all names in this and every other post on this site, are not the real names of any person in the incident.
If we are making mistakes about how we categorise people, does it matter?
Well, maybe we could adopt other values that might lead to different paths. At present we are locked into some fractal Mandelbrot set that is neither advancing us nor getting us what we want. We need to change the equations.
I thought it wrong that Glen was sent to Iraq, because he is the sole parent of a 7 year old child.
Equivalence sent him there, because equivalence looks at the adults, not the child.
More contraversially, I was shocked that Anna, a police officer and mother of 4 under 8 years old, was sent out at 3.30 am into malicious, demonic seas erupting out of the icy antarctic rampage to attempt rescue of some in that particularly deadly annual Sydney-Hobart yacht race. She received a bravery award for this.
Her husband, also a police officer, could have been sent, but wasn't. ...but, that's equivalence, isn't it? Anna certainly wouldn't object, but I would. If her children had been 10 years older, I would have a different point of view.
But our regulations have no time for these or any other subtleties.
Once I knew a man who had worked in logging camps in Canada in the 1920s. He said that when a log jam occurred, a very dangerous condition, the cry went out for all single or childless men to get to safety, before the situation was tackled.
The uncalled for gallantry of this appeals to me: but, it also reinforces my suggestion that the divisions within society that we have set up and endorsed are arbitrary, and perhaps do not reflect our basic values.
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3 comments:
The thing that I think you have omitted here, which I found very important when you told me, was why the single or childless men were the ones not sent out, when married men and fathers were put in danger, which seemed quite wrong to me, but you explained at the time (the way I understood it at least), that it was because there was a feeling that the young single men had not had a chance to live their life yet. I found this to be a really powerful statement of the values of the society at the time.
quoted text...." At present we are locked into some fractal Mandelbrot set that is neither advancing us nor getting us what we want. We need to change the equations."
- but the issues are getting magnified to the point that it is becoming increasing uncomfortable to continue ignoring, without resolving - without changing the equation.
reflection on iraq? or reflection on personal lives? how does this relate to your life author? that's rhetorical btw....
You are too cryptic, Anonymous. I would like you to expand upon the ideas in each of paragraphs 2 and 3, because I am simply not in sync with your line of thought.
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