ossobuco wrote:OK. This is what I've been reacting to (with one exception - I was fine with Free Duck's post, which is included).
In the interest of brevity, I've taken out spaces between paragraphs
Thanks for bringing back what was actually written. I've read and now re-read all these posts. I guess I just dont see how you got from those posts, what you succeeded to
respond to after Boom's posts - let alone
what you then expressed in the next post.
I mean, in 9 out of the 10 posts you quoted, I dont see anyone implying that all of your own experience and empathy is of no use, etc. All that I see most of 'em saying is that there is some part, of course, that one doesnt know about and doesnt find out about until one raise children oneself (one's own or others', of course, I take that to be automatic.)
And I still dont get the resistance to that notion. If you go through some experience, you have an angle on it that someone who hasnt him/herself gone through that experience doesnt have. Doesnt mean that anyone with that experience necessarily is
right, or cant still be stupid, or that your input suddenly becomes useless, or that you should stay out of the discussion then, or any such thing -- just that sure, there is something that you cant know about, until its happened to you.
It's funny, it's the same thing you get with those occasional discussions on race. Those also always provoke fiercely antagonistic reactions. You know, when a black person observes that, in the end, bottom line, truth is that there
is a certain part of understanding of what it feels like to be black (in america, in these times, as non-immigrant black, etc), that you can only have, well, if you're black. Because no matter how much you or I can study, I dunno, the civil rights movement, or afro-american culture, or the economics of urban poverty, or whatever whichever - and no matter how great our capacity of empathy and understanding is - in the end, we dont know how it really feels
because we've never felt it. Something vaguely analogous, perhaps, sure - but not that.
And in a way, the "you dont know man, you werent there" parents have a better case, even, because the black person stating the above is handicapped by the fact that - well - he cant, in the end, know for sure what a white person can all understand about his situation or not, because, well, he in turn isnt white <grins>. Whereas a parent's actually been a non-parent before, so he/she can actually compare.
(Its funny to imagine how posters in this thread would switch sides or not if it were the race discussion - I recall that Set is as ferociously on the side he's now on too, but I think others would switch - in both directions.. But, probly better not to get into that ants' nest.)
I guess people hate nothing as much as being told that there is some level or element of experience that they're excluded from. But I just dont see the problem. Of course there are things I just cannot know - not
really know, not know how exactly it feels - about certain experiences, because, well, I didnt have them. Experience does count.
And funnily enough, you made that point yourself. When you were responding to Boom, you wrote that "liv[ing], oh, say, eight decades" counts for something - or should count for something - when it comes to being assumed to understand things. Why would it? Well, because you've had a lot of experiences in those eight decades, experiences that introduced you to realities that I, for example, can read up about, but just dont know how it
feels, really - because I havent lived to that length.
Whats the difference between that, and parents saying that they also have had an experience thats introduced them to things, that people who havent raised children just havent experienced? I mean, think about it: an indignant twenty-something year old could take the 'Ive lived for 80 years, so I know some stuff' sentiment, and make all the objections that people have made here against the parent thing. Just having lived through a long time doesnt mean you've necessarily learnt from it, or learned the right thing; there's plenty of older people who are just as ignorant or dogmatic or deluded as any twenty-something; there's young 'uns who are wiser of life than many pensioners are; it's not like age by definition gives you some kind of secret package of truth; just look at [negative example of unwise older person], are you saying he should also be considered to know something unique just because he's old? Etc etc etc.
Which is all true, but also all besides the point. Because the point wouldnt be that older people by definition know better, period - but merely that, yes, of course they have been privy to an experience that a twenty-something just hasnt had - and to some extent, at some level, a 20-something will therefore just not understand what thats
like, even if he's really empathic.
So I dunno. I do get the feeling that there's been a lot of responding by association going on in this thread. That some of you are kind of viscerally reacting against what you are
reminded of by some of the parents' posts, or against an underlying subtext that you perceive there to be, or against things you associate with the kind of things you read here, rather than against what was actually said. I dunno.
