Kiddie Lit
Sorry, busy, I just can't make observations on things. I should follow David Allen's advice and have everything organized and know precisely what my next action will be and do it or delegate it according to his admittedly quite rational system but somehow I look at my teetering stack of responsibilities and obligations and I just want to tiptoe past it and quietly close the door behind me. In fact, I'm stealing an hour or two here and there to read. I picked up a copy of Watership Down for a buck somewhere and read that. It didn't knock me out: competent writing, certainly well imagined, but somehow an epic tale of the search for a place to live in peace and freedom doesn't work for me if it's about rabbits. The bad guys are this warren full of fascist rabbits (I'm not kidding) and the nice rabbits have to devise a way to beat them. Once the crazy leader is out of the picture, though, the other fascist rabbits decide they don't like war and fighting after all. In the end, it comes down to how the nice people could live peacefully if the few meanie instigators could be rendered influenceless.
This has always struck me as a little naive. Michael Shermer explains it as well as anyone: He says there are two conflicting strains in human nature, that came about because they were adaptive in our early development. One is altruism: We do nice things for other people. All well and good, but it's not there because deep down we're basically nice. It developed as an adaptive behavior because it helped the little bands of cave people survive. The other strain is reflexive suspicion of outsiders. That group of four men who just came over the hill? Probably a raiding party come to kill us and take our stuff. Better kill them first. So it isn't just misguided warmongering leaders who cause wars, it isn't just rich white capitalists seeking to keep markets open or whatever: It's us. We're suspicious of and hostile toward The Other, and will be for a long time. It's become maladaptive in the modern world, but it's bred deep in the bone and the best thing to do is recognize that and try to work around it.
The next thing I want to read is Rascal. This one I read when I was a kid. It's about a kid growing up in Wisconsin a hundred years ago who has a pet raccoon. I remember it as fascinating and funny and sad, and very enjoyable, so I'm going to give it another whirl. The two books are different: The one describes the world as the author wishes it were, and the other as it really is—fascinating and funny and sad. And hopeful, too. There's more going on in literature aimed at young people than you might suspect. And now I'm going to take a deep breath, grab that doorknob, and go back into the room where the responsibilities are. See you soon.
This has always struck me as a little naive. Michael Shermer explains it as well as anyone: He says there are two conflicting strains in human nature, that came about because they were adaptive in our early development. One is altruism: We do nice things for other people. All well and good, but it's not there because deep down we're basically nice. It developed as an adaptive behavior because it helped the little bands of cave people survive. The other strain is reflexive suspicion of outsiders. That group of four men who just came over the hill? Probably a raiding party come to kill us and take our stuff. Better kill them first. So it isn't just misguided warmongering leaders who cause wars, it isn't just rich white capitalists seeking to keep markets open or whatever: It's us. We're suspicious of and hostile toward The Other, and will be for a long time. It's become maladaptive in the modern world, but it's bred deep in the bone and the best thing to do is recognize that and try to work around it.
The next thing I want to read is Rascal. This one I read when I was a kid. It's about a kid growing up in Wisconsin a hundred years ago who has a pet raccoon. I remember it as fascinating and funny and sad, and very enjoyable, so I'm going to give it another whirl. The two books are different: The one describes the world as the author wishes it were, and the other as it really is—fascinating and funny and sad. And hopeful, too. There's more going on in literature aimed at young people than you might suspect. And now I'm going to take a deep breath, grab that doorknob, and go back into the room where the responsibilities are. See you soon.
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