Selfish is as selfish does
Bookworm on Dec 14 2008 at 10:49 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
I wrote a rant that I intended to post here but, because it developed into a minor political polemic, I offered it to Thomas Lifson, who was kind enough to publish it:
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I frequently bemoan the fact that my children are extraordinarily selfish, in a way that my peers and I weren’t when we were their age. This isn’t just be own rose-colored memory looking back on my childhood perfections when compared to my own children. My mother and her friends confirm that we children (all of whom grew up in the 1960s and 1970s) were definitely less self-centered and more willing to contribute to the family’s well-being without financial incentives or punitive coercion.
In my own mind, I’ve often attributed the relative unselfishness my friends and I demonstrated to the fact that my friends and I all had parents scarred either by (a) WWII or (b) escaping the Vietnamese/Cambodian Communists or (c) escaping from the Chinese Communists. Add to those travails the fact that almost all of our parents, in light of their recent immigrant status, had little money and worked ferociously hard to provide life’s basics.
These shared histories meant that my friends and I saw our parents as amazing survivors, who willingly sacrificed their time and their energy to support us. We also saw them as genuine victims, made fragile by unimaginably awful experiences. In light of their lives, it didn’t seem like too much to clean a room, set a table, empty a dishwasher or vacuum a room.
My children on the other hand (and my friend’s and neighbor’s children too), see their parents as people of boundless competence with endless supplies of money — and that despite the fact that none of my friends and neighbors are rich, although we’re all comfortably off. That we all work extremely hard to maintain that comfortable economic situation seems to elude the kids, something that strikes me as peculiar given that my friends and I were very aware of our parents’ sacrifices. This generation seems unwilling to see the efforts made on their behalf.
Recent experiences, though, have made me wonder if I’m thinking too narrowly about the selfishness of today’s young people when I focus only on parent-child dynamics. The other day, I attended my daughter’s middle-school play. The short review is that the school drama coach, neglected to teach these young thespians what is probably the most basic skill for a stage performance — elocution. Even though they were amplified, I was unable to understand a single word these young actors slurred, whispered and mumbled (and that despite the fact that I have extremely good hearing). I can say nothing more about the show, since I had no idea what was going on up there, on the stage.
(And is it just me, or are young people deliberately speaking in rushed and mumbled speech? It’s certainly a trend amongst the kids in my neighborhood. I’ve told these children, my own included, that if they want to communicate something to me, it’s their responsibility to speak clearly. Otherwise, I’m just going to ignore them, since I have neither the time nor the energy to decipher their speech.)
While I can say little about the show, I have a lot to say about the audience. Half the audience was made up of children attending the same school as those performing. And of these children, half talked non-stop throughout the performance. Keep in mind as you think about this rudeness that the show was one presented by their friends and peers. Nevertheless, they could not be bothered to stop talking, or even to lower their voices to a whisper. Bad manners? Definitely. But also the kind of selfishness that elevates ones own needs (”I must talk”) over those of all others present (such as those performing or those trying to listen).
Intermission was no better. When we left the auditorium, I was buffeted left and right by middle schoolers who, in their own minds, had to get to their various destinations immediately, without regard to those luckless souls caught between them and their goals. Nor were the hard shoves I received followed by apologies. These kids had gotten what they wanted — motion — and the Hell with other people’s petty concerns (such as the need to remain upright and without bruises).
I might have shaken off these acts (and, indeed, I had mostly forgotten them by morning), but for the fact that I had to drive into San Francisco the next day. Again, I ended up on the receiving end of startlingly selfish behavior — behavior that wasn’t directed at me personally, but that showed an attitude that had the actor as the center of a universe in which no one else existed.
At one intersection, several adult pedestrians (adults! not teens) sauntered slowly across the street on a green light, as drivers patiently waited for the lights to change. To my surprise, when the lights changed, these same adults continued their slow saunter, leaving us drivers fuming as the lights went through a full cycle again, leaving us still sitting at that intersection, having missed our green and now being forced to wait out another red. Nor did this happen to me just once, or twice, or even three times — I got hit by this pedestrian behavior four times before I got out of the City.
One sees the exact same behavior from bicyclists, by the way. There’s a very curvy road that lies between me and a common destination, and it’s quite popular with bicyclists. Since the road is too narrow for bike lanes, and visibility is poor, one would think that these vulnerable bicyclists would bike carefully. While some are indeed quite careful, a significant number seem to feel they owe the road. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve come around a blind corner to find two or three bicyclists cruising side by side down the middle of the road, deep in conversation.
I used to think that the startling increase in car-pedestrian and car-bicyclists accidents was because drivers were more careless. While that may be true, I’m beginning to suspect that the pedestrians and bicyclists, despite the obvious disparities in their vulnerability in any engagement with a car, are so intent upon their own desires, and so happy to thumb their noses (figuratively) at cars, that they willingly put themselves into life-threatening situations. (And indeed, statistics show that, in the majority of bike-car accidents, the bicyclist is at fault.)
I could go on with this litany, but I’ll refrain from selfishly boring you. I’m also willing to bet that you can instantly summon to mind examples of behavior in which people, especially young people, elevated their own needs to such preeminence that everything around them became secondary. And it’s not personal. That is, the actors didn’t mumble to insult me. The pedestrians didn’t saunter to frustrate me. The neighborhood kids don’t speak unintelligibly to befuddle me. The audience wasn’t rude to destroy myme. Instead, in each instance, the actor willingly abandoned the needs of the community (safety, efficiency, courtesy, etc.), simply because the actor thought that his or her needs were paramount, while everyone elses were of no account. In other words, these were profound acts of selfishness by tweens, teens and young adults apparently incapable of thinking beyond their own immediate desires. pleasure in the show. The pushy children weren’t out to get
If you want, you can view this trend as a microcosm of something playing out on a larger scale across America. In an entitlement culture such as ours has become, there’s no room any more the gentle give and take that comes with a live and let live paradigm. Instead, every interest groups’ rights are so overarching that there is no room on the stage for any other group.
It’s therefore fascinating to witness spectacle of blacks, gays, women, hispanics, the handicapped, etc., all duking it out for the title of “most victimized, pathetic, needy interest group in America.” It’s all about me, me, me. There is no public forum any more. There is no hypothetical public forum called “America” in which people ease there way around each other using basic courtesy, thoughtfulness, and a little give and take. It’s no wonder, therefore, that my children are infected by this sense of entitlement, one that sees their needs as the only needs, and all other people as mere facilitators for the fulfillment of their selfishy desires.
In a way, Obama is the ne plus ultra of this selfishness phenomenon. He is, after all, someone whose whole career is devoid of any actual accomplishments other than self-aggrandizement, at which he is a master. His needs are so preeminent in his own mind, that he’s willing to sacrifice an entire country to his inexperience, simply because he thinks it would be a fine idea for him to get the recognition he feels he deserves simply because he is who he is. What’s sadder than his narcissistic desire for the fulfillment of his own selfish need for aggrandizement is that a little more than half of our citizens displayed the same traits in voting for him: they didn’t cast their votes because they thought he’d be good for America; they cast those votes because they wanted to make themselves feel good about voting for a black man. The Hell with America; it’s all about me.
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And on this last point, I fear that we will all pay a steep price for the moral vanities that put him there. Perhaps a steep recession, depression and (I am convinced) war will help us to rediscover those lost virtues.
Remember where you live, Book. It’s not quite this bad in some other parts of the country, but you live in the heart of libness. One of the core features of libs is their self-centeredness.
About folks from the Old Country. Sam Levinson (I think) told of coming home from school, and telling his grandmother from Europe (Depression, WWII) that he was hungry. “Have a piece of bread,” she told him.
“I don’t want a piece of bread,” said Sam.
“Then you’re not hungry.”
He never forgot it, and neither have I.
You’re right about kids in school. It’s as if the Magnetic Poles of Manners have flipped end for end. Not a week goes by that we don’t hear about some idiot parents suing a school, a team, or somebody over some real, or imagined slight to their precious darling.
I remember reporting some fairly unfair treatment I’d experienced from a teacher to my mom. She was unmoved. She told me that that was life, that someday I’d have a sergeant in the army (she was WWII generation) and I would simply have to learn to deal with it. Life isn’t fair.
I went to the computer repair place recently where I inquired of a twenty something if it was ready yet, having already been put off from the previously promised date. It wasn’t. When I asked when it would be, I got a series of pleasantly meaningless, or evasive answers, until I finally had to tell him to cut the crap.
He had known all along that it would be another two days, but he’d clearly thought that lying was the best policy, and wasn’t in the least embarrassed at being nailed at it. I was just a minor player on his stage. My function in his life was to provide him a toy to play with, and my needs were not just secondary to his; rather, he seemed utterly unaware that I had any, or that his job was to meet them.
Of course, he did know, but the relative importance of his vs. mine was approaching infinity. [Those of you under 35...the correct verb in that last sentence IS "was", not "were." If you don't know why, oh, wait, you don't care.]
And their listening comprehension is nil. On my first visit there, another young man seemed not to be able to process simple English sentences. It was as if I would say, “My car won’t start.” Then he’d say, “Have you tried starting it?” Really. That basic. Three times in a row. Listening — to them — is like chewing their food. It’s about THEM. Listening? No. It’s hearing, and it’s merely to register background noise like the kitchen door swinging as the waiter brings them more food. It’s not for communicating. Not with adults, anyway, and I really wonder about each other. Have you listened to a teen conversation recently? Take away Like, Yuhknow, I Mean, So I’m Like, Totally, or whatever the current vogue is, and T H E R E ‘ S N O T H I N G T H E R E.
Ah, I see the off-rant coming up. Later.
I can’t help but think the declining reputation of religious faith and the rise of secularism as our society’s public “face” has something to do with this. People who take their faith seriously, whether Jews, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, or Buddhists, have at least a sense of the humanity of their fellow man and a sense of *not* being personally smack in the middle of their own universe that these selfish and self-centered people you describe do not seem to have. Even just an awareness of the extreme importance of following The Golden Rule (a concept that predates Christianity) seems to be declining (is it even being taught anymore by parents and/or schools that are not religious?). What are they teaching Kindergartners these days if not to learn to share and be kind to your neighbor? It seems in many cases the kids, even if they do hear this at school, see too many of their classmates get away with murder. Or they go home and take in a different message from their families.
This morning I read in Michael Medved’s new book, “The 10 Big Lies About America,” the following passages from Chapter 3:
“[I]n 1787, Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance, which stated: ‘Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.’ These words (reenacted by the First Congress under the Constitution) made clear that to the Founders, the propagation of ‘religion’ and ‘morality’ represented the prime (and necessary) purpose of schooling….[p. 82]
“Justice Samuel Chase, wrote [in 1799]…’Religion is of general and public concern, and on its support depend, in great measure, the pace and good order of government, the safety and happiness of the people.’…[p. 86]
“Like Adams, the other Founders looked beyond Christianity’s truths (even when they generally accepted them) and passionately affirmed its benefits. They unanimously agreed on the importance of fervent faith in protecting and nourishing the Republic they had launched. Washington’s Farewell Address provided the most famous formulation of this belief: ‘Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.’
“Adams, his successor in the White House, wrote to his cousin Zabdiel Adams in 1776: ‘Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.’
“Whatever their theological disagreements or doubts, those who created this new nation in the eighteenth century shared a unanimous faith in the positive impact of vital religious institutions. For more than 150 years, the national leaders who followed them echoed their confidence in the importance of religiosity to the health of society and the stability of government.” [p. 90]
Religion and Morality. And the education of children in the same. Could that be the vital ingredient that’s now missing from the scenarios of selfishness you’ve described? Could our nation’s Founders have predicted these results? And as patriots, what can any individual do?
bicyclists and bike lanes…there are several roads around here that HAVE bike lanes running parallel to them, but the bicyclists avoid them and ride in the road…often in groups, in ways that create a very dangerous situation.
He had known all along that it would be another two days, but he’d clearly thought that lying was the best policy, and wasn’t in the least embarrassed at being nailed at it. I was just a minor player on his stage. My function in his life was to provide him a toy to play with, and my needs were not just secondary to his; rather, he seemed utterly unaware that I had any, or that his job was to meet them.
The cultural norm in China is to lie about something if it would worry the person you are talking to. This is known as a polite fiction or a white lie. This is consistent with Chinese culture where laughter is often a substitute to the covering up of embarrassment, given that loss of face is even more embarassing.
I think a lot of this has to do with the misguided “self-esteem” emphasis in so many schools. Check out the superheated ’steem thread for lots of depressing examples.
It is not that once you strip the traditions of a culture and nation away, it gets replaced with “enlightenment”. No, what really happens is that people resort to a more primitive template, like that of saving face mafioso style, as a substitute. They have no real choice in this manner, for their psyches will protect themselves from embarrassment and pain. While Americans lived a hard life and sought honor and duty as the purpose behind which the weight of life’s hardships could be handled, today’s youths have no standards other than one of narcissistic instincts to look for guidance from.
And narcissistic instincts will eventually revolve into the “saving face” game of tribal “honor” and politics, and ultimately gang warfare politics, identity politics, and class warfare. (blame the rich cause they are rich and cause it makes the poor feel better for having less)
“But also the kind of selfishness that elevates ones own needs (”I must talk”) over those of all others present (such as those performing or those trying to listen).”
Not to disagree with _any_ of your polemic! but I’d attribute a lot of this particular one to television (and movies). Think about it….years ago, social interaction between people was sit down conversation. People spoke and responded to each other. Nothing else was going on, talking over someone was rude and everybody was aware of it if you did it. Today, tv is always in the background. We speak over it, about it, to it occasionally, but rarely do we turn it off. We usually have our ears tuned to it in a small way so that at moments of high interest, all involved in a conversation completely unrelated to the topic being shown on tv will stop conversing with each other and all focus will be on the program of interest. When the moment of interest ends, conversation resumes. No one is offended – least of all the actors or broadcasters on the television. Likewise music. No one goes to live concerts of the sort that expects the audience to actually _listen_…if you go to a live concert of the popular sort, you’re lucky to be able to actually _hear_ anything!
In other words, the availability of artificially produced entertainment which not only does not require interaction but makes it irrelevant has meant that there’s no reason not to pursue whatever holds your interest at the moment. The entertainers are irrelevant. You can turn them off, turn them on, replay them – whatever your heart desires. They are a form of machine for which you have no personal regard.
And I’d add here that with young people attending church less and less, there’s not even the weekly “sit still and be quiet” lesson that they used to get in _that_ forum! So…where are they being taught anything about being quiet _anytime_?
Oh yeah…and children used to be taught “Children should be seen but not heard”… that’s considered detrimental to their little developing personalities these days – in fact it’s more like “Adults should be seen but not heard” as we more and more approach a youth centered culture.
Oh yeah…and children used to be taught “Children should be seen but not heard”
It’s too bad Carter was never taught that. The Navy named a submarine after him, perhaps to remind him that the submarine, just like Carter, was not supposed to be seen nor heard.
While I can say little about the show, I have a lot to say about the audience. Half the audience was made up of children attending the same school as those performing. And of these children, half talked non-stop throughout the performance. Keep in mind as you think about this rudeness that the show was one presented by their friends and peers. Nevertheless, they could not be bothered to stop talking, or even to lower their voices to a whisper. Bad manners? Definitely. But also the kind of selfishness that elevates ones own needs (”I must talk”) over those of all others present (such as those performing or those trying to listen).
Lack of discipline I would say. They have no real motivation to suffer for somebody else’s cause or interests because they had never had any real reason to do so. Why should they refuse to speak to their friends about interesting and fun things, but instead have to sit and suffer in silence over the works of others? There is no punishment and discipline from people like me to motivate them. There is no satisfaction to be had for they have never experienced the benefits of self-discipline. There are no rewards in watching the work of others because they have no context in which to compare the work due to their lack of experience concerning the real world
In the end, Book, it should be all about you.
It should be about how fast you are compared to others.
It should be about how strong you are, both physically, mentally, and spiritually, compared to your allies and your enemies. It should be about your integrity and achieving a stronger sense of self and soul. It should be about increasing your pain tolerance and threshold. It should be about acquiring discipline over your instincts, such as the instinct of self-preservation and the instinct that says to avoid pain and run away from hard work. It should be, always and forever, about yourself, Book.
The Aristotelian virtues were about whether you could meet the objective standards of such things as courage, honor, duty, and all the numerous others. To reach such standards you had to have good habits, good traits, and developed your talents.
In the end, Book, there are a precious few who will realize that to be the greatest and most unique individual that there is, they must become stronger than all others. But to do that, means that they must be better at all things, including compassion, work, efficiency, intelligence, honor, duty, trust, skill, creativity, and will.
Given that it is far easier to destroy than to create, how much strength would it take to create what has never been created before? And why is a person who defends stronger than a person who only attacks? These questions have answered but these answers are only known to those that have acquired wisdom on life’s voyage.
You know…not taking back a word of my earlier comment, I wonder if part of the problem wasn’t the _other_ problem you mentioned – that you couldn’t understand any of the elocution. Maybe no one else could either, and while it would have been polite to stay silent, if you can’t understand what people are saying, it does tend to lower the attention level. Sort of like watching a foreign movie without subtitles.
I wonder if you would have a chance to talk to someone involved in the production – I’d want to ask them if they recognized that there was a problem – either with the elocution or with the audience. I think that would tell me something about the school and the teachers – even if I didn’t want to hear what that “something” was!
Suek, the instructors probably refrained from damaging the littler critters’ ego by saying that they need to speak better and to repeat words until they fit an “objective standard”. That would be hell on their self-esteem, yanno, and the instructors might have been arrested for child abuse!
Hmmm. I can see that, Y, (yes I know you’re being sarcastic!) but the instructor should have the experience to blame the problem on the acoustics instead of the child – even when it’s actually the child’s problem. To be honest, I suspect that the instructor doesn’t have the background for the task. Public performances of any kind require “not-normal” modes of speaking or singing because they’re normally held in larger rooms to accomodate an audience – which also absorbs sound – and the size of the auditorium will affect how the sounds and articulation are carried.
Our school performed “H.M.S. Pinafore” and I can still remember having it impressed upon us that we had to speak and sing “artificially” in order for the audience to hear us “normally”.
Chuck Colson makes an interesting observation as he writes about Blagojevich:
Tragically, America is continuing to rear its young to become not only self-obsessed, but obsessed with personal power. Quaint-sounding virtues such as courage, honesty and prudence — historically considered the elements of character — are no match for a society in which the exaltation and gratification of self becomes the overriding goal of life.
I know this sounds off the wall, but is it possible that most of the children in the cast had been sired by Ozzy Osbourne?
Part of what’s happened is this: in recent years, we’ve seen the emergence of a secular religion in which morality is defined in terms of holding the right beliefs (GWB=bad, for example) and performing the right rituals (such as recycling). If these are the things that matter, you can’t expect a lot of emphasis on interpersonal decency.
This effect is not unknown in the traditional religions, of course. There are certainly self-identified “Christians” who believe that as long as they hold to the correct theology, and attend church regularly, they will get into heaven (and enjoy the esteem of their fellow churchgoers) regardless of how they treat their fellow man…and this is true of other religions as well. But the traditional religions are not purely theological and ritualistic, they all have quite a bit to say about personal behavior. This seems less true of our new secular religion.
Random stuff, I know…
My wife started to work full time as a teacher when our kids started school. The day came she said that we would have to do our own laundry. We do. Today, my kids’ college peers appear amazed that my kids have mastered the high-technology of laundromats.
Some of my favorite fall-back lines uttered to my kids:
“What do others owe you?” (Answer – absolutely zero!).
“If you don’t like what is on the table and when, cook your own food!” (it’s also a babe magnet for boys! My son is becoming a pretty good cook, albeit with a limited repertoire. His long-time girlfriend is very impressed).
“Our job is to teach you to survive. I you can’t live on your own at age-18, we’ve failed you and that won’t happen”
“No work, no allowance, no eat.”
“Let’s go on a trailer park tour so that you can house shop for where you’ll be living if you don’t learn to get a job PDQ. I’ll pay the first month’s rent”.
Oh yeah, the last line applies to homework as well.
And, no, they do not live at home and, yes, they still love us.
>>My son is becoming a pretty good cook>>
My boys all belonged to Cub Scouts. That meant that as 8 yr olds, in order to earn their Wolf badge, they had to learn to cook a breakfast. So why stop there? All but one learned to cook well enough to live on their own. (The one lives on fast food. I mentioned “vegetables” to him once recently, and he “informed” me that hamburgers have lettuce on them. I could write a book about him!)
Nevertheless, I was floored when #4 boy called home from college and told us that some of his buddies were _paying_ him to make _spaghetti_ for them!! They didn’t know how to make _spaghetti_!!!! Unbelievable.
Last thought on the topic…
Bumper sticker I either actually saw or saw mentioned somewhere:
“If you think your parents are demanding, wait till you have children!!”
Puritans were in the habit of hanging Quakers all the way back to 1600. Nothing new here. There are simply different types of child rearing. Which I might add, get quite different results.
The schools in Mill Valley are all Quaker in philosophy. Yuck! They emphasize speaking from the true light in their hearts–rather than just speaking clearly.
Discipline, what’s that?
San Francisco schools are much better in this regard. MUCH. SF schools have other problems, like backcountry kids running amok, but self-centeredness is tolerated much less.
Don’t blame the bikes. Bikes, cars, skaters and pedestrians need separate roads to be safe…until then we need to share…and that means driving slowly.
My kids are performing this week too, silently (one kid in charge of playing music).
My elementary school has assemblies every Friday, and students know exactly how they are expected to behave: sit flat, be quiet, take care of one person, applaud after everyone has been introduced instead of for individuals. Guests are amazed at our student body as an audience because they are polite and attentive.
However, a lot of that changes during evening performances. At night, the students aren’t under the watchful and reproachful eye of their teacher, and they push and press every boundary and are often disrespectful to each other and their parents.
Why are these students so selfish? A lack of manners, an overabundance of praise and rewards for actions and accomplishments that may have earned a nod of approval in the past, and a lack of discipline if I had to generalize. Alfie Kohn wrote “Punished by Rewards” arguing that the use of rewards in schooling and parenting is ultimately detrimental as it is only a short term solution. It is an interesting book for which I remember having mixed feelings. A review I just consulted referenced the “utopian” ideas he has for solutions. I assume that’s what caused the mixed feelings – I read it over 15 years ago and don’t remember exactly. Thought I’d toss it out there in case anyone was interested.
My 4th grade class gave our teacher a for-real nervous breakdown six weeks into the semester.
We were rioting one Friday near the classroom door, getting ready for our afternoon recess, when she blurted out, “I hate you children! I cannot stand you!” She burst into tears and ran out the door. We never saw her again.
The next Monday morning, as we prepared to run up the stairs to our classroom, we were impeded by a small old woman, maybe 4-foot-10, who was standing on the staircase landing with her arms folded. She looked very grumpy.
“The 4th grade class, I presume?” were Mrs. Ultman’s first words to us. From the tone of her voice, we realized that over the weekend our principal had sent downtown for an Enforcer, a member of a fabled circuit-rider teacher corps in the Los Angeles School District that an administrator could call in as a last resort to discipline a class that had run amok.
She made us line up in pairs and said we were to walk up the stairs quietly until all of us were inside our classroom. Any deviations — chortles, laughs, whispers, breaking formation — would require us to start over.
It took us nine tries to reach our classroom. She said that since her work consisted merely of giving orders and watching us be our own worst enemies, “I would say I’m getting the better part of the deal here. If you’d like to climb the stairs 20 times, I’ll be happy to accommodate you.”
God, we hated her. She insisted that we listen attentively in class and that we ask permission before going to the pencil sharpener (and that we not lunge at it when we got there). We couldn’t go to recess unless we lined up quietly in a prearranged order and asked her permission to go out.
Then she really got demanding. She identified the best readers and math students in the class and when she knew that they had mastered a lesson, she put a red flag on each of their desks. The flag meant that that student “was open for business” and could be approached by any other student for help.
“This is a privilege,” she told them, “to be able to help your fellow students. You are to treat them as I treat you, with seriousness and dignity. if you do not, I will take away the privilege of letting you help them and me.”
She insisted we help the smaller kids at school reach the water fountains, to wait our turn in line and to walk everywhere in an orderly way.
We noticed that she would praise us for geniune effort and criticize us if she thought we were trying to coast or pull the wool over her eyes. Some of her praise, which several kids struggled so hard to earn, was the greatest reward that any of them had ever received.
By the end of the semester, we were the best class in school academically and socially, and the principal told us one day that we were the envy of the other classes for the mature way we did things.
When the last day of school before summer vacation came, and we knew that we would never see Mrs. Ultman again, everyone of us was in tears as we filed pass her to say our goodbyes.
Congrats, Charles. That was your first boot class training.
Now do you more clearly understand why the Left hates ROTC in campuses, Charles? They know that the competition would bury them if they allowed children into such environments.
It is a war to the Left just as the Islamics declared war on us and we didn’t even notice until 9/11.
Submitted 12/18/08…
This week’s Watcher’s Council submissions are UP! The Irony of Me, Barack Obama,Regulations, and Loan Modifications – The Provocateur examines how allowing loan modifications will likely cause even more havoc in the mortgage market and how the regula…
>> My 4th grade class gave our teacher a for-real nervous breakdown six weeks into the semester. >>
And then you ended up with a godsend for a teacher… and SHE did not have a nervous breakdown. She ended up doing what great teachers do.
I’d say the first teacher contributed to her own nervous breakdown. But then, I’m mean.
>> Don’t blame the bikes. Bikes, cars, skaters and pedestrians need separate roads to be safe…until then we need to share…and that means driving slowly. >>
I believe bicyclists are allowed to ride on most regular streets in most states. However, they are REQUIRED to obey exactly the same laws that the car drivers are require to obey, and there in lies the rub. Too many of these bicyclists believe the road belongs to them, and they ignore the rules of the road.
I’d love it, absolutely love it, if bicyclists were ticketed for biking between cars that are piled up at a light. NO! STOP! Line up behind them, and wait just as long as they do, just like the cars, or get the hell off the road. Not stopping at a stop sign? Get the hell off the road, you don’t deserve it. Stuck at a stop light, with no cars approaching that have the green, and you’re thinking of just biking right across and continuing on your little happy journey? Can a car run that light? No… and you can’t either. Sit and wait. Talking on a cellphone while biking, in a part of the country where drivers can’t? Quityer b*tchin. Accept the ticket. You are not special, not one iota, compared to the car drivers. You are required to obey exactly and precisely every law that they do. (Admittedly it’s a little hard for you to go 60 in a 45-mph zone, but my sympathy in truth is scarcely roused.)
There, that’s my rant.
I would add, none of those rules apply unless you are biking IN THE ROAD, in which case, you are just like a car. If you’re on a sidewalk (hopefully the kind with no curbs), you are just like a pedestrian, and the automobile rules don’t apply.
When in the road, you follow the rules of the road. Most bicyclists don’t believe it. They’re “special” that way.
Watcher’s Council results…
First place in the Council category was Bookworm Room with Selfish is as selfish does. First place in the non-Council category was The Brussels Journal with On Deconstructing the Majority: Nothing To Do With Islam? Really? Full results can be……
“in the majority of bike-car accidents, the bicyclist is at fault.”
And of course when these bicyclists get behind the wheel they don’t suddenly become responsible drivers.
“Bikes, cars, skaters and pedestrians need separate roads to be safe”
And who is going to come up with the trillions of dollars to pay for your utopian solution? Not to mention the vast increase in how much land gets paved over? Whose homes and businesses are you going to tear down to make room? And, since you live in San Francisco, what about all those spotted owls which will lose their habitat?
“..and that means driving slowly.”
Go back and read Bookworm again, and this time pay attention. She described all sorts of irresponsible behavior on the part of cyclists and pedestrians. Why must drivers slow down in order to increase the safety of reckless fools?
“Don’t blame the bikes.”
Do you really believe that people should not be blamed when they behave badly? Or do you just believe that certain classes of people are entitled to do whatever they want?
When I am on foot or on a bike, I assume that the people in cars can, will, and probably do want to kill me.
I have a choice, I can either feel complacent in the protection of the law and assume the law will protect me by limiting the actions of the vehicle operators or I can take the much safer bet and change my personal behavior so that car drivers don’t get an opportunity to hurt me, period.
This is the difference between what is known as “vigilance” and what is known as vice corrupted “entitlement”.
You are not entitled to life. It is a right only given to you because of the strength of arms of others. And if people become weak enough, then you will die if you also lack the strength as well.
People who are paranoid have this fear of people out to get them. Society looks down on such people and does not respect them. And yet society looks upon the Critical Mass bicyclists as some sort of evolution on human potential.
Neither are as bad as they are stereotyped. The bicyclists are not suicidal when challenging cars, they just don’t understand the reality of death. The paranoids fear others, but it need not control their actions or make them unreasonable.
A person that does not recognize and accept the fact that when they are on foot or on a bike, that they can be easily killed by a car, is living in what is known as a fantasy land reinforced by delusions and insane psychological disorders. This is a reality that society has blinded many people to, given the wealth and security modern day America provides. But that is only a thin veneer.
When people lose their self-survival mechanisms and common sense, bad things will happen. When people, paranoid or otherwise, allow their fears to guide their actions, like Nixon or paranoid delusional freaks, then they become animals rather than sentient human beings with a self-aware consciousness. You have to find the middle road between sense and insensibility, between reality and fantasy, and between virtue and vice. Course, virtue itself is one of moderation or to be specific: to act correctly in the correct situations. We call that “moderate” but in reality, it is not moderate it is only an “average”: an average of extremes in either direction, when those extremes fit the situation.
Btw, the reason why bicyclists act more irrationally when there are a lot of them together than when they are alone is principally due to the “mob” behavior. This is a sociological condition which occurs when human beings start congregating together and Brown Motion starts being placed into effect. Look at the killings done by the mob in the Walmart incident, for example.
A mob does not function as an individual, thus the mob has no “self-survival’ instincts. Or at least, it has a different priority on such things.
Wow! I said slow down!
Well, as we use to say, excuse me for living.
Entitlement my derriere.
I didn’t use to own a car, I did everything on bicycle or skateboard.
I went on a group bicycle ride about 15 years ago. I got talking with a few of the other riders. We all agreed we felt really scared of cars on a daily basis and that riding in a group felt liberating– because it was so safe!
We started regular meetings. After a few months I invited a radical friend of mine who was involved in organizing bicycle messengers. We decided that we should have a party on wheels to draw attention to bicycle safety.
Critical Mass was born and the rest is, as they still say, history.
I was a skateboarder before I really started biking everywhere. Skateboards are not part of traffic, they are in and out of it–we assume we can’t be seen. Skateboards are really fast in two ways that bicycles and cars are not–they can turn on a dime, and they can accelerate from 0 to 15 in one second (That’s faster than a formula one race car.) As a skateboarder there was never any reason to pay attention to traffic laws, they simply made no sense. Skateboarding is a crime.
Bicycles are a different case. First of all, for you law lovers out there, bicycles are allowed to take the full lane if riding two abreast. Why? Because it is really dangerous passing a bicycle on a narrow winding road, like the one Bookworm was driving too fast on. Unfortunately, when most drivers see a bicycle they just start passing with out considering if it is safe for the bicycle. That road Bookworm is talking about is used by bicyclists all the time, including Lance Armstrong. They do often ride very fast and it is terribly dangerous to have cars trying to pass them, sometimes multiple times (because bicycles are faster on the straights, cars on the turns).
As for running stop signs, it’s a problem for cars too. In San Francisco, where every intersection is a stop sign, most motorist are running at least a little bit. For a bicycle the stop signs are just horrible. Like you are really going to pop out of your clip and put your foot down every block?
And think about this, bicyclists are higher than most cars so they can see better.
I’m not into special entitlements. I’m just saying, we have an imperfect compromise that wasn’t designed well for anyone. Unless you are going to fix it, quit whining and slow down!
I got talking with a few of the other riders. We all agreed we felt really scared of cars on a daily basis and that riding in a group felt liberating– because it was so safe!
Thanks for proving my point. The idea that cause you are now in a “pack” of bicycles that a car can’t drive over you and your friends, is pretty “fantastic” one may say.
If bicyclists want to change the rules for driving, so that cars can pass them in a safer manner, they have had many many chances to do so in San Francisco.
Critical Mass, however, is not behind compromise of that sort, however.
Scott, I’ve seen motorcyclists engage in *some* of the behaviors that bicyclists engage in. Because they can. At a traffic jam, they go onto the shoulder and bypass the cars, or they weave their way through. In other words, they engage in “special behavior” because they’re special.
I agree about the “slow down” part. If the speed limit is 40 and the car in front of you is doing 25, do you run them off the road? No, you try to pass them responsibly, and you should do the same for bicyclists.
I agree with Y (#39) about Critical Mass, or at least what I heard of them a few years back. They were about flouting the road laws – at least back then they were – and were engaging in highly provocative acts of rebellion against those road laws, solely for their own benefit. Talk about “special”.
Council speak 12/22/08…
The Council has spoken. This week’s winning entry was Bookworm Room’s Selfish is as selfish does as she gives voice to every parents concern and she provides some observations to support her conclusions. The runner up this week was Mere Rhetoric’s O…
Re #37: I have a very personal reason for disliking Critical Mass (aside from the fact that it’s morphed from a frolic into an often aggressive political movement). When I was pregnant with my first child, I still lived in SF. The hospital was on the other side of town and I knew that, if I went into labor on the wrong Friday afternoon, I wouldn’t be able to get from my house to the hospital. I lived in fear during the last two months of my pregnancy that I’d go into labor on Critical Mass day. Paranoid and neurotic? Yes. But a real fear that, fortunately, proved groundless when I had a Wednesday baby!
I would have been honored to escort you through the throng by stepping on the gas pedal for the car, Book. You deserve it. They don’t.
Watcher’s Council Results…
Here are the results of the last two votes by the Watcher’s Council! December 26, 2008 Winning Council Submissions First place with 2 2/3 points! – The Razor – The Symbol of Oppression Second place with 1 2/3 points -……