One of the most important things I've learned...

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

You know, as kids, we were taught by our parents and teachers how to be kind, compassionate, civil, etc; but this goodie-two-shoes inculcation, actually, has set many of us up for failure. No matter how much people try to paint humanity and the world out to be good, moral, peaceful, and so on — no matter how much parents and teachers try to raise individuals to be ’ good ', true human nature always manages to reign supreme. Humans are not ’ nice ’ and the world is no heavenly nirvana; people and the world are cruel and brutal. It’s always been that way and always shall.

When you raise your child up to be compassionate, considerate, kind, humble, etc, as prior mentioned, you are just setting that individual up for failure; he or she will be stepped on by others, nay, by most! It’s a dog-eat-dog world - people are struggling to survive, and people, in general, are simply not ’ nice '. Instead of raising your kid to be a pushover and a weakling, the truly ’ moral ’ thing to do ( if such a thing exists ) is to teach your kid how to be assertive, how to defend himself, how to be a little warrior in a cosmic gladiator arena.

Now, I’m not saying that one ought to turn into a monster, far from it! What I’m trying to say is that the world is not a nice place - most people take kindness as weakness, and they will take advantage of that. If people want to thrive in this world, they need to adopt a more realistic mentality, not this hyper-feminine bullshit about ’ humanity ', peace, etc.

So yeah, the most important thing I’ve learned:

" If a man smite thee on one cheek, smash him down! ".

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

[The_Artful_Pauper]

I mainly agree with you, I think this is important and our ideas about sheltering children should change. I also think parents should have a more active concern with educating their children, and I don’t just mean taking them to the park and pointing things out and describing what they’re for… Children should be taught a legacy, of their own family, of history, of the history of ideas, and also be taught how to engage with ideas — these things are missing from most public educations (I say this with reservation because it might not be the case universally, but I do mean public and not private (paid) education).

@Erik_

" If a man smite thee on one cheek, smash him down! ".

I understand you mean this as something like a corrective to the current outlook, but I would personally go for a more nuanced learning style rather than imparting maxims of this nature. These I can agree with much more readily and they lend themselves to the nuances I see in the world:

@Erik_

If people want to thrive in this world, they need to adopt a more realistic mentality,

@Erik_

teach your kid how to be assertive, how to defend himself

I see education as one of the most important human activities — not the most, but at least as one of the fundamental gateways to any worthwhile activity.

Not only should we be more concerned about educating our children, we should be concerned with educating ourselves and each other. I think our culture would be significantly improved if instead of getting together to play videogames or watch youtube clips we got together to share knowledge — take as an example the renaissance, that was a culture that truly cared about ideas and using culture for the expression of humanity’s highest qualities.

And they weren’t pushovers — check out the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, these were people who would duel in the streets both for honour and defense.

[statiktech]

When you raise your child up to be compassionate, considerate, kind, humble, etc, as prior mentioned, you are just setting that individual up for failure; he or she will be stepped on by others, nay, by most! It’s a dog-eat-dog world - people are struggling to survive, and people, in general, are simply not ’ nice '. Instead of raising your kid to be a pushover and a weakling, the truly ’ moral ’ thing to do ( if such a thing exists ) is to teach your kid how to be assertive, how to defend himself, how to be a little warrior in a cosmic gladiator arena.

You’re equivocating and setting up a false dichotomy. Why couldn’t a person have all of those qualities? Why does being kind and compassionate necessarily make you a pushover?

[The_Artful_Pauper]

@statiktech

When you raise your child up to be compassionate, considerate, kind, humble, etc, as prior mentioned, you are just setting that individual up for failure; he or she will be stepped on by others, nay, by most! It’s a dog-eat-dog world - people are struggling to survive, and people, in general, are simply not ’ nice '. Instead of raising your kid to be a pushover and a weakling, the truly ’ moral ’ thing to do ( if such a thing exists ) is to teach your kid how to be assertive, how to defend himself, how to be a little warrior in a cosmic gladiator arena.

You’re equivocating and setting up a false dichotomy. Why couldn’t a person have all of those qualities? Why does being kind and compassionate necessarily make you a pushover?

I think that’s a good point too. I do think the teaching of kindness and compassion is altogether the stronger one in society and especially given to children. So going the complete opposite way is probably a reaction from forming a false impression of the world and overcompensating in that direction.

I think a lot of our moral behaviour originated from interacting with closer kin groups that shared our sentiments, so there is also truth to saying that being “compassionate, considerate, kind” might land you in the shitter if you think that you should always act this way around people who care nothing for you, and I think that is particularly true of these times when most of our relationships are artificial and formed by institutions, rather than shared interests.

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

Artful Pauper wrote:

[size=150]I see education as one of the most important human activities — not the most, but at least as one of the fundamental gateways to any worthwhile activity.[/size]

Not only should we be more concerned about educating our children, we should be concerned with educating ourselves and each other. I think our culture would be significantly improved if instead of getting together to play videogames or watch youtube clips we got together to share knowledge — take as an example the renaissance, that was a culture that truly cared about ideas and using culture for the expression of humanity’s highest qualities.

And they weren’t pushovers — check out the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, these were people who would duel in the streets both for honour and defense.

I one-hundred percent agree with you, Pauper. Education, self-education ( autodidactism ) is like a spirituality for me; the more knowledge I obtain - the more educated I become, the more I feel like I’m entering different levels of existence, higher levels of existence. Most people abhor education – I used to be that way too, but I was very benighted. I’ve only been seriously educating myself for about 2 years ( I’m 23 years old ), but I’m still in my prime and have plenty of years to acquire even more knowledge. I don’t ever foresee myself regressing to my former hedonistic and petty lifestyle — the path to knowledge is too beautiful and far superior than the unexamined life.

More to the point: I agree with you on proper education being a very important thing to teach one’s kids, but I would simply combine it with lessons in self-assertiveness.

---

StatikTeck wrote:

You’re equivocating and setting up a false dichotomy. Why couldn’t a person have all of those qualities? Why does being kind and compassionate necessarily make you a pushover?

Equivocating? I thought that I came off a bit abrasive and blunt, if anything. Being kind doesn’t necessarily make you weak, not in my opinion, anyways; but to many people, it is a form of weakness, esp. in this dog-eat-dog world. When one is too kind and too patient, they become a pushover, and that’s how many parents and teachers raise their kids to be, unfortunately.

I’m not trying to say that kindness is an inherent weakness; I just feel it should be used in moderation and appropriately, as well as being balanced out by self-assertiveness.

[Ierrellus]

“Hyper feminine bullshit”? Really?

[Artimas]

You can be kind and nice. But also stubborn… Stubbornness is not push over.

This is why I remain neutral. I don’t even see that there is a “good” or “evil” anyways. Not in a literal sense…

Someone hits me i’ll more than likely hit them back, depending on type of hit. I can be nice or I can be a dick.

Used to hate education? The school kind? That isn’t education, that’s memorization.

[The_Artful_Pauper]

@Erik_

More to the point: I agree with you on proper education being a very important thing to teach one’s kids, but I would simply combine it with lessons in self-assertiveness.

I agree with you about assertiveness. On top of that, I would also teach self-determination and for people to look at their energy and deeds as the stuff that makes up history and forms the world — that one’s effort should be given to creating the state in the world one is after, not selling our energy for money and devoting it to a cause which is not our own, and is sometimes against our own.

I would also teach to find individuals who are dedicated to deep thought, to improving their physical person and their readiness to act with determination.

[Artimas]

@Erik_

Murmillo?

[James_S_Saint]

During the dark days of change, you only hear about the times when people have been cruel and in conflict and you are encouraged to be that way yourself. In light days of harmony, you only hear about the times when people discovered how well harmony works and what they were willing to do to achieve it and you are encouraged to do the same.

The world and humanity seems so competitive only because such has been promoted into reality starting shortly before you were born. In the long run that reverses and finally stabilizes as a vision comprised of how humanity kept seeing their flaws and correcting for them to achieve the final eternal state of well being and joyous life.

You were born into a silent war, never even whispered to you.
But eventually the war ends.

[Amorphos]

2op
There is ‘entropy’ in the world, and there is harmony, there is both.

Why create a world which only has entropy, especially when we can try to be better, and in trying, majoritively succeed.

I think we should accept that we are not angels and that the world isn’t a godly paradise, that indeed to be succinct ‘duality is the engine of creation’, equally that it can be better by constructing it that way. The world is less violent and brutal than only a century ago, why would anyone >want< it to get worse and not better, when it is up to us how we build the house?

_