Objectivity Is Overrated

As a parent of two little ones, I can tell you that I have lost all objectivity when it comes to my children. Everything they do is the cutest things.

Why does this happen to parents?

The answer is too long.

Plus, there are pics like these: https://www.instagram.com/p/BFkohFYnlBY/

The Horror

I’ve been pondering these transgender issues of late and have posted before about the importance of our (human’s) psychology (beliefs, mental states) when it comes to things that some consider purely biological phenomena and referenced Louis CK’s bit about americans “feeling hungry” as hunger is a real thing and starvation is a real thing to draw this point out.

So: we are psychological beings

So: our gender identity is not free from this psychology, nor is our sexual identity.

Why? We are psychological beings, through and through. One can’t have a triangle without 3 sides and you can’t have a human without psychology.

Now I also referenced Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature and his claims that violence has reduced and his beliefs as to why this is the case.

One of the strongest, most striking points throughout Angels is what we, humans, used to do. It isn’t pretty. We used to be unbelievably, hard-to-fathom violent. Consider that we used to torture animals, sometimes cats FOR ENTERTAINMENT! Not only was the torture not frowned upon, it was cause for laughs.

Why has this changed? Why has our moral circle expanded beyond immediate kin to now include cats and dogs for example? Here in the U.S. it is illegal for you to abuse or torture an animal. Check out Pinker’s Angels for his opinions as to why the moral circle has expanded to animals.

Let us agree that the moral circle has expanded.

And is expanding, and some call this, wait for it, wussification.

Remember when “boys will be boys” was a popular refrain, a tidy explanation for…

Well, the point above is true, and that we are psychological beings with psychology impacting, gender, then boys, won’t be boys?

Will we lose our binary coding? Male-Female?  Will cats and dogs live together? Mass hysteria?

Isn’t that the fallout in North Carolina, fear of the slippery slope?

Let us not forget that there was resistance to the expanding of the moral circle: the end of slavery didn’t come easy, women’s rights didn’t come easy, children’s right didn’t come easy, animal rights didn’t come easy, and civil rights didn’t come easy.

The mindset that fought those progressions, are fighting currently, fighting against the wussification, against the comfort that is binary biology, against psychology mucking things up, namely their mindset – their tradition(s), and ergo their successes because in their mindset, their successes can’t happen without their traditions (the traditions are necessary and sufficient conditions for success) and lastly, because they know what is right…and wrong. And they won’t go down, with you, as you sink into the moral nihilism that will result from subjectivism and relativism and…transgender restrooms.

So now I ask you to enter the time travel machine. Won’t you come back with us to the middle ages and enjoy a good ole cat burning? Ok, this is easy. You are abhorred by the idea and you don’t want to travel back in time to bear witness to our, your, violent past.

But ah, this time machine goes to the future too. Won’t you come with us to the near/distant future when transgender restrooms are the norm? Are you afraid of the slippery slope? What will become of us if we have transgender restrooms?

The horror.

Flash Fiction

I have some questions for you. No, you, over there, behind the mannequin, holding the big gulp and KY jelly with the huge number 1 foam finger wearing the pith helmet and mork from ork suspenders and mc hammer pants. Yes you.

He was greasy. Even when it wasn’t hot out and he wasn’t changing an oil filter; somehow he always had some sort of sheen about him, like he could have been an 80’s stock broker or an immigrant farmer in the 10am heat. 

She was an artist who specialized in shades. Not shades of color, shades like window shades. She could manipulate them like a good clown could manipulate balloons. She was about to become famous but the shade cuts became too much.

Bigarlammey Hanselwaithe was his maiden name.

They were gathered around a campfire roasting easter peeps when they realized that night was fast approaching. They were all afraid of the dark, deathly afraid. They would be rendered catatonic with fear, sitting ducks for anything, anyone that wanted to maim them, yes maim them. In the time they spent looking at each other waiting for someone to lead, night fell. True to form the only movements from them were the shakes from fear. Life-size peeps garbled and oozed their way out of the cold ground and lumbered silently, because of what they are made of, when they hit the ground it doesn’t make a sound…anyway…toward them from the circle of hell that would surely be their doom. Encircling like silent killers, killers I say, circling closer and closer…within reach of them…silent soft mimes waiting to kill kill kill…they hollered in unison, “Ticonderoga” and flung themselves on the fire creating a gigantic sugar explosion of color and smells they would never see again in their lives. They looked at each other as sugar embers floated down from the night sky as Hugo, the smallest and youngest, cleared his throat nervously and said “Ticonderoga?”

You get lit last night?
You mean on fire?
No, lit light drunk?
No, I smoked last night.
You mean like because you were on fire?

“Some questions will force you to reconcile” he paused “your past with your present.” He was only talking to her though he was at the head of the class. “This reconciliation won’t come without cognitive dissonance. In fact dissonance is the lever of said reconciliation, a necessary, ah but not, sufficient condition.” She was awash in him, drenched in his love, satiated, could-now-die-happy because she had been able to know him. She was a fool…for him. And in general. Just a complete and utter fool the likes of which we haven’t seen since Richard from 7th grade when he thought the fire drill was going to be used in shop.

The poison ivy covered the both of them from head to toe but since they were identical twins…

Gender and Hunger

Gender.

It’s an issue now.

Some say it is only biological.

Would these same people say that hunger is only biological?

One of my funner lectures for intro to psych is one on hunger and eating. To help them understand the difference between biological hunger and psychological eating, I play this bit from Louis CK:

I'm a little hungry. I mean, I feel hungry. I think that's what... Americans shouldn't say "I'm hungry," they should say "I feel hungry." If you ate today, you shouldn't say "I'm hungry." Hunger's a real thing. I don't have "third world" hunger. I have "first" world hunger. I would like a donut. Some people say "I'm starving." That's offensive! [ mimicking ] "I'm STARVING! I haven't eaten since TWO, I'm STARVING!" Don't say that! Because some people ARE starving, and THEY don't say it! You never see a little kid in Africa with his ribs showing, he's like, "I'm STARVING right now! I'm like literally starving TO DEATH! It's, like, ANNOYING!"

So ask yourself why you (we, they, humans) overeat when we have this perfectly functioning mechanism called hunger to guide us.

Answer: we are psychological beings, with all the blessings and curses therein; prone to thoughts and feelings…that are not like gears in a machine. 

Perhaps also not like genitalia in a body?

Hard 2016 Election

It’s time to get serious about this erection, er I mean election.  The competition is sure to be stiff where only the most morally upright person will be inserted into the position. Getting erected president is very, very hard. A campaign requires pounding and pounding in every city you can wet dream of. Your stump speech better be big and rarin’ to go because the electorate wants it, in both ears. Not every person is open to your views and predilections but you knew that getting your pants on so lube up the charms because you want the votes. You need the votes. You won’t be able to come into the white house without votes. The weak and flaccid have pulled out along the way, unable to finish…they just couldn’t maintain the rigidity required for intense, mind-blowing campaigning. All the hotel beds must have got to them, not you. You’re still up, saluting because it’s hard to get you down, you’re in there for the long haul as deep as you can get. Your pole numbers don’t bother you whether it’s 4 inches or exit polls suggesting you can’t make it with older women or latino men. There is a lot facing this country as we head into this erection. We all know what’s at steak. There are meaty issues we face and only the candidates willing to swallow the issues whole, all the way, are the ones we are going to take into our homes and bedrooms and showers. November isn’t far away and we all need to come together, get over the humps, mount the  good and the bad if we are going to make the right choice. Aren’t we all fully prepared to take it on the chin up until Election Day? To hear every idea on every position even if it means getting out of our comfort zones and agreeing on a safe word for the country as a whole? We are.

Their

Their hands, held

Their hopes, high

Their sins, confessed

Their fears, addressed

Their time, ticking

Their baby, kicking

Their sleep, missing

Their lives, tipping

Their fate, changing

Their roots, burrowing

Their familiarity, contemptible

Their parting, sweet sorrow

Their herd, incomplete

Their age, replete

Their regrets, lost in a busy day full of life’s little chores