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| QUOTATIONS 1142-1152 |
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| 1142. The games children play is but a rehearsal for the real life drama they are eventually going to take , willingly or not, part in. Now, it can be easily observed that boys prefer to play with boys and girls with girls, for the sexual attraction to the opposite gender comes later, but the social one to one's own stays with us from the beginning to the end for the simple reason of similarity. In this process of playing, because of the natural differences in personalities of each player, conflicts are unavoidable. And so, one of the most important aspects of playing is the conflict resolution so that play can go on. Boys usually accept, even embrace these conflicts right away and immediately proceed to resolve them mostly by physical fights, which are as a rule short and decisive. The winner and the loser is quickly determined, the pecking order is upheld or established anew, and the game can be resumed without too much of a delay. Girls, on the other hand, at first don't even acknowledge the conflict and while continuing playing (albeit with a rather fake enthusiasm) resort initially to the more or less complex manoeuvring to avoid the open clash, and if this doesn't bring the desirable results, to get in the most advantageous position before engaging in the protracted diplomatic negotiations. But the outcome of all of this is rarely certain, the gains or losses are not that obvious, and the loser sometimes doesn't even know she had lost. As children become adults, playing for the most part ends and the real life begins. And in the real life, the most important and the most complex relationship people are getting into is marriage, traditionally the union of a man and a woman for the purpose of sex, procreation, economical and social activities, etc., all of which is the fertile ground for all kinds of conflicts. But, as we have seen, boys and girls, turning into men and women, bring into the marriage quite a different set of methods and skills for conflict resolutions. And so it is no wonder they don't get along very well and as a result most marriages cope with these numerous conflicts rather badly. For men, as boys, prefer short and decisive fights which determine, if not once and for all at least for a time being, who won and who lost and then try to build up on this outcome. Women, as girls, choose, on the contrary, the protracted, seemingly endless manoeuvring and negotiations, in which the endurance and not the strength wins at the end of the day. Men are impatient, women take time. When man thinks that a conflict is over one way or the other, woman sees it as only the beginning. And when a man is ready for yet another battle a woman usually hasn't finished yet with the previous one. All of which and much more else make the co-existence of genders, especially in the situation of marriage, not a very joyous affair. Is there any remedy for this plight? Co-education from kindergarten and on can perhaps alleviate slightly this malady. But in the end, male and female patterns of dealing with the interpersonal conflicts are probably so deeply ingrained in the human species by the millions years of evolution and, we have to admit, worked so well to assure their survival, that it is highly presumptuous of us, men and women of the 20th century to think that we can change it, even if driven by the best possible intentions, at will. This, undoubtedly highly commendable goal, looks especially daunting when considering that the early childhood, which is the most formative period in our lives, is almost exclusively driven by the genetic programming and much more resistible than later years to the social engineering with its usual arsenal of "sticks and carrots". A small child seems too fragile to us to resort too vigorously to such cold and calculating measures of behavioural modification. The parental heart invariably wins over the head, and very small children for the most part are allowed to develop more or less naturally, i.e. according to their particular genetic predisposition. Besides nobody knows for sure if the heavy handed interference with a child's early natural development would not bring later in life more grief than good. And so, is the future of the inter-gender relationships going to be any brighter than its past or present? Probably not. For despite the tremendous progress in other spheres of human interactions this particular one continues to stubbornly resist all innovations. Material improvements, democracy, equality, undeniable gains of feminism, etc. though otherwise beneficial to the human kind haven't made co-existence of the sexes in marriage or otherwise any more peaceful. I personally suspect that this is something we all will have to accept as a given and to learn to live with it as best as each of us can, remembering that no matter how important the relationships between a man and a woman they are still only a part of life, not the whole of it. 1143. Why is it that at the end of a working day it always feels like there are too many people in the office, that it is unbearably overcrowded, and though neither is probably really true (at least no more than it was in the morning), nevertheless, as if having the attack of claustrophobia, one begins to experience the unmistakably familiar urge to leave it for some other preferably open space as soon as possible. 1144. In our democratic, egalitarian age, with "chicken in every pot" and "car in (almost) every garage", even decadence and sexual perversity, which used to be the "privilege" of the upper classes, are now available to every Tom, Dick and Gary, no matter how "less fortunate" they are. 1145. First, there is this well-known mental illness afflicting about 1% of population called Schizophrenia, the usual symptoms of which include (but not limited to) delusion, hallucinations, paranoia and general deterioration of mental faculties, resulting in progressively increasing inability to work, to maintain social relationships, or even to take care of oneself. And the standard treatment for this terribly debilitating disease is most often the various anti-psychotic drugs combined sometimes with a psycho-therapy. And then there is another, recently coming into the vogue the vernacular usage of a term "schizophrenic" as an adjective to describe in the popular nowadays expression "schizophrenic existence" a psychological state of someone living as if in two incompatible and irreconcilable worlds simultaneously and as if acting like two different people. Now, this last one, I claim, is a description of a rather common human conditions from which, realistically speaking, there is no cure. And if having "a split personality" is a sign of being schizophrenic, then everyone has it and everybody is one. For since, on the most basic level, one comes from the two - mother and father, and since they are always, more or less, different, then one who is a compound of the two differences is bound to have "a split personality". I, personally, have inherited from my mother the profoundly pessimistic melancholy and tendency to introspection and contemplation, and from my father, who was a man of the world and certainly not a "dreamer", what seems to be a single-minded resoluteness in decision making and stubborn industry in the execution of what I intend to accomplish. One doesn't have to be a Freud to see that these two sets of traits have nothing in common. Yet, I exhibit both of them at one time or another. Does it mean that I am a schizophrenic? By no means. I function in real life neither better nor worse than anybody else around me. And everyone I know carries in himself his own combination of the opposite traits. It is simply human to be like this and if the technical term to describe such an universal human condition is "schizophrenic" then let one who is not cast the first bottle of Prozac. 1146. The old traditional division of the society into the rich (always a minority) and the poor (always a majority) is being overshadowed nowadays by the new one into those who work (still a majority) and those who for whatever reason don't (still a minority). And since the majority has always supported economically the minority, as the poor provide for the rich through the unequal distribution of wealth, so the new majority, the employed has to, especially in a modern industrial welfare state, support through taxation those who are not. Thus, it is clear now, without even getting into the causes of this new division (industrialization, automation, computerization, global market are some of the usual suspects) where the Neo-conservatism derives its popularity and strength from. For this split of the modern society into the employed and unemployed has united (quite unexpectedly for the socialist ideologists) a bus driver and a banker, who for the first time realize they have something in common - they both work, both pay taxes and both have to support those who do neither. Hence the anti-tax revolt and massive voting across the traditional class barriers for any party promising tax relief, which today means for either the old conservative one, or the new right-wing variety thereof. Furthermore, this new division has created a new type of inequality, which like all inequalities has sooner or later to be redressed. For as those who work are becoming increasingly reluctant to support economically those who don't, the latter, facing the threat to their already meagre existence, have no other choice left but to demand that if those who work refuse to share their money, they will have to share their work. Consequently, the revolutions of the future will be more and more about the redistribution of work rather than that of the wealth. Now, it is clear from the experience of the Nineties, when finally everybody realized that high unemployment is not only here to stay, but will continue to grow in the foreseeable future, that work sharing would be much more difficult to implement than wealth sharing, which is by now tacitly accepted in the form of progressive taxation almost everywhere. For the consequences of sharing work, and the anxiety it produces in those asked to share, reaches much deeper than into their pockets. In our urban industrial age characterized by the demise of the closely knit communities and disintegration of the traditional extended families, when the constant movement of people from one locality to another in search of work cuts the ties with relatives and friends, the job is increasingly becoming central to our lives and to our definitions of who we are. So, in this climate of almost total reliance on the job to fulfill one's personal and social needs, anything threatening this last refuge, through even the partial diminishing in work participation, will be faced with the stiff resistence on the part of those who are lucky to have it. But as the balance between those who work (90%, 80%, 70%...) and those who don't (10%, 20%, 30%. .) continues to change, it will sooner or later reach the critical point when the unemployed minority would tolerate no longer being deprived from having Life, which increasingly nowadays means having work, and the employed majority, on the other hand, would not be able any longer to deny them this opportunity. And not because of pangs of conscience and change of heart, but because of the imminent economic and social collapse if it wouldn't. Thus, this latest revolution will take place like many previous ones not because everybody believe it would advance the common good, but because the society reached the crucial point when to survive it can't afford not to have it. For it is the imperative to survive and not the great ideas and the good will that is the moving force of history. 1147. To recognize and to honestly acknowledge the weaknesses which are inherent in human nature does not necessary mean to condone, and certainly not to encourage their indulgence, but, as if dealing with a disease, after observing its symptoms one has first to determine the cause of it before trying to find the proper treatment, and only after that to recommend it. Moreover, the fact that some human shortcomings are universally widespread should not lead to their universal acceptance, but, on the contrary, the common efforts to eradicate them must be so much stronger and persistent because of it. 1148. The continuous gathering of the new facts that were somehow overlooked, or have been inaccessible until now, the seemingly endless research and books publishing on the Holocaust though undoubtedly motivated by the most noble intentions to remove any skepticism from the mind of posterity about the reality of its unique horror, at this moment are doing more harm than good to the advancement of such a commendable cause. For for those who believe it, the belief which is supported by the overwhelming evidences provided by the thousands of victims and witnesses and mountains of documents and material data, the extra few facts hitherto unearthed are absolutely superfluous and redundant. On the contrary, those who are not willing to acknowledge the truth of the Holocaust, and regrettably there are more than enough of them, the continuing Holocaust research is just the kind of proof they are desperately looking for, which is that apparently not everything is yet known about it, that perhaps some important facts have been concealed by the interested party, the Jews, and that once those facts are uncovered it will prove what they were suspecting all this time, i.e. that the Holocaust is nothing but the Jewish invention to elicit the sympathy, privileges and special considerations from the rest of the world. The deep seated prejudices can never be removed by facts, however convincing they may be. At best, the old prejudices can be replaced by the new ones, but even that takes a lot of time and more than one generation. 1149. Every social group, no matter how small (as a classroom) or big (as a nation) it is, always has somebody looked up to as a hero and someone looked down on as a pariah, the main difference between the big and small groups being that in a small group the hero and the pariah are represented usually by the contrasting individuals and in the big one by the opposing sub-groups. And whether either of them, both individually or collectively, deserve to be viewed as such is beyond the point. For even if there is nobody amongst the members of a group who fits these opposite stereotypes of hero and pariah, someone has to be "appointed", so to speak, to fulfill the very important social functions they perform. For both a hero and a pariah set respectively the upper and the lower limits of social behaviour for the rest of the group -the middle: the hero as the ultimately unattainable paragon of virtue to which everyone in the group shall aspire if status and privileges are his goal, and the pariah by being universally mistreated and persecuted to warn the rest what a terrible fate awaits those who deviate from the acceptable norm. 1150. What separates and distinguishes women and men, what turns a gender into a destiny are not the external sexual organs like vagina and penis and resulting from them the gender specific sexual conduct but the internal ones like womb in a woman and absence of it in a man. For even if it were possible to switch the external sexual organs so that a woman would have a penis and a man vagina, and even if as a result their habitual pattern of sexual behaviour was completely reversed, so that a woman becomes an aggressive initiator of sexual intercourse and, in the extreme, a sexual bully and a rapist, even, to repeat, if all this were possible but the internal difference of women having a womb and men do not remains intact, the necessity to carry a child for 9 month in her womb, then to give birth, breast feed and latter to become the primary care-giver and a person responsible for the survival and well-being of a child would still put a woman in a disadvantageous, as far as her personal freedom and self-determination are concerned, position vis-a-vis man, whose only participation in this lengthy and arduous process could be reduced and often is to the few minutes of coital intercourse and "donation of sperm", and then he is free to continue his life as if nothing has happened. Thus, unlike a woman, a man is allowed by nature to live in a state of perpetual "virginity" and boyhood, if he so chooses, and while there are many different versions of what separates men from boys, there is no question that giving a birth to a child irreversibly turns a girl into a woman, changing her life forever whether she wants it or not. As a consequence, the life of an average man is characterized by the excessive indulgence of imagination, while that of a woman is ruled by the uncompromising forces of reality. 1151. In a relationship one can do all the right things and still be "wrong", "wrong" that is not because of what one does but of who one is, however intangible and ill-defined it may be. On the other hand, if one is "right", there are seemingly no limits to the wrongs one can inflict on one's partner, for it will always be treated as the accidents of circumstances rather than the essentials of one's nature and character. 1152. The older my wife gets the more attractive she finds me. Naturally, I would like to think it is her expanding wisdom that makes her finally see all those wonderful qualities I always had. Unfortunately, the more realistic interpretation of her changing attitude has very little to do with me but could be much easier explained by the fear all women, as they grow older, live under, the fear of the gradual and irreversible loss of their youthful beauty, which makes them, as the years are passing by, realize more and more clearly that it is much easier to keep a man one already has than to find another one. Thus, paradoxically, the older I get the more my value as a man, at least as far as my wife is concerned, keep increasing. |
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