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This is preventable. All you have to do is kill yourself a little.
In the magic fantasy world where paychecks are
keys to your cohabitors private parts regardless of how you treat
them, there are a few holdouts who still demand to not be abused for
controlling their own identities. They are the ones who learned
earlier than the rest how others expected to use their bodies and
have built a worldview that doesn't involve being dominated and
shamed. These are not the children who were trained to accept the
'spite to reshape in your own image' tradition. These are the ones
who saw anger and punishment as playing god and said NO F#!%ING WAY
when the message was to kill a vital part of the self to make life
easier for others. These people know they are more than programmable
bodies with errant behaviors to be modified by others through spite
and violence. These people are scientific in their approach to
behavior and who judge the outcomes of those spites before deciding
to employ the tool. These people know such, let's call it making,
actually produces more of the self destructive behavior it claims to
eliminate, and it does so by treating the underrepresented like
stuff.
These people know that if a mind can be trained
then the trainers should be chosen for their efficacy and
contribution to the final product, not granted making rights because
of genetic similarity or proximity or the sincere appearance of their
smile. These people know that to allow someone to train you, whether
or not they bred or fed you, is in some ways to allow them to train
you to suit their breeding habits, and such influences should be
chosen with care.
How does that work? It's simple. Power is habitually given to those with the most resources through imitation of language and behavior. Displays of power work to reassure the leader's linguistic clones (as we copy the language of those with the shiniest stuff in the pursuit of more stuff. Don't worry, it's perfectly natural.) that those resources are safe. The spite and soothe technique conditions clones to imitate the resource holder/defender, thereby acting as distracting copies of the leader/defender and in the same doing cloning their breeding habits. Language is groomed through repetition, teasing, spite, and omission. As they train their children to endear themselves to the creators of need they create more breeding options for the leader and by extension, themselves. It becomes a tradition, then a culture. If that culture becomes locked in a pattern of obedience and only pays heed to what the leader points to the group can be blindly driven, like lemmings, off a cliff.
When leadership is wise the less-than perfect emulators are not treated like production errors and the resources are guarded by less by fearful but equally effective means. The aggressions of the human body are channeled into more productive - or at least less destructive - patterns. Industrious creativity is encouraged because they aren't terrorized into living in a protective ivory tower. The athlete and the artisan are fine examples, as they channel existing angst into production of finer things. The skill of the individual is enhanced rather than removed. The pressure created by the situation acts as fuel rather than like a wound.
There is one vital aspect to great leadership that comedians and other producers of mass messages have at times either missed or forgotten: If we are to continue to have a driving hope for better things we must not damn our inner child. This is why breeding habits and language must never be prescribed. In no small way, if a child has a sexuality that would displease the leader and the parent insists they change then the parent has sold their child's body to the leader in exchange for access to stuff. Treating the body and mind as upgradeable public property in an environment where the leadership has no use for them creates self destructive behavior as their value is diminished. It is imperative that we teach children what their bodies do and give them inclusive looks at how different cultures are taught to treat those who are prone to those behaviors. As anyone battling censorship knows, limiting information enslaves. It is the same when language about natural bodily functions is restricted. Like the comic below, omitting language diminishes individual power and reroutes control to the few.
Being spited in the sexuality hits an individual in the survival instincts and the inner child, and cuts them off from who they knew they were before parents, leadership, and their local language reshaped them. For someone with already underrepresented orientations this means their physical reality is erased and they are spoken to as if someone else. Prescribing language is useful in its own way, but it is not how we create citizens of an inclusive, multicultural world. In fact it creates the opposite.
The damning effect does not stem from treating behaviors like they are silly. Damning is the product of spite in all its forms, including verbal and physical, as label meaning is fixed and a prescribed reaction is forced into the individual with the spited trait. Being silly means you don't get it and are too shy to ask. Being hateful at someone means you are afraid for them as they fail to live up to your master, who is to be feared. Basically, being spiteful means your leaders suck and they literally (not a pun!) own your ass.
Owning your ass is why it is so important to offer allow children to understand their own gender first and then guide them toward leaders who don't demand self-destructive endearments. We must never teach them to be blind to what harms or drugs them, including us, the parents, even if it means they call us on our own bullsh!t sometimes. Children are able to see parts of the world we haven't been allowed the freedom to explore by traditional leadership. They are like our own inner children, and we have a choice whether or not to damn them for not pleasing our 'lords'. We make civilization together. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to shape it in their own image. It is my hope, and hopefully the hope of others as well, that terrifying and sexualizing children should be considered with great care before any steps are taken to clone the hero through the child. It is also my hope that leaders step up and expand the language - and therefore the culture - to create more inclusive, almost demystifying, sex/gender acceptance and understanding and move the ever-present desire to be effective in the world to another more constructive outlet. With more knowledge of what others consider normal, functioning in the world becomes more mutually respectful and the bigger, more pressing issues can be approached with less distraction.
Consider what the ancient Olympics did to ceremonialize boundary disputes when regional competitors wrestled in the nude as equals and penultimate physical expressions of the land they called home. Poor keeping of the land made for poor athletes. Those who worked with the land produced heroes. The poor farmers produced weaker athletes. What they did with athletics can also be done in modern communities if media producers choose to drive people to be more constructive and stop damning them for what they know themselves to be and cannot change. Eliminating sex shaming from the vocabulary and broadening its scope would, I believe, cause catastrophic damage to the real masturbation problem the technologically saturated modern person has, which is f#!king ourselves after being bombarded by a bunch of worthless taboos. Shaping a message to create weapons of mass mating habits is an old trick in need of a new scapegoat now that there are plenty of fish in the sea. I don't mean to imply all media messages should be nice, only that as its re-producers when we spite something we are telling everyone to replace it with our way, so our bullsh!t better be worth the go and isn't creating the traits we are calling sh!t through our work.
This change demands we look at the consequences of consumerism, not to eliminate it, but to change what we treat as disposable. Unless (and even if) we are ascetic, resources matter. In our personal search for mirth it helps to have the right tools. Everyone is a unique expression of their situation. If we want more artists (even if it's only to rip them off lol) we are challenged with the creation of language that empowers people to try things using the paternalistic method, but aiming at modern foolish behavior. The art patron elevates what they appreciate. Its worth - if the public agrees it has any - is enhanced without any need to spite the other. It is social erasure and it is a tool to be valued. The same process applies to parenting and writing: Not spiting your child's nature by enforcing patterns you find valuable, especially when it comes to sexuality, gives them ownership of their body and thwarts outside attempts to control them. Knowing this, it's no mistake that parents use fear and pain to train in behaviors. I'm saying it can be done another way. Carefully chosen and respectful guidance can enhance their unique expression without them spiralling off into self destructive situations. This way they grow to adulthood owning their bodies and their mistakes, valuing what they contribute, and understanding their appetites. They grow up with a solid sense of self, not swept away by the incessant placate-your-violent (creepy, grumpy, sex offendish)-grandad-and-hope-for-an-inheritance upgrade machine, but an active agent defending their self interest, free to care about themselves and contribute to society. They will bring the best of you with them. They will see it because it wasn't drowned out by the patterns you would have imposed.
The alternative is more of the same: scared children of all ages looking for something to label trash so their prescribed 'life' looks better by comparison. Spite dominating their emotions, the cycle reproduces itself as the abused look for something to kill the pain. If the system of spiting other people's surplus is truly enshrined then there really is no humanity and we are a bunch of assholes looking for another excuse to get off. If that's the case then labeling things trash is redundant and humans are a bunch of jerk-offs try to hide from reality by wearing ever changing fictional characters, spited into stupidity as they shame it out with anyone and everyone for doing the same damned things. Gettting rid of the stupid things they've been attacked for could bring a lot of drowning people back to life. My 'dirtied' childhood is an example of going to the opposite extreme to avoid being what the 1970's media prescribed for females. Today there are more voices to choose from that would have, in hindsight, changed everything. And it's getting better by the day, but we must participate and contribute to the language if we want any lasting effect.
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As long as there are breeding patterns and mass
media artists will continue to have the ability to parent other
people's children through their product. We can only hope those
creating mass media realize that damning a child for treating their
sexuality as their own is a vital missing ingredient in the recipe
for healthy adulthood, and that when they have difficulty finding the
language to describe themselves we must explore our many languages
and cultures with them in order to help them find themselves. This is
of course with emphasis on what social norms exist and the
punishments for breaking them. We create stronger individuals when we
show our children that attraction is decided by biology and that many
types of relationships occur. Once they know what they have to
protect and what consequences are aimed at specific behaviors we let
them choose their own definitions and respect them. (There's always
the option of allowing them to guess so you can blame them for
guessing.) Genders as we know it are languages and all parents know
each child begins with their own. Listen. If you try to overwrite it
the persona you replace it with is not them, it's your fantasies.
Teach them what you know but DO NOT impose your likes and gender
expectations on your children. Consider how much time you spend
thinking about methods you use to get on other people's good sides
and just don't. The abusive people you're afraid will pick on your
child are being dealt with, and allowing your child's gender identity
to shine will help eradicate those who forcibly prescribe their
mating preferences to everyone.
As long as there is media making magic stuff with attractive bodies and clever personality traits there will be people thinking that what they are exposed to is the only way to live and children need to know there are other, much more real, people for them to emulate. I believe that through changing how we approach physicality in product, our children (inner children included) will become more comfortable with our place in the world and our responsibilities. Gender and sexuality issues need to be portrayed more often, and more LGBTQ roles must be played by children in order to get past the damaged adult's defenses and reach their inner kid. I believe when combined with a change in what we spite we can enhance people's overall health and self esteem without damaging the profit margin. Things are already beginning to change as gender roles are more often treated as normal in the common language. Let's cast a wider net by creating a language that weighs all things gender as normal somewhere rather than fetishizing it and making it the candy of a magic time in the future. Listen to your outsiders, and create a new boundary for what we consider self destructive behavior. You will quickly discover this difference really does make a difference.
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