20071201
the "self-esteem movement"
i have really been hearing a lot lately about the evils of the self-esteem movement (aka mr. rogers/you can be anything you want to be) being the cause of a lot of problems in the world. i saw a special on 60 mintues about how our generation was lazy and we felt entitled...which i guess i dont really disagree with...but apparently it is mr. rogers and our parents fault for telling us we are special and we can grow up to be anything we want to be. recently i have been reading about the case of the 14 yrold who killed herself because of an online prank by a parent of another girl at school, as well as a texas mother who tried to pay someone to kill the head cheerleader to advance her daughter.....these also seem to the fault of the self-esteem movement. i dont really think i agree with the self-esteem movement...too many flowers and crap and not enough laser-robots or something...plus it really starts to break down when you realize that it is complete bullcrap....but i dont really feel like its a total piece of crap, and i still really like mr. rogers, even more now that i live in his "neighborhood".....and i think its bad to blame him..but i guess if you have kids make sure they dont feel special.....tell them they are going to grow up to be hobos unless they shape up or something like that. tell them they are anything but special....and i guess the trick is to really believe it to....so maybe beat them a bit for good measure.....or at least make them sleep outside. it seems like good parenting is a mixture between nurturing and abuse....i dont think our generation was abused enough as kids.
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I propose starting the "bowel movement" in reaction to all this self-esteem noise! Who's with me?
i know i recommended it elsewhere on this blog, months ago, but allow me to once again suggest that everyone watch adam curtis's 'century of the self' and 'the trap', both multipart quasi-documentaries on the development of the contemporary notion of "the self".
late capitalist society is built entirely around gratifying the self, as immediately as possible. ones highest duty is to fulfill ones selfish desires.
overindulgent parents and self-help movements are a symptom of this problem, and not the cause.
k-punk has a recent informative post related to this topic:
http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/009893.html
it seems to me like a lot of this has to do with the fact that we are well beyond reproducing to ensure the survival of our species, and even more specifically our genetic line....so as of now, or even better, hundreds of years ago, we no longer really need to reproduce...which leads to the always good readings of VHMET and the even more fun Church of Euthanasia.....but it seems like the planet is so flooded with humans....so many similar humans...that we need to have ourselves, or even more adamantly, our childen, stand out from the pack....there is no need for an "alpha male" in terms of the scientific definition of it....but everybody seeks that position....male or female....everybody looks to stand out from the pack. the annoying thing is that people think that having a butt-ton of friends or being head of the cheerleading squad, or being a successful anything makes them stand out. and maybe with the easy accessability of media these days we are forming larger and larger packs. i guess the problem lies with considering yourself part of a pack that you have to stand out in.....i mean....everybody has thier packs...but maybe in some packs its okay to just be part of the pack and tear your way through a freshly killed carcass...maybe this is where the laser-robots fit in. the other points are that i dont think there has ever been a documented case of a wolf killing a human being....and there there is at least one sweet/disturbing video on the church of euthansia webpage.
by "bowel movement" do you suggest getting all the crap out? or did you just really have to go....you know...............to the bathroom.
Just drafted a Bowel Movement declaration, only to disappear -- down the cyber-drain -- on this here comment form. PISSED!
dude...that blows. are you going to recreate?
Hey fools.
1. I think Mr. Rogers was for kids who maybe didn't have good parenting in their life. It may have over-egoed some kinds who were doing well, and that's interesting, but I think you are nuts for opposing a dude who tells kids to feel good about themselves. Plus, if you look at the recent Mr. Rogers post on Synecretic Stupidstomp, you can see he is singing a song about channelling anger, about feelin comfortable being angry. It's fucking amazing. Better than Mayhem.
2. I don't think that parents need to abuse kids in order for them to experience terrible situations. The world should be enough for that. I do think that parents should encourage their children to go out in the world and do something, treat them like fully functional humans at all stages of their lives, and that the world shouldn't be modelled on a kid-safe room.
3. You say there are too many people in the world, and then you complain that too many kids are offing themselves. I would urge kids to make judicious decisions on this as-yet irriversable lifechoice, but I'll be fucked if I ever forget what I told myself to remember when I was in Junior high school; at 13 you are in many ways a lot smarter than most adults (albeit a lot stupider in a lot of ways). But you are a full person who is capable of making important decisions. 18 is such a joke.
4. TCD - I totally posted those videos months ago. Well worth watching.
I read that article about the girl's mother who pretended to be a cute boy with a crush on her daughters friend. Tragic and disturbing. I loved Mr. Rogers, but mostly because of the trains and models and puppets. And that's how they get you. All of those kids programs were/are very hypnotic. I agree that at 13 you are in many ways smarter -- and I would say that kids should probably be allowed to vote for president, etc.
Shawn's right -- those videos are incredible and must be watched. And yes, Farley posted them too. In fact, I think those videos have been posted several times and yet somehow there has never been a discussion about them.
Not only do I think kids should vote, I also think that kids might be better at seeing through politics. Maybe it's because they have daily encounters with bullies and social posturing that kids can actually make better judgements about a persons true qualities without being stunned by a particular color tie or manor of speaking. I'm not really joking about this -- obviously a really young kid might be taken by something peculiar about a candidate and vote because of that -- but I'm pretty sure a 13 year old can grasp the issues that are important to them .
i think the more interesting thing was the spot i saw on 60 minutes....which i dont really know how to re-produce here.....but it was basically about how all these comanies...like big companies...non-software companies mainly i think....are hiring specialists to help train our generation in the workplace because we are lazy and self-entitled. this was the first time i ever heard mr. rogers blamed for making our generation lazy....or i guess blamed for anything bad at all....but it was really....uh....gross. i was watching it thinking about how our generation is the one who is going to have to deal with global warming and global terrorism and all the things we have inherited from previous generations....i mean....its not like we dropped an atomic bomb on somebody....i think we should all get together and figure out how to deal with the OLD PEOPLE...then put our own special on 60 minutes and see how they like it.
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