Quote of the day
From "Pretty In Pink"
"I don't know. Part of me says
just go to prom and get it over with,
and this other part says it's a stupid
tradition and what's the point?"
"Well, you know...
You could say that life itself
is a stupid tradition."
Is life a stupid tradition?
We are all subject to social norms..and norms are well, tradition.
I mean, girls are expected to wear skirts..
guys are supposed to be macho..
then this new age sensitive guy image comes in and now guys who are tough are called pretentious!!
and when girls act all gentle and nice and becomes a housewife and a good mother, we call them conforming to the society
but honestly,
y care?
"life is just a fucking beauty contest one after the other,
so just do what you like most, and fuck everything else."
quote from
> Little Miss Sunshine
the problem is, for most people,
we want to be well-regarded.
We like to be well-regarded.
After all, humans are social animals.
We are not lions, or cheetahs who can live and hunt all by itself..
We are humans who are afraid of loneliness.
But then they say God gave us free will..
so maybe we can train our mind to forgo loneliness, isolation, pain, to suffering, the fear of death..if we can do that, do we still count as human?
I wonder, if u put a newborn child in an empty room for many years, what do you think will happen?
"I don't know. Part of me says
just go to prom and get it over with,
and this other part says it's a stupid
tradition and what's the point?"
"Well, you know...
You could say that life itself
is a stupid tradition."
Is life a stupid tradition?
We are all subject to social norms..and norms are well, tradition.
I mean, girls are expected to wear skirts..
guys are supposed to be macho..
then this new age sensitive guy image comes in and now guys who are tough are called pretentious!!
and when girls act all gentle and nice and becomes a housewife and a good mother, we call them conforming to the society
but honestly,
y care?
"life is just a fucking beauty contest one after the other,
so just do what you like most, and fuck everything else."
quote from
> Little Miss Sunshinethe problem is, for most people,
we want to be well-regarded.
We like to be well-regarded.
After all, humans are social animals.
We are not lions, or cheetahs who can live and hunt all by itself..
We are humans who are afraid of loneliness.
But then they say God gave us free will..
so maybe we can train our mind to forgo loneliness, isolation, pain, to suffering, the fear of death..if we can do that, do we still count as human?
I wonder, if u put a newborn child in an empty room for many years, what do you think will happen?
posted by Li Hong at 11:56 AM
7 Comments:
Okay Bravo Li hong. You brought up certain interesting points.
Yes, I agree that we are all subjected to social norms. Humans are social animals yes. Social animals have traditions, and mind you traditions, some of it, are not stupid. They have functional purposes. Why are guys expected to be macho? Because since the beginning, men are created to be stronger than ladies to protect the family from wild beasts... men were hunters...
Girls are "expected" to wear skirts? I don't think so expect for formal occasions. Why then? Who invented the skirt? It was Mary Quant who was dissatisfied with the variety of clothes available to her
in 1955. It's just like any invention, the light, the telephone. People demand for it and it became popularized. So hundreds of years probably this skirt culture made ladies looked more feminine and hence more favourable to the society (why should lady look feminine? I would argue that humans are wired in a way to perceive that way).
I guess the sensitive guy image comes in this new age because of the "equality between gender" slogan where girls should be treated with sensitivity and not ask house maids. Wake up Li Hong. You are at an age where ladies are powerful.
"Y care?" you say? You must care in order to survive. In your culture, in your society. We are social animals. As long as it is reasonable and does not contradict with any moral values, as part of a tradition, you have your identity to preserve.
You can run around naked. Why care? Animals do that. But the human culture regards that as obscenity. You have to conform with it. "Why?" you ask. Because you live in a society.
God give us free will to make choices. We are not free to change what is created. Humans are created and wired as social animals, and we have our characteristics. Loneliness, fear of death, they are wired into our lives as part of being human. Of course there are exceptional cases where some people can psycho themselves but generally, people just can't. I can also argue, "God give us free will. We should then be able to train our hands to grow another finger out".
If you put a child in an empty room for years, well, he will have some knowledge of his surroundings and his existence sooner or later. Humans are born with INNATE IDEAS, such as the ability to count, recognize shapes, ability to learn and think. These are not garnered through empirical experiences obtained from the external world. Without the external world, some knowledge can still be obtained, as argued by rationalists.
This comment has been removed by the author.
"Skirts had been getting shorter since about 1958 – a development Mary Quant considered to be practical and liberating, allowing women the ability to run for a bus." lol. so how this was how miniskirts came about, because it was more practical than a long skirt...=p
well anyway, just to let you know, Mary Quant one of the many designers who took credit for inventing the miniskirt(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Quant)
skirts have been worn since a long long long long long time ago... CHECK YOUR FACTS BE4 YOU WRITE THEM. IF YOU ARE NOT SURE, ADD QUALIFIERS, OR DON'T WRITE THEM AS FACTS..STOP YOUR YIWEI-NESS!!!!
well i agree, social norms will remain, but it doesn't mean you need to conform with them, and it doesn't mean that if you conform with traditional values when the popular culture advocates individualism them you are a
conforming person who doesn't have a mind of his own..
i think u'll agree with me on that
i think if u believe that some norms are clearly a waste of time, don't do it! Don't do something just because of tradition or just because everyone else is doing it. Think. Unless not doing something invoke others' rights..then thats a different matter all together.
i think u'll agree with me on this too!! =p
Yeah. We have free will to make choices, thus we should use it wisely, and not follow what ppl do blindly..though i find following ppl blindly is sometimes a wise move.. =p save the effort of thinking..
btw that part about growing fingers is just WRONG..YOu said:"Of course there are exceptional cases where some people can psycho themselves" but there are no cases where ppl psycho themselves to grow a new finger..these exceptional cases ility, prove we have the ability, the free will, if you will, to condition and alter our mind, just like u can condition yourself to tolerate pain more..
of course, the statement "there are exceptional cases where some people can psycho themselves" could be false...then your analogy would be more suitable..
agree??
Firstly, I admit I didn't do much research while replying your points because I didn't expect you to treat it so seriously as your questions are random and lack coherency. It's just a sketch of some random thought. You think I always Yi-Wei if it comes to real writing huh? I don't quote here because it's just a casual conversation.
Okay, I admit that my "facts" are flawed because I just quote it from some people who has made references to wikipedia alrady so I gave them the benefit of doubt. BUt the point remains - skirt became popularized after invention because it makes ladies look more feminine and more acceptable to the society.
I really didn't expect you to take so much of a fuss with the growing finger and psychoing thing. The reason I put "Of course there are exceptional cases where some people can psycho themselves but generally, people just can't" is just as a response to the fact that some people can psycho to be not lonely and not to be afraid of death. I'm trying not to make a generalization. And it's not false, there are cases where JIHAD people are not afraid of death.
The fact about growing finger, I'm just trying to draw an analogy that there ARE certain characteristics that makes HUMANS HUMANS that we can't change no matter how we psycho ourselves. Such as living as a society as social animals. See how Will Smith goes almost crazy when he's the only person left in the world for 3 years.
There're always a lot of aspects of social norms. Your references to some might not go in parallel to mine and hence of course, there are some social norms that we should conform and should NOT conform e.g. it is a culture for race X to sacrifice a person every year for ritual purposes. No point arguing "should" and "should not" conform without making any specific references.
Yes you're right. PAragraph 3 ,4 ,5 has no problem for me because they are just general 'moral' statements that all of us have heard about since young and through the media.
try to get the main argument instead of making a fuss over trivial matters. It distracts you away and wastes energy.
I'm just saying, if it's just a casual response, don't put facts in it, if you do, get it right. I mean, though its a casual conversation, you can't just Yi Wei. there are consequences you know. the thing is. u always sound sure when your facts are wrong. I dunno if you genuinely think you are right or u just berpura-pura act you know..either way, they are going to have consequences..
u say "there ARE certain characteristics that makes HUMANS HUMANS that we can't change no matter how we psycho ourselves"
the problem is, things like fear of loneliness, fear of death, the fear of not being accepted into the society, we CAN psycho ourselves..
thats wat i'm saying here..
but yeah, you're right. para 3,4 and 5 are just basically summing up the arguments..and yeah, you are right that normal ppl like us will just have to accept our need to be accepted just like we have to accept that we only have 5 fingers. NO arguments there.
Okay. I have to admit that sometimes I do take my facts for granted and said it with certainty although the statements might be dubitable. Sorry. Thanks for pointing me out cos i think that's one thing that i need to change.
No. There is one thing that I can argue that WE cannot change no matter how we psycho ourselves, which is the need to live in a society and conform to it (at least to a certain extent!). I have said before, for example, Will Smith in I am Legend, he suffered being alone. Social animals ARE programmed to live in a group, if not, they would suffer consequences. That is one thing that no matter how hard we psycho ourselves, we still cannot change the inherent characteristic of a HUMAN, to be in a SOCIETY.
I don't think were born with the innate ability to count. Hmm, to bring it to the extreme, humans werent born with numbers in their heads. They created it and passed it on.
Hmm, I'm guessing lihong's ending statement in his post is rather intriguing because such a case has never been carried out before. If what you say were true and lihong managed to carry out his 'experiment' then what would be of the child? Would he die due to a lack of society or would he just grow up believing he does not need a society?
I'll think he would just grow up dumb.
p.s. haha I never realised there was such a section till I saw lihong's tag =X o.ops
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