August 04, 2009
WORSHIP OF WE
I thought of that passage in Anthem when I read this.
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At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he stood on the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.
But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.
What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We."
But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.
What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word "We."
I thought of that passage in Anthem when I read this.
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Posted by: airforcewife at August 04, 2009 12:50 PM (CDkfD)
2
We are all little brothers in Britain. We. Who or what is this 'I'? It is but a letter equal to its 25 brothers.
The Children’s Secretary set out £400 million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.
They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.
Who are the watchmen watching us, and who watches the watchmen?
The number of 'children' being watched - including the nominal adults - will grow until it encompasses all of Britain.
Big Brother will be the biggest Children's Secretary of them all. Don't let him catch you reading 1984 in State housing, lest you be sent to a State psychiatrist and enjoy freeee mental health care.
The Children’s Secretary set out £400 million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.
They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.
Who are the watchmen watching us, and who watches the watchmen?
The number of 'children' being watched - including the nominal adults - will grow until it encompasses all of Britain.
Big Brother will be the biggest Children's Secretary of them all. Don't let him catch you reading 1984 in State housing, lest you be sent to a State psychiatrist and enjoy freeee mental health care.
Posted by: Amritas at August 04, 2009 02:41 PM (+nV09)
3
That's the thing, isn't it Amritas? We LEARN from our mistakes,far more than we learn from our successes. We make small mistakes as children and it keeps us from (some) bigger mistakes as adults. This is an absolutely vital part of the learning process, and one that the current trends in child-rearing and education are cutting off. The result is thirty and forty year olds who act like teenagers.
I read an interesting study a few years ago where they studied the brain chemistry of teen agers in the US and teen agers in less developed societies where the social construct and realities of life in general called for an immediate entry into adulthood at a young age (usually after a rite of passage, yet another thing we Americans have blown aside, in most cases to our detriment. But I digress and that is a story for another day). Anyway, they found that the hormones and drawn out development that cause American teens to behave like such little shits for eight, ten (and now seemingly twenty) years at a stretch were not present in anywhere near the quantities in the teenagers who had to actually fulfill a societal role as an adult.
I had read before that "teenager" was a relatively new phenomenon (and any girl who has read the Little House on the Prairie books growing up figures that one out pretty fast), but here was actual physiological proof! Our methods of child-rearing are circumventing the normal human growth cycle. These ideas have thrown our bodies into a weird sort of chaos by allowing perpetual childhood. We are not mentally where we should be, and the government's answer to this isn't to look at the problem and see what we're doing wrong, but to further the problem by even more nannying. Which causes more of a problem, ad infinitum.
Communities used to band together to take care of their own. Now that the goverment has stepped in to be mother/father/grandparents/and executive chef we have thrown all that aside. Those elements a human mind needs to properly develop, we refuse to run their course.
It's very scary indeed. (sorry for the thesis, this one always gets me going)
I read an interesting study a few years ago where they studied the brain chemistry of teen agers in the US and teen agers in less developed societies where the social construct and realities of life in general called for an immediate entry into adulthood at a young age (usually after a rite of passage, yet another thing we Americans have blown aside, in most cases to our detriment. But I digress and that is a story for another day). Anyway, they found that the hormones and drawn out development that cause American teens to behave like such little shits for eight, ten (and now seemingly twenty) years at a stretch were not present in anywhere near the quantities in the teenagers who had to actually fulfill a societal role as an adult.
I had read before that "teenager" was a relatively new phenomenon (and any girl who has read the Little House on the Prairie books growing up figures that one out pretty fast), but here was actual physiological proof! Our methods of child-rearing are circumventing the normal human growth cycle. These ideas have thrown our bodies into a weird sort of chaos by allowing perpetual childhood. We are not mentally where we should be, and the government's answer to this isn't to look at the problem and see what we're doing wrong, but to further the problem by even more nannying. Which causes more of a problem, ad infinitum.
Communities used to band together to take care of their own. Now that the goverment has stepped in to be mother/father/grandparents/and executive chef we have thrown all that aside. Those elements a human mind needs to properly develop, we refuse to run their course.
It's very scary indeed. (sorry for the thesis, this one always gets me going)
Posted by: airforcewife at August 04, 2009 03:57 PM (CDkfD)
4
That quote is incredible without even going to the link.
Posted by: Darla at August 04, 2009 11:18 PM (LP4DK)
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