learnteach (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
learnteach) wrote2006-02-02 11:37 am
learnteach) wrote2006-02-02 11:37 am
Unreasonable
It seems to me that in many relationships, that being unreasonable wins and is a good strategy, mathematically speaking.
This comes to me after reading about the threats to all westerners by gun carrying men in the Gaza, who claim that they are insulted because a few European papers printed a charicature of their religous figure. Now it's all over the news, and they're rioting in the streets.
In the matters of the various political moves in America, it seems unreasonable to me to use the rules to get your way--but that's the way the game is now playes.
Reasonable...what does it mean? It means to do the expected thing, the polite thing, the thing you're told to do as a child. Not to throw bottles onto the roller derby arena. Not to scream at people to get your way, or to treat them as your lessors.
But it's a tactic that works, because those who avoid challenge will think thrice before going up against your unreasonable position. And those who think of a chivalrous response--my definition of chivalry being that you respond at the appropriate level to the insult--are horrified.
Armed gunmen in the street being threatening? Arrest them with force and jail them. But they lose nothing (because they have nothing, but their lives, a community that is willing to expend them, and a gun. Also...the knowledge that they will gain respect. And what else?
In my personal life, being reasonable makes me easier to get along with. But not, I think, as much fun, nor as true to myself.
This week, I will be less reasonable.
This comes to me after reading about the threats to all westerners by gun carrying men in the Gaza, who claim that they are insulted because a few European papers printed a charicature of their religous figure. Now it's all over the news, and they're rioting in the streets.
In the matters of the various political moves in America, it seems unreasonable to me to use the rules to get your way--but that's the way the game is now playes.
Reasonable...what does it mean? It means to do the expected thing, the polite thing, the thing you're told to do as a child. Not to throw bottles onto the roller derby arena. Not to scream at people to get your way, or to treat them as your lessors.
But it's a tactic that works, because those who avoid challenge will think thrice before going up against your unreasonable position. And those who think of a chivalrous response--my definition of chivalry being that you respond at the appropriate level to the insult--are horrified.
Armed gunmen in the street being threatening? Arrest them with force and jail them. But they lose nothing (because they have nothing, but their lives, a community that is willing to expend them, and a gun. Also...the knowledge that they will gain respect. And what else?
In my personal life, being reasonable makes me easier to get along with. But not, I think, as much fun, nor as true to myself.
This week, I will be less reasonable.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2006-02-02 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)But, there was a prime example of bad oblivious behavior that everyone, including me, just put up with on the bus today. A lady with a big back pack that stuck out beyond her physical boundries got on the bus. She stood in the aisle right near the doorway. This was one of those double length buses and there were plenty of seats. She also had an umbrella which stuck accross the part of the aisle that she wasn't taking up. Everyone getting on the bus had to push past her. She was a human turnstile but didn't move farther back in the bus, or sit or anything. Nor did anyone point out to her that she was blocking the aisle so she might want to move back or sit. She didn't get mad at people pushing past her, but she didn't seem to notice that she didn't need to be taking up that particular chunk of space either.
Not only do the wolves get more attention then the sheep, but the sheep will jump over the boulders rather than roll them out of the path.
JIMR