Tuesday 20 November 2012

The black hole of despair and how to avoid it

Third-wave Feminism Defends the Idea of Women as a Servicing Class | Clarissa's Blog


Z says:  "They also keep saying it is impossible to change what you are. Musteryou says that idea is at the core of contemporary culture and I would like to hear more on this."

I think the attitude that is going out of style is the one defined by military mores.   That view of 'human nature' is that it is raw material, out of which something can be shaped, drawn and/or crystallized.    The contemporary view is the opposite one.  According to this, we are all born with wonderfully perfect, crystallized identities, that can get damaged along the way through exposure to the elements of the world.  According to this outlook, which rarely states its suppositions directly, the ideal person is the unborn child.   Everything following that is tainted -- and gets worse and worse as it gets older.

The military view is the opposite:  everything gets shaped and formed and improved as it gets older.  Experience builds character.

People who go running to a doctor to get pills to combat every little emotion they have are definitely operating in the world on the basis of the first world view.

Old age is going to be a horrific burden for them, as they have missed to opportunity to mold themselves creatively in their youth, rather than seeking palliative care to handle their bumps along the road of life.  So, then they are faced with an aging body and a childish outlook. It must be a horrifying experience.

Identity politics is also part of the same, first paradigm.  The supposition is we can't work things out amicably, because we have different and irreconcilable identities, which demarcate our essence.   Our hurt defines our true self. We will draw everything into the black hole of our despair.

The inability to create comes from the passive learning model, and the idea that learning for oneself poses a nebulous danger.  If you go outside, your leg might break.   If you risk yourself, someone else will take your rightful place in the conformist order.   If you ask too many questions, you will become a target for random snipers.

The military school says:  certainly this is so.   That is the nature of life, to be random and perplexing.  But, after all you only have one life.   You may as well form something out of it.   Risking nothing means you save nothing, anyway.  Death, fragility and destruction are all unavoidable, and no amount of playing it safe or trying to protect the fragile, unborn self, will make any difference to the fact that life leads to our ultimate demise.

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