...
Hey, I just plucked this out of your back. Hmmm... doesn't it look like an ostrich feather?
It's a bad joke, comrade... The issue is still tormenting me, but I have drummed up enough courage to talk about something else.
You didn't want to harp on it?
If I don't talk about my problems, people think they have been resolved, or worse, I have accepted to live with them. If I talk about it more than once, people get tired of me.
Don't worry, everyone can tell that you look more like a ghost than an ostrich with its head buried in a hole. You're so pale, almost transparent...
You know, I think all of us wish others to be ostriches. We know that problems in life are difficult to solve, and we are too powerless, lazy, or self-centered to provide help until they are happily resolved.
Plus, we'd rather hear good stories, not the same, old, gloomy ones.
In other words, we give each other tremendous pressure to focus on obligations, duties and fun at the moment, or short-term at best... Incidentally, I was thinking whatever is good about me owes to my own efforts.
I'm relieved. You sound more like yourself now.
Many of us think that we are doing extremely well, given the traits and the personalities of our parents. Have you ever thought how suspiciously universal the idea is? We didn't even need figures like J.C., M.A., or S.G. to spread the word.
Don't they tell you instead to respect your parents?
That is precisely because we are biologically wired to think that we are much better than our parents. Without that wiring, most will never become independent from them and take on the task of changing the world for the better.
To view the elders unfavorably has a positive side to it, you mean.
The willingness to change is useful, because adaptation to different circumstances necessarily requires change. As we know well, nothing is static in this world.
The ability to change allows you to stay put, too, if necessary.
Think about various societies around the world. The ones that are further away from the Plastic Age tend to have more rigid hierarchies based on age and less impetus to change on their own.
Although they face enormous force to do so from outside, mainly from the people of the Plastic Age...
Respect for the seniors means respect for their contribution to the society. The problem is that most of us become less creative over age.
That is, they become averse to change while the rest of the world is changing.
At least two factors contribute to that aversion. One is the vested interest that we develop over the years. We naturally position ourselves so as to derive the maximum possible benefit from the world as we find it.
We need some time to develop attitude, thoughts, and life style that are suited for the societies that we live in. By the time we have managed to optimize them given the constraints, we no longer wish to change the constraints.
The second is biological. Our brain can get cluttered with all the conventions set up by the previous generation, through our efforts to learn and live with them. It may prevent us from being different from the older generations, despite our wish to be so.
That's why we are told that we are unrealistic when we are young.
Sois jeune et tais toi !
Be young and shut up! So said the General...
When we read the slogans from that time, it is evident that the young pushed for changes and accused the not-so-old, the old and the very old for their complacency and lack of imagination. You know this one? Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible.
Be realistic, ask the impossible.
Prenez vos désirs pour la réalité.
Take your desires for reality.
Le patron a besoin de toi, tu n'as pas besoin de lui.
The boss needs you, you don't need him. ... Comrade, your breathing has gotten audibly heavy.
Anyway, we haven't heard of the older generation revolting against the younger.
Well, they don't need to. They are the ones with power, so when they don't like how things are, they can punish whom they think are culprits.
You know, it is not only our ability and willingness to question the status quo that decline with age, but also politeness.
What about kids who throw tantrums at the toy department? Surely, they don't do the same when they are older.
As children, we are taught to be polite and considerate toward others, and it takes time before we become capable of practicing it. I'd say we reach our peak when we are around eighteen with respect to politeness and consideration.
Do you want to tell me that a thirty-six-year old is rude compared to an eighteen-year old?
Of course, there is variation among individuals and that gets greater as we age. But, I do not hesitate to say that an average eighteen-year old tends to take more of her/his environment into account than an average thirty-six-year old from the same society.
I am not sure about that. When I think how I was at that age...
You are blushing.
Some things I did and thought were quite immature, embarrassing, and stupid, but I did not think so at all. The word, immature, was not in my dictionary to begin with.
You are right, an eighteen-year old would most likely do not have the ability to judge his own action, but when s/he is told that it is stupid, s/he tends to listen. Whereas a thirty-six-year old has a better idea of what s/he should be doing, s/he tends to go with whatever suits her/him. The former has less experience, but also less shrewdness.
Your theory must be strictly about averages, because I can think of thousands of counterexamples.
The world population is soon to pass the 7 billion mark, so thousands is nothing... Has it never struck you that we seem to regress over time?
I don't think I have become increasingly ruder after my eighteenth birthday.
Remember, we are talking in the aggregate. I think honesty is another good example.
We have touched on that subject, and I agreed with you that honesty is promoted by grown-ups because it gives them a means to control children.
What do you think will happen when the children become grown-ups?
They will teach their kids to be honest, because they will want to control their own kids.
You are almost there, comrade. The grown-ups who were once children...
We all were, ahem.
Once the children grow up and are freed from their guardians who could punish you for lying, they have little incentive to stay honest, besides their moral belief in honesty.
We discard all the virtues that we were taught to strive for, because being bad has different consequences now.
I wouldn't say 'all,' but we certainly gain the freedom to pick and choose as we please. Naturally, it means that almost everyone would become more self-centered than s/he has been. In other words, we begin switching our identity from the intimidated to the intimidating.
Isn't it manifested in the revolutionary spirits among the youth?
Yes. The transition period is very fertile, because the sentiments of the intimidated are still fresh in our memory, but we have just gained the mental and the physical strengths to be the intimidating. I think that is why movements or protests that are started by the youth have wide appeal.
For their earnestness, compassion, passion... and naïvité. We can't deny that they are more inspiring, identifiable and photogenic, compared to retirees who take to the streets to protest cuts in pensions.
May of 1968, the Velvet Revolution, the Tiananmen Square...
Are you shivering?
We talked how we are influenced by the people around us, especially our seniors, but we tend to forget that it means that we influence the people around us in turn.
I am 'I' for myself, but I am 'you' for you.
I continue to be bothered by people who adjust their attitude depending on whom they face. It looks awfully absurd when you see it happening in a split second with the subjects within their earshot.
Obsequious to the one who can wield power over you, and oppressive to the other over whom you can wield power. Isn't this one of the typical patterns?
Some minor changes are natural and even required, but the change that you described comes from the desire to be favored by the powerful. Put differently, this person is hoping that fairness be misinterpreted to her/his advantage.
How is this related to our influencing the people around us?
Our attitude and reactions vary depending on whom we are with. The converse is also true. How we are perceived is a factor in how a person behaves toward us, or we are determinants in who they are.
But it doesn't mean that we can remake any person.
The irony is that, while we cannot escape changes in us caused by our environment, we cannot change our very personality however hard we or others may try.
Excepting unusually traumatic experiences...
I have seen many persons change their attitude toward me after having learned how I am, but they revert to their old attitude when they are not paying enough attention. Certainly, they exhibit their original self as much as it is allowed by the occasion and by the person that they interact with.
We can't help being changed on the surface, but we can't change the core. Well, it can be both good and bad.
True, although we often focus on our powerlessness to change the bad traits of others... Anyway, we forget that much of our feedback is of the kind that enhances what we find unattractive.
Are we so perverse?
Take an example of a dog. Effective training would mean: to be very affectionate toward her and reward with treats when she does something good, and to ignore her call for attention when she does something bad or wrong.
Instead, we tend to scold her severely for misbehaving. It may well result in fear, anger, or resentment.
We are stingy on words of encouragement and rewards, too. The same principle applies to human beings. We complain about the stupidity, the ineffectiveness, and the destructiveness of politicians, but lately, I have come to think that it is our fault to a great extent.
Comrade, I have had nothing to do with the quality of brains possessed by Sarko, Silvio, Jong-Il, Robert...
Politicians, if they are chosen through elections, would do anything to be elected. If elected, they would do anything to be re-elected. If there is no prospect for re-election, they would do anything to leave their legacy.
That is when they start thinking what they can do so that the later generations would recognize them as great politicians.
Before then, they are at the mercy of the electorate.
We as voters are supposed to have enormous power, but it doesn't feel that way.
My theory is that we have allowed the incompetent ones to flourish by electing them.
But what if I did not vote for that particular dumbo?
They are smart at least when it comes to election. If we bought their rhetoric, it's our fault.
I told you, I did not write that name on the ballot paper! It must have been my next door neighbor...
I acknowledge that there is difficulty here. You may be well educated and well informed, but if the rest is ill educated and ill informed, the manipulative one would be chosen.
It happens in many countries around the world, from developing to developed. For example, in order to attract the rural votes, politicians distribute food and cash, and promise pork barrel projects, agricultural subsidies, and so on.
I maintain, however, that if the electorate is sophisticated, so would be the politicians and their politics. In fact, I believe that it is the only way to improve the way the world is governed.
Tell me, when was the last time you attended the town meeting.
... I had hopes in direct democracy, but I am no longer certain. I read that five cantons in Switzerland have a female majority among the legislators.
Considering the fact that women were granted suffrage in 1971, isn't that great news?
One canton's self-analysis is that people are so disillusioned by politics that there is no more prestige in becoming a legislator with low pay at the canton level. Men with ambition have fled to other professions. Most locals don't even know that they have more female legislators than male ones.
I just hope that we do not have to wait for another worldwide calamity before we effectively re-engage ourselves in politics.
I hope so, too, but nothing is more effective than a war to make us realize that politics matters to our lives.
Not just any war, but ones that seriously interrupt our daily lives. Bombs, utility disruption, food and material shortage, and you, your family members or friends sent to the front...
Global warming wouldn't do. It is a slower process and its causes and effects can be disputed more easily.
I have an idea! Let's secretly call the Martians and ask them to threaten us with imminent attacks.
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