benefit? Rubbish. The musician/artist creates because they must, because it pleases them, and if no-one else saw it, they would still be driven to do it. The applause isn't mandatory for the work to grow.
And when humanity shows pity, it is first and foremost, to that face that looks most like its own...the further away from the ego's perception, the less likely compassion is to emerge. And what is a baby then, but a mini-me, a love insurance, a desperate validation of self? After all, if you have achieved nothing else, you can probably make a baby. Turning it into an admirable human being is a challenge many fewer manage, but at least you will feel important. While the beasts die out and the forests fall, you will have done...what will you have done? It's not genius, it's the default. If the only person you can guarantee to love you is the one that poops out of your body, you're not doing well, even on a human level, so what lessons of strength and adequacy can you possibly pass on? How it's better to have someone entirely rely on you cos then they'll have to love you? Isn't this just another mediocre monkey?
Of course it will be very important to you to think otherwise. Your baby will be startlingly beautiful, intelligent, funny, amazing, the point behind your life, and they'll do great things...you can see the school, the university, the Nobel prize. You could take them to see tigers (oh wait, no tigers left by then, well you can tell them about tigers) you can play with them on a beach full of washed up condoms and hypodermics, (well jesus, can't someone clean this sh*t up?) You can show them a world someone else should have made better, a world you would have made better only you were too busy bringing up a child to become...well, possibly not a world cup holder, possibly ever so ordinary. But never mind. Ordinary's OK, at least no-one feels threatened by ordinary and they'll always fit in. They'll carry on believing that actually this world is a backdrop to human drama, that all life on earth is secondary to the soap opera they make. They'll get a job. And a house. They'll avvababy.
There, I've said it. To my parenting friends, and parents to be, I can't emphasize enough that this is not meant to hurt you. You know I care for you, you know I don't want to break your hearts. I congratulate you when you tell me you're pregnant, not because you are bringing a human being into the world, which I consider a dubious, potentially irresponsible act at this juncture in history, but because you are happy, and that is worthy of celebration. When or if I meet your child, I'll get to know them like I would any person, I'm not going to automatically assume that they are a boon to the earth because they're yours, and I won't cluck over them just cos they're a baby. They might not like me, I might not like them. I'll never treat them like dolls, but I will treat them like people. That's a promise of respect.
Now let's see what they learn to respect, in the classrooms of humanity.
It's been on my mind for some time, and even as I write it, I wonder if I should leave it for later. I've got a lot of pregnant friends now, and I congratulate them with all my heart. So please, if you are one of those friends, understand this post is not aimed at you, at criticism of you personally, or disrespect for your decisions. It is an examination of my own feelings, and an attempt not to be hypocritical. Be warned, I do use the word 'You' generically behind this cut.
This feeling I've had crystallised into harsh form when reading the programme for WARHORSE. An interesting fact; a million horses shipped across to the war...and do you think most of the survivors, having been forced into the most disgusting conditions, facing bombs and bullets, starvation and horrors they couldn't comprehend, were then brought home? Most were rewarded for their valour by being sold off to French butchers for sausage meat.
That's humanity for you. Who is proud about adding to that?
I have a lot of chums on the show; Got to love humanity, they say, love humanity. Why? What humanity does wrong is so much greater than what humanity does right. Humanity is cruel, ugly, evil. I am not talking about rapists and child molesters and murderers, I'm not talking Darth Vader. I mean everyday evil...bullies in the playground, cowards who fall in with the crowd. Banal evil.
Ah yes, but look at the grand things Humanity does...let's talk music and art...all for humanity's benefit? Rubbish. The musician/artist creates because they must, because it pleases them, and if no-one else saw it, they would still be driven to do it. The applause isn't mandatory for the work to grow.
And when humanity shows pity, it is first and foremost, to that face that looks most like its own...the further away from the ego's perception, the less likely compassion is to emerge. And what is a baby then, but a mini-me, a love insurance, a desperate validation of self? After all, if you have achieved nothing else, you can probably make a baby. Turning it into an admirable human being is a challenge many fewer manage, but at least you will feel important. While the beasts die out and the forests fall, you will have done...what will you have done? It's not genius, it's the default. If the only person you can guarantee to love you is the one that poops out of your body, you're not doing well, even on a human level, so what lessons of strength and adequacy can you possibly pass on? How it's better to have someone entirely rely on you cos then they'll have to love you? Isn't this just another mediocre monkey?
Of course it will be very important to you to think otherwise. Your baby will be startlingly beautiful, intelligent, funny, amazing, the point behind your life, and they'll do great things...you can see the school, the university, the Nobel prize. You could take them to see tigers (oh wait, no tigers left by then, well you can tell them about tigers) you can play with them on a beach full of washed up condoms and hypodermics, (well jesus, can't someone clean this sh*t up?) You can show them a world someone else should have made better, a world you would have made better only you were too busy bringing up a child to become...well, possibly not a world cup holder, possibly ever so ordinary. But never mind. Ordinary's OK, at least no-one feels threatened by ordinary and they'll always fit in. They'll carry on believing that actually this world is a backdrop to human drama, that all life on earth is secondary to the soap opera they make. They'll get a job. And a house. They'll avvababy.
There, I've said it. To my parenting friends, and parents to be, I can't emphasize enough that this is not meant to hurt you. You know I care for you, you know I don't want to break your hearts. I congratulate you when you tell me you're pregnant, not because you are bringing a human being into the world, which I consider a dubious, potentially irresponsible act at this juncture in history, but because you are happy, and that is worthy of celebration. When or if I meet your child, I'll get to know them like I would any person, I'm not going to automatically assume that they are a boon to the earth because they're yours, and I won't cluck over them just cos they're a baby. They might not like me, I might not like them. I'll never treat them like dolls, but I will treat them like people. That's a promise of respect.
Now let's see what they learn to respect, in the classrooms of humanity.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-07-16 01:18 pm (UTC)I am just wondering what the definition of self-righting is, especially in the context of