Friday, September 26, 2008
Subconscious Metacognition
I was talking to my best friend yesterday and I told her that I think I'm a naturalist (personality type). When I told her that, her response to it was not what I had expected. It was sort of a "duh!" moment. And after she explained why it might be that I'm a naturalist, I felt like saying "duh!" too. I've always loved nature. Even when I was a kid I used to fantasize of having a home in a scenic place, amid beautiful trees located on a mountain, that would provide a view of rolling hills. Even now when I think of places I'd love to go, they're ALL out in the nature. My idea of a perfect night as I've already described, takes place near a river. When I write things that I love, things like moon, wind, trees, flowers are always the first. I guess it's only natural that I'm a naturalist then. Yet I was surprised when I figured it out. Maybe there are things about us that are apparent to those around us, but we're unaware of them. Taking it one step further, this might be how God works. He knows our past and future, knows what kind of beings we are, our nature, our personality, and thus He makes our lives turn out to be so that they're compatible with us. And I say this because last night I was thinking of something else, and it occurred to me that if a certain negative event had not had taken place in my life 4 years ago, I would've NEVER turned out to be the girl that I am now. I like the girl I am now. So the end does justify the means.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Altruism Gone Wrong
One of the best things about attending a post secondary institution is the opportunity it provides for growth. In certain cases it's good to be knowledgeable about certain facts of life, and in others, ignorance is indeed a bliss. Just last week in one of my seminars I learned about eugenics in Canada. Not that I am a proponent of human kindness or a believer of innate goodness in mankind, the video shown in the class still broke something inside me. All the while we were learning about the horrendous ordeals brought upon certain "inferior" characters by the "superiors", I could not stop myself from forming an anti-parallel connection between this occurence and one of my professors. I had the chance to take a course with him last year, and I learned something quite wonderful about him:
He got married when he was in grad. school, and the woman he got married to was diagnosed with having Epilepsy, and she used to get frequent seizures. Yet he married this "incomplete" person. He took care of her to the point where he knew when her last seizure was, the day and the time, how far apart her attacks were, and so on. He would almost always catch her when a seizure would be coming on before she would hit the ground, and he would put his shirt in her mouth to avoid her injuring her tongue. When a person is in seizure, they are completely unaware of their surroundings and they have sudden and uncontrolled movements, including the chewing of their tongues. This severely damages the tongue and causes a lot of pain following the attack, and the pain lasts for 2, 3 days. He knew that if he didn't pull out his hand out of her mouth in time, she would definitely chew on his fingers, but he always took the risk of protecting her from pain, even at the cost of his own fingers. What touched me the most about this incident was one deficient (since no one is perfect) human's willingness to accept another deficient (hers was more obvious) human, and love and care for her genuinely.
When I was watching the video clip about Leilani Muir however, I saw some contrasts between the two incidents. How can a human, imperfect and faulty himself, make life decisions for another human on the grounds of the latter's supposed inability to do so? What can possibly enable a human to think that he should stop a life from coming to this world because the world is for the strong? What role does reason play in deciding on such matters? Life on earth can be traced to millions of years ago, and since then there must have been mutations in the human gene that cause a small minority of the population to have some developmental disabilities. It didn't screw up the world for so many years, what gave the advocates of the Alberta government's Sterilization Act the idea that it will now? The idea of removing "bad genes" from the gene pool comes from Darwin's proposed theory of evolution, but the very theory clearly mentions nature's way of ensuring survival of the fittest -- the "unfit" get eliminated out of the race anyway. So what was the rationale behind the catastrophe that took place in Alberta in the 30's? Doesn't the fact that such moronic law was practiced itself show the unsuitability of the board's genes to be passed on? Isn't it more dangerous to destroy several people's lives (as was done thanks to the act) than to have one person's intellectual life in jeopardy (as was the thought for those labeled as retarded)?
This atrocity is a mocking example of the equality supported by the justice we so proudly call blind.
He got married when he was in grad. school, and the woman he got married to was diagnosed with having Epilepsy, and she used to get frequent seizures. Yet he married this "incomplete" person. He took care of her to the point where he knew when her last seizure was, the day and the time, how far apart her attacks were, and so on. He would almost always catch her when a seizure would be coming on before she would hit the ground, and he would put his shirt in her mouth to avoid her injuring her tongue. When a person is in seizure, they are completely unaware of their surroundings and they have sudden and uncontrolled movements, including the chewing of their tongues. This severely damages the tongue and causes a lot of pain following the attack, and the pain lasts for 2, 3 days. He knew that if he didn't pull out his hand out of her mouth in time, she would definitely chew on his fingers, but he always took the risk of protecting her from pain, even at the cost of his own fingers. What touched me the most about this incident was one deficient (since no one is perfect) human's willingness to accept another deficient (hers was more obvious) human, and love and care for her genuinely.
When I was watching the video clip about Leilani Muir however, I saw some contrasts between the two incidents. How can a human, imperfect and faulty himself, make life decisions for another human on the grounds of the latter's supposed inability to do so? What can possibly enable a human to think that he should stop a life from coming to this world because the world is for the strong? What role does reason play in deciding on such matters? Life on earth can be traced to millions of years ago, and since then there must have been mutations in the human gene that cause a small minority of the population to have some developmental disabilities. It didn't screw up the world for so many years, what gave the advocates of the Alberta government's Sterilization Act the idea that it will now? The idea of removing "bad genes" from the gene pool comes from Darwin's proposed theory of evolution, but the very theory clearly mentions nature's way of ensuring survival of the fittest -- the "unfit" get eliminated out of the race anyway. So what was the rationale behind the catastrophe that took place in Alberta in the 30's? Doesn't the fact that such moronic law was practiced itself show the unsuitability of the board's genes to be passed on? Isn't it more dangerous to destroy several people's lives (as was done thanks to the act) than to have one person's intellectual life in jeopardy (as was the thought for those labeled as retarded)?
This atrocity is a mocking example of the equality supported by the justice we so proudly call blind.
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