I, for the most part, don't pay much attention to the news unless something in particular grabs me, like the earthquake recently in Nepal or the ruling on gay marriage. Otherwise, I just sort of skim. I feel like most of the news is skewed toward grabbing eyeballs and you can't count on getting the full story about anything. At the same time, searching for the whole story on your own is too much work. That's not the healthiest attitude to have. I agree. I would probably feel differently if I were a minority and my rights and the rights of my children were on the line. I'm trying to have a complex thought right now :) Bear with me.
I was reading about the debate over banning the confederate flag. I wonder if it's not a distraction. I wonder if the real question isn't How do you stop someone who's mentally ill from killing people? Is it even possible? If you read his history, it was a road he went down, it was a point he reached. There were some signs, but it took some time for them to develop. I don't know. I don't think there's much you can do. Maybe what happens is this guy spends the rest of his life in prison, and the mental illness stops there because he doesn't go on to infect anybody else. And how do you stop racism? Is it even possible? And how different is it from mental illness? Maybe each new generation that doesn't grow up around racist people won't be racist. I'm not sure you can do much more than that. I'm not sure that banning symbols and words changes anything. I think the people who want to do it probably have good intentions. I think they're trying to close a chapter from the past they see as evil and hurtful, and that makes sense. But I think it makes certain symbols taboo, which then gives them power. If anybody can help me understand the issue clearer, I open to learn.
With this and the gay marriage issue, I think it's interesting how generations of young people everywhere take steps to move further and further away from the past. I think it's somehow in our nature to look at previous generations and think How could they? I'm not sure how different we are from the generations that came before. I'm not a brain scientist, but I think we've just been born into a different time and have different issues. I think it's important to remember what normal average people are capable of though. I wonder if there are things that we do today that young people will look back on in the future and think, how could they? I suppose there will be. But it's in us to think those people are not us, whoever they are. Even when they are us, just at a different point in space and time. Weird.
I was reading about the debate over banning the confederate flag. I wonder if it's not a distraction. I wonder if the real question isn't How do you stop someone who's mentally ill from killing people? Is it even possible? If you read his history, it was a road he went down, it was a point he reached. There were some signs, but it took some time for them to develop. I don't know. I don't think there's much you can do. Maybe what happens is this guy spends the rest of his life in prison, and the mental illness stops there because he doesn't go on to infect anybody else. And how do you stop racism? Is it even possible? And how different is it from mental illness? Maybe each new generation that doesn't grow up around racist people won't be racist. I'm not sure you can do much more than that. I'm not sure that banning symbols and words changes anything. I think the people who want to do it probably have good intentions. I think they're trying to close a chapter from the past they see as evil and hurtful, and that makes sense. But I think it makes certain symbols taboo, which then gives them power. If anybody can help me understand the issue clearer, I open to learn.
With this and the gay marriage issue, I think it's interesting how generations of young people everywhere take steps to move further and further away from the past. I think it's somehow in our nature to look at previous generations and think How could they? I'm not sure how different we are from the generations that came before. I'm not a brain scientist, but I think we've just been born into a different time and have different issues. I think it's important to remember what normal average people are capable of though. I wonder if there are things that we do today that young people will look back on in the future and think, how could they? I suppose there will be. But it's in us to think those people are not us, whoever they are. Even when they are us, just at a different point in space and time. Weird.
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