Dysfunctional
You cannot build reason by only one fact, twisting all things around it.
What will happen if you try is to trap oneself in prejudice, ignorance, and ultimately leave only love and hate. The problem is, neither you nor anyone else will be able to tell if what you express is love or hate, only the adamant ignorance of prejudice will be clear.
Such thinking is psychotic.
There is no simple, absolute truth.
Reason is a matter of understanding the myriad principles that may impact on a situation, then applying those principles to the unique situation. If the conclusions are too often the same, one has to question the principles being applied. Only mechanical devices act the same way every time. Humans are not machines, unless it can be said that they are dichotomous machines. Machines that react to the same structures and motivations differently for no apparent reason.
If you are religiously inclined, you might say that only God knows all the reasons.
Parents
All parents love their children. Parents are genetically bound to their children in ways we as human beings have yet to find adequate words to describe.
But how they express that love depends on their own life and experience. Some parents love their children in destructive ways.
Not all mothers love their children, at least in the ways we commonly think of love being expressed. Some are too damaged to love them positively. They may be too greedy, angry, or frightened to love their children in healthy ways.
Not all fathers love their children, at least in ways we commonly think of love being expressed. Some are too damaged to love them positively. They may be too greedy, angry, or frightened to love their children in healthy ways.
At any given time, all parents react like that, whether women or men. At any given time, all parents do not.
Children are dependent, and that in itself can be repulsive to some parents. The emotion such people express towards their children is resentment. Anyone who has ever said, "When the children grow up, I can start living again." is expressing such resentment. What they, and generally all of us, refuse to see is that the children know their feelings.
The resulting relationship is dysfunctional.
The children grow up with a confused and frustrated attitude towards their parents, which is transferred to the same attitude towards the world. In their desperation to make sense of the world around them, these people -- like their parents -- cling to ugly simple 'facts' about the world around them.
No amount of peer pressure or spoken wisdom will penetrate this void inside them without years of awareness and effort, or some traumatic event shaking them to their very core. Even then, the tendency to hide behind the easy veil of prejudice may prove too strong.
Because of peer pressure, it may be easier for such people to love the children of others positively while abandoning their roles as good parents for their own children. It is not rational, but it is true.
No law can be written to dictate wisdom. To pretend that such a law can be written is to condemn the society to prejudice. The best a law can do it punish. Punishment is not wisdom, for either childen or adults.
The fear of dominating some small person can be terrifying. Yet the child needs to be dominated, guided, or shown how; or the child will be hurt. Yet some seem to think that they can dominate, guide, and show adults how without any damage.
Roles
The role of a parent is never simple or easy. One answer to every question is not the way. Trying to have an answer to every question can destroy trust (-- There is a telecom ad on TV where the father makes up an answer for his son about the Great Wall of China. --) even if the parent only wants the child to know that he or she can be depended on for all the answers.
The hardest part may be for the parent, of either sex, to be responsible for their own words and actions.
There are those who express their strength by never saying they are sorry. If they cannot say they are sorry to their peers for small things, how can they say they are sorry to those they dominate on anything?
There is a saying: "If you want to know a man (or woman), don't look at how s/he treats his peers; look to how s/he subordinates."
My favorite definition of an adult is: "An adult is responsible for the results of their actions."
It does not matter for good intentions, caution, attention, rules, or the judgment of others. No excuse makes an adult less responsible for the results of their actions. An adult must start from the results, and move forward.
Domination ends
If it sounds hard being a parent, imagine what it means being a child -- who must depend on such imperfect beings for protection, food and shelter, knowledge and wisdom.
Somewhere around the age of 12, the parents' domination ends. About that age, the child decides for him/herself what s/he will learn, in the home and in the schools. Wise parents relinquish the emotional need to protect and dominate, and seek more to guide their children, relying on trust and respect. If the parents have been too pretentious when the children are younger, or have shown too much fear of one another or some other aspect of their world, they will never adequately have their children's respect and trust.
Like all human beings, children remember the failings, and take the successes for granted.
When an outside force in society takes away the authority -- the trust and respect -- of parents from the children, the harm is nearly always permanent. It results in psychotic children. If there is a simple way of describing the failings of communism, this may be it. Communism put the state above the parents.
For a successful democracy, the government must always remain subject to the will of adults, and especially parents.
When the child grows and seeks a penultimate power, a dominant role model to depend on, the child cannot look to government. A child that follows such reasoning will see all people, including him- or herself, objectified, as only pieces in a game beyond their control. -- That is not democracy.
At the end of the day, a successful parent has taught a child how to be wrong as well as right. That is democracy.
How to be wrong
Too often, people are taught to hide or ignore their mistakes, not seek them out as a means to learn from them. Forced to admit a mistake, an error in judgment or oversight, too often people seek someone else to blame.
Parents who teach their children to blame others are 'perfect.' The children learn to be co-dependent and reclusive -- living in denial of what they see with their own eyes.
If this sort of interaction is kept between individuals, they are psychopaths. If the fear that is generated from this confusion includes objectified groups of people, they are sociopaths -- or, more correctly, we hope they are.
The personal is political
Parents, and governments, who teach children to accept and face their errors give the children a wonderful gift: the ability to respect themselves and others without being 'perfect.'
When a person is wrong, the only healthy course is to is admit it, then seek to atone for the errors. This applies to government, individuals, and any grouping of human beings.
In the end, this is an easier way to handle the smallest error or the largest.
The law, which forces atonement through the courts, only teaches that people should never be responsible for their own actions. The law and courts will be the hated symbols of responsibility.
If government follows this attitude, then law enforcement and laws begin to attempt to control too much of everyday life -- in effect, forcing every person to fit within the few rationalized roles that can be defined in law. Essentially, reducing all people to machines.
Such attitudes in the law strip the individual of responsibility for their own words and actions.
Any parent can tell what will happen next. The children become bitter, rebellious, and depressed.
Governments, just like individuals, must pro-actively seek to acknowledge their errors and atone for the results to those who have been harmed.
Governments, like parents, can do harm to whole generations. The most important choice the person in error can make is how to make atonement. It is too easy to simply say that what harm is done is past, and to look more hopefully to the future. That ignores the fact that the future is shaped by the past. But to dwell too long in the past will make it impossible to deal with the present. -- Again, one principle must be weighed against another, and a judgment made that surely satisfies the demands of all.
There are, of course, other words or better terms for what is being said here. Please feel free to explore them. There is no absolute truth here. At best, a few principles are expressed.
PD
What will happen if you try is to trap oneself in prejudice, ignorance, and ultimately leave only love and hate. The problem is, neither you nor anyone else will be able to tell if what you express is love or hate, only the adamant ignorance of prejudice will be clear.
Such thinking is psychotic.
There is no simple, absolute truth.
Reason is a matter of understanding the myriad principles that may impact on a situation, then applying those principles to the unique situation. If the conclusions are too often the same, one has to question the principles being applied. Only mechanical devices act the same way every time. Humans are not machines, unless it can be said that they are dichotomous machines. Machines that react to the same structures and motivations differently for no apparent reason.
If you are religiously inclined, you might say that only God knows all the reasons.
Parents
All parents love their children. Parents are genetically bound to their children in ways we as human beings have yet to find adequate words to describe.
But how they express that love depends on their own life and experience. Some parents love their children in destructive ways.
Not all mothers love their children, at least in the ways we commonly think of love being expressed. Some are too damaged to love them positively. They may be too greedy, angry, or frightened to love their children in healthy ways.
Not all fathers love their children, at least in ways we commonly think of love being expressed. Some are too damaged to love them positively. They may be too greedy, angry, or frightened to love their children in healthy ways.
At any given time, all parents react like that, whether women or men. At any given time, all parents do not.
Children are dependent, and that in itself can be repulsive to some parents. The emotion such people express towards their children is resentment. Anyone who has ever said, "When the children grow up, I can start living again." is expressing such resentment. What they, and generally all of us, refuse to see is that the children know their feelings.
The resulting relationship is dysfunctional.
The children grow up with a confused and frustrated attitude towards their parents, which is transferred to the same attitude towards the world. In their desperation to make sense of the world around them, these people -- like their parents -- cling to ugly simple 'facts' about the world around them.
No amount of peer pressure or spoken wisdom will penetrate this void inside them without years of awareness and effort, or some traumatic event shaking them to their very core. Even then, the tendency to hide behind the easy veil of prejudice may prove too strong.
Because of peer pressure, it may be easier for such people to love the children of others positively while abandoning their roles as good parents for their own children. It is not rational, but it is true.
No law can be written to dictate wisdom. To pretend that such a law can be written is to condemn the society to prejudice. The best a law can do it punish. Punishment is not wisdom, for either childen or adults.
The fear of dominating some small person can be terrifying. Yet the child needs to be dominated, guided, or shown how; or the child will be hurt. Yet some seem to think that they can dominate, guide, and show adults how without any damage.
Roles
The role of a parent is never simple or easy. One answer to every question is not the way. Trying to have an answer to every question can destroy trust (-- There is a telecom ad on TV where the father makes up an answer for his son about the Great Wall of China. --) even if the parent only wants the child to know that he or she can be depended on for all the answers.
The hardest part may be for the parent, of either sex, to be responsible for their own words and actions.
There are those who express their strength by never saying they are sorry. If they cannot say they are sorry to their peers for small things, how can they say they are sorry to those they dominate on anything?
There is a saying: "If you want to know a man (or woman), don't look at how s/he treats his peers; look to how s/he subordinates."
My favorite definition of an adult is: "An adult is responsible for the results of their actions."
It does not matter for good intentions, caution, attention, rules, or the judgment of others. No excuse makes an adult less responsible for the results of their actions. An adult must start from the results, and move forward.
Domination ends
If it sounds hard being a parent, imagine what it means being a child -- who must depend on such imperfect beings for protection, food and shelter, knowledge and wisdom.
Somewhere around the age of 12, the parents' domination ends. About that age, the child decides for him/herself what s/he will learn, in the home and in the schools. Wise parents relinquish the emotional need to protect and dominate, and seek more to guide their children, relying on trust and respect. If the parents have been too pretentious when the children are younger, or have shown too much fear of one another or some other aspect of their world, they will never adequately have their children's respect and trust.
Like all human beings, children remember the failings, and take the successes for granted.
When an outside force in society takes away the authority -- the trust and respect -- of parents from the children, the harm is nearly always permanent. It results in psychotic children. If there is a simple way of describing the failings of communism, this may be it. Communism put the state above the parents.
For a successful democracy, the government must always remain subject to the will of adults, and especially parents.
When the child grows and seeks a penultimate power, a dominant role model to depend on, the child cannot look to government. A child that follows such reasoning will see all people, including him- or herself, objectified, as only pieces in a game beyond their control. -- That is not democracy.
At the end of the day, a successful parent has taught a child how to be wrong as well as right. That is democracy.
How to be wrong
Too often, people are taught to hide or ignore their mistakes, not seek them out as a means to learn from them. Forced to admit a mistake, an error in judgment or oversight, too often people seek someone else to blame.
Parents who teach their children to blame others are 'perfect.' The children learn to be co-dependent and reclusive -- living in denial of what they see with their own eyes.
If this sort of interaction is kept between individuals, they are psychopaths. If the fear that is generated from this confusion includes objectified groups of people, they are sociopaths -- or, more correctly, we hope they are.
The personal is political
Parents, and governments, who teach children to accept and face their errors give the children a wonderful gift: the ability to respect themselves and others without being 'perfect.'
When a person is wrong, the only healthy course is to is admit it, then seek to atone for the errors. This applies to government, individuals, and any grouping of human beings.
In the end, this is an easier way to handle the smallest error or the largest.
The law, which forces atonement through the courts, only teaches that people should never be responsible for their own actions. The law and courts will be the hated symbols of responsibility.
If government follows this attitude, then law enforcement and laws begin to attempt to control too much of everyday life -- in effect, forcing every person to fit within the few rationalized roles that can be defined in law. Essentially, reducing all people to machines.
Such attitudes in the law strip the individual of responsibility for their own words and actions.
Any parent can tell what will happen next. The children become bitter, rebellious, and depressed.
Governments, just like individuals, must pro-actively seek to acknowledge their errors and atone for the results to those who have been harmed.
Governments, like parents, can do harm to whole generations. The most important choice the person in error can make is how to make atonement. It is too easy to simply say that what harm is done is past, and to look more hopefully to the future. That ignores the fact that the future is shaped by the past. But to dwell too long in the past will make it impossible to deal with the present. -- Again, one principle must be weighed against another, and a judgment made that surely satisfies the demands of all.
There are, of course, other words or better terms for what is being said here. Please feel free to explore them. There is no absolute truth here. At best, a few principles are expressed.
PD
posted by Unknown at
7:54 PM
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