April 14th, 2010

So I was having a conversation on a forum the other day with some friends. Friend One said:

Einstein said, 'The only real valuable thing is intuition.' ... Intuitive people, people such as ourselves, would do extremely well in a future society.

I replied:

Agreed, with a wee proviso (and speaking strictly personally here): My intuition has led me to amazing realisations that seemingly have no logical link between them but are astonishingly true nonetheless, and some of the stupidest thoughts to ever coarse through my synapses ... at a ratio of about 1 piece of brilliance for every 10 moronic pieces of intellectual detritus.

He came back with:

Logic and reason are overrated. In the 'Star Trek' series, Spock was a character that was supposed to exemplify reason and logic ... [but] ... Captain Kirk would get Spock's opinion, and then make his decision based on his best guess. That's intuition.

At this point, Friend Two, hitherto uncharacteristically quiet, chimed in:

I like the Star Trek 'The Original Series' analogy, though I haven't seen many of those episodes myself :) However, I am a HUGE 'Next Generation' fan! Go Capt.Picard!

And I said:

Picard was all right--especially for the time in Starfleet that he served. Things were more stately and mature by then. But there's a timeless appeal to Kirk firing phasers and asking questions second, bedding anything that couldn't slither away from him fast enough, all the time a grease-covered Scotty swearing down in engineering with a spanner in one hand. The occasional karate chop to Spock's neck ... And I *personally* identify with the decidedly non-cowboy grumpiness of Bones. Yup, I liked TNG plenty good fine, but it was TOS that was--and still is--my first love.

Then our love-in was interrupted by this little piece of blown human excrement from someone not previously part of any of our conversations:

Star Drek is for kiddies, either physically or mentally. Whilst a general sci-fi "door opener" for the unwashed - who had never heard of Philip Dick, & probably still haven't - it has all the depth of a pair of baby blue bunny slippers.

Holy snapping arseholes, Batman! Did that ever kill the conversational buzz in a hurry! We had something good going, and some jerk-off shat all over it. Well, there was some back-and-forth banter for a while, and eventually the subject moved on, but not without this post-mortem (from me):

It's only taken about two posts to show he's a troll, and a couple more to outstay his welcome. But there is value in this: I must remember to continue teaching my daughter the ability to distinguish between good and bad attention.

And, you know, I think that is the key. It got me thinking about something my friend Rena said in her blog:

There are many people on this planet who just like to argue with you or take every opportunity to disagree with you or just point out the tiniest, little correction in every statement that you make ... for them, this is how they carry on social interactions with other human beings because they don't know any better.

Totally. And, I mean, how do these arguers get that way?

If you start to ignore children—stop making eye contact, stop acknowledging their existence, not talking to them, not taking the things from them that they offer, and instead stare at your TV, computer screen, book, other people, or just at the walls, you are denying children any feedback that they exist. That acknowledgement is like nutrition for little minds; they need to hear the echos of themselves bouncing off adults as a way of growing and developing. Think of it as this analogy: The best way to derive the shape of your own mind is by the pattern reflected back to you from the sonar waves you send out against others.

But if you ignore children, their need doesn't go away ... they have to start identifying other ways to turn your gaze onto them, and the so-called "bad attention" is the only way they can do it. So they break things, they punch you or other kids, they say nasty or outrageous statements in order for you to pay attention to them, they cry and throw tantrums ... they argue with you. You can, of course, get angry, or try harder to ignore them, but you are fighting an urge of nature—a facet of human social growth. Keep it up long enough and you're breeding little behaviour monsters. Kids need that acknowledgement as a necessary part of growing up. It's non-negotiable. And if you deny them the simple decency of letting them know that you can see they exist, and if you prevent them from having some normal basic human interaction, you're turning them into bad attention addicts.

(I need to jump in here right now and defend the poor beleaguered parents with three-year-olds who are testing the boundaries of how far they can go with this: I know that there are limits to how open minded and acknowledging you can be; sometimes sending them alone to their corner is all you should do ... I'm just talking about those people too busy to even notice their children.)

It's not really a matter of whether or not children can tell the difference between good and bad attention, it's more a matter of sometimes not having the luxury of being able to care about the difference. And once you've trained your child that the best way to get that acknowledgement of his existence is through that negative attention, the personality of conflict is established. You've set the pattern for the rest of your child's existence, and he'll grow up to some unpleasant personality traits based on letting you know he exists all the time. The arguer is the classic personality type.

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