Dissolution of Anger Through ManLove

So I'm not in a good mood. My brother was really angry with me, and now he's not, I guess; one of my best friends is upset with me, which sucks balls; and I keep pissing off people by opening my mouth. It hasn't been the best of times, let's just say. The cure for my ills? ManLove, of course.


Ah, nothing like one man helping out a fellow man in the best way possible. Sharing is caring, kids.

But anyways, back to the shit that went down this weekend. My brother is clearly frustrated with a number of things going on in his life right now and it's no big deal that he sort of blew up at me this morning. Honestly, he's under a lot of stress, he put himself in a bad position that is difficult to get out of, and we were talking ideology last night. That's never a good combination. It was about relationships et al: the main point we kept returning to was the difference in approach a few of us had when it came to pursuing women. Keith and Jon were of one mind, and Biggie and I were of another. Keith and Jon felt risk-taking was necessary and that in order to win the game, you had to play the game. Biggie and I are, naturally, cowards and don't like risk-taking; we also don't like that it's a game (which seems weird, really) and refuse, at times, to play it.

Now, why are relationships games? Doesn't it seem a little weird to say "I'm going to find the love of my life by playing a game." I would like to think that the person whom I spend the rest of life with (assuming someone can put up with me for an extended period of time) would not be found in some game, with trivial rules and what not. I'd like to think that two adults sharing each other's company would stem from meaningful interaction as opposed to "gaming." But maybe that's just me, and maybe I'm really just trying to find a new name, while keeping the same characteristics - I'm not really sure. It's difficult to call a spade a spade when you're not actually sure if it's a spade. Existential shit, right there.

Maybe it's all a game and I just don't want to play it; maybe I'm frustrated that in order to frequently find meaningful (maybe...) interaction of this nature, I have to play a game. It seems odd to say that to find meaningful interaction of a particularly refined nature, I have to play a game. At that point, is it really meaningful interaction, or do we simply enter another game, followed by another, and so on? Is it all just games? Do we ever find real meaningful interaction, outside the context of a game? Probably not, and maybe that's what really upsets me: not that it's a game, or that I have to play it, or that I might have to take risks that I'm normally opposed to. Maybe it's that there can never not be a game, and I'll just have to keep on playing them to get by and to get laid. Does this depress anyone else?

The depressing inevitability that it's all a game, and can never change, is reminiscent of today's political system: to win and enact meaningful change you have to play a game that is diametrically at odds with enacting meaningful change. So, if you get elected, can you really enact meaningful change? Or are you already deep in the system, unable to do that which you once thought was possible?

Who cares. On to the second problem: my best friend being mad at me. So, best friend and I are, to be fair, at opposite ends of the political spectrum, and this is fine. In fact, it's healthy; it often breeds discussion as opposed to the normal reiteration of beliefs you find among groups with similar political views. But sometimes, best friend and I go at each other over stupid things (i.e. political shit) that really doesn't matter, and that's not good. The issue today? Well, I said George Washington (and other Founding Father buddies) needed to be examined in light of their slaveholding natures and that we shouldn't simply deify them straightaway because of other things they did. This didn't sit well with best friend and he said some things that weren't cool (even though I totally understand where he's coming from). So what now? I don't know. We'll probably forget about it, have lunch, do sexy time, and forget it about. But what if we don't?

...

I suppose an easy way out of all this contextual existential bullshit is to just say "fuck it" and do what you want: kill babies, sleep with random women, and make fun of old people - what else are you gonna do? Play the game? There's probably a third option, but in these situations it usually requires some sort of combination of the two systems, which is difficult and often untenable. And besides, third party...er, third option people get ridiculed and never have sex, so, you know, do what you want, I guess.

So what did all this prove? Nothing, as usual. None of this shit ever does. People write books; people read them; people think they've learned something. But honestly, they never do - no one ever does. We eat, shit, sometimes sleep, and occasionally we get laid. That's about it. Thinking, changing, learning...those are for sissies and wimps. Sigh...it sucks to be a sissie and a wimp.

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If you Condemn Hitler, then Condemn Washington

Often when discussing historical figures, I hear a defense that never ceases to surprise me: You can't say Person X is bad because Belief A was common at the time - everyone was doing it.

Sigh...Really? Are we going to say that simply because a belief was common at the time, a belief later proved horribly immoral, Person X should not be condemned nor partially vilified? Here's why this reasoning is a very bad idea.

Take George Washington (or most other Founding Fathers): he owned slaves, used slaves, and never made an attempt to abolish or decrease the presence of slavery. Awful guy? I would say so. He was engaging in a practice that most people at the time thought was alright. But, obviously (and somewhat intuitively), we now hold slavery as something atrocious and objectively wrong. Was slavery wrong then or only right now? Both! The slavery they were practicing was wrong, morally. Any slavery we practice today is wrong, morally. So then why do people always want to defend Washington by saying that it was alright in his era, so we can't condemn him?

I won't argue this way, but I could remind Washington defenders that he said himself slavery was morally wrong, and so did a host of other contemporaries. But again, I won't argue this way.

What happens if we let this defense obtain? Can we then condemn Adolf Hitler? Nope. Doing so would be inconsistent with our previous belief: Hitler's view about wanting to kill all the Jewish people was widely accepted in Germany/Austria at the time as a good way of doing things, and, more importantly, the right way of doing things. So, if we do not condemn Washington, then we do not condemn Hitler.

And what are we saying when we say Hitler is wrong, anyways? Are we saying that killing innocent people is wrong? Certainly. Most rational people would agree that, under unexceptional circumstances, killing innocent people is wrong - right now, and 2000 years ago. External to the Washington example, I would bet highly that most rational people would also agree that, under unexceptional circumstances, enslaving human beings is wrong - right now, and 2000 years ago. So again, I repeat the refrain: why defend Washington? Or Jefferson? Or any of the celebrities of the revolution?

If you do not condemn Washington, you do not condemn Hitler. That's logic, bitches.

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