How Jaded are We?

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Good Evening,

I ran across this the other day; you know, those "joke" pictures that folks send out en-masse to their 'friends'. Sometimes they're worth a good chuckle, usually not. But on this occasion it brought to mind something that bothers me often: That we often attribute the most jaded, negative and lascivious motives where there's no cause. Here's what I got:

"A first grade girl handed in the drawing below for a homework assignment

http://mrserge.lv/wp-content/when-i-grow-up-i-want-to-be-like-mommy.jpg

After it was graded and the child brought it home, she returned to school the next day with the following note: [INDENT] Dear Ms. Davis, I want to be very clear on my child's illustration. It is NOT of me on a dance pole on a stage in a strip joint. I work at Home Depot and had commented to my daughter how much money we made in the recent snowstorm. This photo is of me selling a shovel..."
[/INDENT]I hadn't even thought of any pole-dancing likeness; likely the teacher didn't either. Has the tendency to judge others ingrained a disproportionate sensitivity that screams for defensiveness where none's warranted?

Thanks

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@Khethil,

Khethil,

I'm going to be frank here -- it does look like the woman is dancing on a pole for money. To my knowledge, people don't stand around waving dollar bills at the cash register at home depot whilst making a shovel purchase. Not to mention, it's clear that the object is not a shovel as the woman is standing on the lower end of it; I'm more than sure a child able to color and articulate thought on this level would be able to draw an object resembling a shovel. But the most clear indication that this is an illustration of a stripper is the fact that there's only one female in the picture, and she's on the pole!

It's very easy to see how a woman would want to defend her character based on the pretty obvious illustration of a stripper. However, I'd put money that this was all fictional and was just contrived in a jocular fashion. It's pretty common in my generation to poke fun at the "Slutty" nature of a woman, and if you got this from a spam e-mail, the evidence piles up.

But to answer your question:

Quote:

Has the tendency to judge others ingrained a disproportionate sensitivity that screams for defensiveness where none's warranted?

Sometimes, yes.

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@Zetherin,

Zetherin wrote:

I'm going to be frank here...

Haha ok, you illustrate the point well.

Thanks

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@Khethil,

Well can't you see it, she's sticking her butt out at the fellas on the right side of the screen while smiling at the ones on the left. LOL.

Zeth makes excellent points with logic. However, the lady or mom could be holding the handle of a spaded, (not jaded) shovel and her feet have just pushed the tip into the ground. This could be the last shovel due to the storm. Because it's her mom that works at Home Depot, she may realize that not many women go in to buy shovels.

First glance, yes it indeed looks like a stripper and it very well could be.

1 Reply

@Justin,

Justin wrote:

Well can't you see it, she's sticking her butt out at the fellas on the right side of the screen while smiling at the ones on the left. LOL.

Zeth makes excellent points with logic. However, the lady or mom could be holding the handle of a spaded, (not jaded) shovel and her feet have just pushed the tip into the ground. This could be the last shovel due to the storm. Because it's her mom that works at Home Depot, she may realize that not many women go in to buy shovels.

First glance, yes it indeed looks like a stripper and it very well could be.

Fair enough, I'll take that.

Regardless, it's understandable why the woman would try to redeem her character, no? I mean, even if the intent of the child was to not draw his mother as a stripper, it still could be construed as such with ease. So, would I say that the woman is being overly sensitive and is screaming in defense for no reason? Absolutely not, there is a valid reason, and her clarification is warranted in my opinion.

After much deliberation, I do feel as though I get the jist of this now -- She wouldn't have even pondered for a second there is negative connotation elicited from the picture if not for our judgmental society, right? And this very well may be true, but again, because of the society we're all in, the clarification was understandable.

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@Zetherin,

Yes, absolutely. Nice responses...

... you gotta love kids!

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@Zetherin,

At first glance, I thought whoever drew that picture wanted to grow up to be a congessperson. I thought the picture was of Nancy Pelosi with a giant straw. She uses it to suck the money out of the taxpaxer's pocket. And the people are running after their money before it goes into the rectangluar money pit, which represnts the extraneous and supliferous gov't spending. And then I read the note I realized I was wrong twice. Looking at the picture again, I can see how it must be about a lady selling a snow shovel because the stick men around her look like they are knee deep in snow.

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@neapolitan,

Funny how children would not make the connection that first struck me. Looks like a scene I've seen once or twice. And I've never seen a lady sell a shovel at Home Depot.

I think a case like this is just one example of the way an adult mind interprets the expression's of a child's mind given the adult's wider range of experiences. The child doesn't notice that the picture resembles a stripper, and so this depiction makes sense, to the child, as a woman selling a shovel.

Though, yeah, we're pretty jaded as a general rule.

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@Khethil,

I'm sorry, I don't care about what it says about mankind. That just made me roar!

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@Khethil,

The worst crime is attributing the picture to a child when it was drawn by an adult passing off as a child so that the jocular comment could get a laugh.

It is a subtle form of child molestation to attribute a sexual innuendo to a counterfeit child's drawing.

The boundaries are being broken.

1 Reply

@FireInTheWater,

FireInTheWater wrote:

The worst crime is attributing the picture to a child when it was drawn by an adult passing off as a child so that the jocular comment could get a laugh.

Do we know this was drawn by an adult?

FireInTheWater wrote:

It is a subtle form of child molestation to attribute a sexual innuendo to a counterfeit child's drawing.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

At what point to we realize that we often times manifest that which we fear?

A thief sees everyone as a potential thief and the honest joe sees honesty in everyone, including the thief.

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@Justin,

Justin wrote:

Do we know this was drawn by an adult?

I wholeheartedly disagree.

At what point to we realize that we often times manifest that which we fear?

A thief sees everyone as a potential thief and the honest joe sees honesty in everyone, including the thief.

So your saying she is a pole dancer because she saw a pole dancer depicted in the drawing ? Thats slander.I saw a philosopher taking bets on whether the cat in the box was dead or alive.

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@Justin,

Justin wrote:

Do we know this was drawn by an adult?

I think if you apply Occam's Razor it's a case of which of 2 scenarios is more likely:

A) A mother tells her child that she is receiving a lot of money for selling goods to help people deal with a snowstorm. Shortly afterwards the child is asked in school to draw what she wants to do when she grows up. The child wants to do the same thing as her mother. She draws her mother selling shovels with a mixture of detail and ineptitude so that it sort of looks like the mother is poledancing. When the mother finds out she writes a pithy respose. The amused teachers/parents decide to share the picture and the story with the internet.

or

B) It's all made up by an internet user as a gag.

I reckon B is the more likely scenario.

So I reckon FireintheWater is quite right to suggest it's made up - though I find his/her cry of child abuse preposterous. I reckon it's just a fairly rubbish internet meme.

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@Khethil,

I looked at picture before reading the post, and i honestly thought it was a stripper.

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@Dave Allen,

xris wrote:

So your saying she is a pole dancer because she saw a pole dancer depicted in the drawing ? Thats slander.I saw a philosopher taking bets on whether the cat in the box was dead or alive.

Did I say that? Let me know cause sometimes I speak languages I'm unaware of. Matter of fact I don't believe I said anything about her being a pole dancer or anything even closely relevant for that matter. I think you missed the entire point.

Dave Allen wrote:

So I reckon FireintheWater is quite right to suggest it's made up - though I find his/her cry of child abuse preposterous. I reckon it's just a fairly rubbish internet meme.

Do we know it's made up? We can shoot from the hip or we can go off what we know. The suggestion that it's made up, is a suggestion, and the child abuse cry is a perception. People have suggested that Jesus Christ is son of God with a virgin birth but it's still shooting from the hip.

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@Justin,

Justin wrote:

Do we know it's made up? We can shoot from the hip or we can go off what we know. The suggestion that it's made up, is a suggestion, and the child abuse cry is a perception. People have suggested that Jesus Christ is son of God with a virgin birth but it's still shooting from the hip.

No I don't know. But bearing in mind all the unusual coincidences and behaviours that would have to go into the story being true rather than the more simple explanation of it being just an internet meme - along the lines of photoshopping Sesame Street charaters into pictures of the Nuremburg rallies - I reckon it's probably a fake.

I think people who are assuming it is real are "shooting from the hip" in this case. What evidence is there to suggest it is anything more than some idle mischief knocked up in photoshop by a bored web programmer?

I don't know it's fake - but I think it probably is.

Do you know it's genuine, and if so on what evidence?

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@Justin,

Justin i think you missed my point..you said a thief would see a thief on that assumption you are saying the mother would see a pole dancer because she was one. I tried to explain it further by saying a philosopher would see a philosopher or a gambler a gambler.." a philosopher taking bets on the cat in the box"....

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@Khethil,

I thought Justin was suggesting that the moral panic caused by fear of child molesters actually ends up causing more harm than good.

EG: Sexualising children by seeing something funny about an innocent picture (a fake innocent picture in this case, I reckon). Or leading to witch hunts for peadophiles in the tabloid press, and so on.

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@Dave Allen,

This is all quite amazing and proves the initial point quite well. When we see the worst in such things; the seediest and most abhorrent where there isn't cause: What is this, but a reflection of ourselves?

Whether such a drawing was actually, in objective happenstance done by a child or not isnt' the point. The outline of the circumstances in the OP - the setting we ought frame our observations - set the stage that it was. So take that on face-value and what becomes clear is the over-sexualization of culture and the quickest damnation of things innocent.

I think that towards many issues we *have* become jaded; thinking we see 'evils and ill's' many are quick judge. Only a few realize, after consideration, that it was the observers themselves who have imbued such damnations.

1 Reply

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen wrote:

No I don't know. But bearing in mind all the unusual coincidences and behaviours that would have to go into the story being true rather than the more simple explanation of it being just an internet meme - along the lines of photoshopping Sesame Street charaters into pictures of the Nuremburg rallies - I reckon it's probably a fake.

I think people who are assuming it is real are "shooting from the hip" in this case. What evidence is there to suggest it is anything more than some idle mischief knocked up in photoshop by a bored web programmer?

I don't know it's fake - but I think it probably is.

Do you know it's genuine, and if so on what evidence?

I have not made any assumption at all as to whether it is or it isn't real or fake and I don't have any evidence to support either one. Thus, I'm not making that assumption, you were. Evidence doesn't suggest anything because the image was meant to be a discussion on how jaded we are because of how we perceive the image, not whether or not the image is real or fake and I've not claimed that it's either one, so I have no evidence.

xris wrote:

Justin i think you missed my point..you said a thief would see a thief on that assumption you are saying the mother would see a pole dancer because she was one. I tried to explain it further by saying a philosopher would see a philosopher or a gambler a gambler.." a philosopher taking bets on the cat in the box"....

Nope, that's not what I said at all.

Dave Allen wrote:

I thought Justin was suggesting that the moral panic caused by fear of child molesters actually ends up causing more harm than good.

Sort of in that sentence. What I'm really saying is that we tend to manifest those things that we fear. The fear is a thought and thoughts become manifestations. We don't manifest first without thought. We don't create something without the idea. I also believe it's a collective collaboration.

Dave Allen wrote:

EG: Sexualising children by seeing something funny about an innocent picture (a fake innocent picture in this case, I reckon). Or leading to witch hunts for pedophiles in the tabloid press, and so on.

Somewhat. It takes the thought to see the sexuality in an innocent photo. It's the preacher who sexually abuses the choir boys but it's also the preacher who preaches against the same. This isn't meant to be an insult but an observation from a philosophical standpoint.

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