Conventions

Conventions

August 20, 2022

There's a rotation of archetypes for what image of a man is most admirable for his generation.  And all of them are worthy in their way of representing the best of humankind, so there shouldn't be competition between generations for claims to only universals.  But, I'll spare some words for this guy, who deserves some of late.  Have you felt this presence in our discourse of late - that the most conventional subject of admiration is the man who bucks convention as much as he can?  Someone whose claim to fame is that he is The Man, but, without any support system at all?  The one who wants to bring the whole system down around him, but only for himself, and whoever he wants to offer a share to.  There are many examples if you keep your ear to the ground of the culture these days.  Let's spare some respect for that guy, more than we currently do.  How would we explain that guy to a sixth grader today?  Personally sixth grade is when I for example started to understand social justice.  I started to notice that social relations where not entirely fair, and that they had become calcified.  If one had not talked to certain "cool" and/or pretty people before, it had somewhere down the line become not allowed.  This is not a shot at my sixth grade, in particular, just a factual observation.  But there are many milestones like this in the development of what we call human nature.  And if I can make this observation as objectively as possible, the calcification of social relations is when everyone's bitterness sets in.  And for myself, I notice that several strains of this bitterness can become very delicious.  And I have to say, one of these bitternesses that are found best, is that those who don't listen and learn will be browbeaten into submission.  And I'm not sorry for those people; I wish them pain and suffering.  Human nature is not all pretty, but the bitterness that the decay of utopia leaves behind makes the strife that follows beautiful.  And I would say that what makes it beautiful is that when you let the suffering in but tear down its causes anyway, you find friendship among those who also suffer, but not without resistance to it.