Monkey See Monkey Do
Posted: Friday, June 18, 2010
by Randy Vaughan
There's a response here in southwest Virginia you'll get from blue-collar folks if you ask them "How's it going?" They'll smile and say, "Hanging in there." These days I answer with, "Yep, me too. But I'm afraid they're going to cut the rope. "
I'm tired of hanging in there, positively worn out, weary down in my soul where it hurts, really hurts like some sort of incorporeal toothache. How long is a man expected to "hang in there" before he simply lets go? That's how it goes, you know. The world wins through simple attrition, beating us like pups and when our spirits are finally broken and, assuming they don't cut the rope first and laugh as we plunge into the abyss, these self-righteous, spiritually vapid master-wannabe's reserve the right to feign shock and surprise and bewilderment when we finally, out of sheer exhaustion, willfully release our grips to gratefully end the suffering in our souls.
One such rope I'm clinging to with every ounce of my being, but one they're determined to cut, is my refusal to buy into the current trend of "blame the parents" for, well, just about everything. This whole notion can be reduced to nothing more complicated than the insistence that children are monkeys and as it must follow, monkey see, monkey do.
You know exactly what I'm talking about. The Public Service Announcements and all the self-proclaimed and thoroughly over-educated experts would have us believe, for example, that children of parents who smoke will grow up to smoke. Children of abusive parents will grow up to be abusive themselves. It's a litany of behavior traits and conduct that grows longer every day. And worse is that with each passing day I'm finding fewer and fewer people who reject this notion. These notions are accepted as inevitabilities and with no serious challenge.
So as I said, I'm clinging to that rope of rejection and denial, but also as I said, I'm ready to let go. Maybe it's time I release my grip on the determination to live my life by understandings based upon my own observations and my insistence that innate intelligence and intuition is more than enough to see me through this world. I know only that it's unacceptable to refuse to accept popular notions and conventional wisdom regardless of how shallow such things are.
So here we are, in a society that wants to blame the parents when a kid turns out "bad" and, as we all know, "bad" in this sense simply means a young person who fails to meet those thoroughly capricious and arbitrary standards of "good citizen," "taxpayer," "good employee". In short, we are to be totally submissive and obedient to the trinity of government, organized religion, and business. Required only is that we "function" and, to the degree no legal interference is warranted, avoid harming others. Yes, crush the spirits if you wish, but don't harm the body.
Only now, we have a problem: We are as bombarded with the other side of the coin as with the "blame the parents syndrome". In other words, we must endure all those "rags to riches" stories, true accounts of men and women who grew up under the worst of conditions-deplorable and needless poverty, alcoholic, abusive, absent parents, and on and on-and yet, in spite of those obstacles, achieved nothing short of greatness if not the more well-known "normal" life and lifestyle, what I prefer to call "living in national obscurity".
This leaves me, as usual, asking the obvious: What the hell is going on here?
Are kids really just so much monkey-meat, destined to merely mimic the conduct and behavior of their parents? Or could it be that they're actually amazingly intelligent young folks who can actually learn from their parents? Doesn't that become the vital distinction no one wishes to discuss, the difference(s) between "mimicking" and "learning"?
It's a given that one kid who grows up in an abusive home will indeed grow up to "mimic" that conduct and behavior. The truth here is that he failed to "learn" anything from it. In this case it's the painfully simple truth of The Golden Rule: He was never quite able to figure out that if it sucked to be treated that way, then surely it must suck for others to be treated that way and it sucks on a galactic scale to be the one to do that after having it been done to oneself.
It's also a given that one kid who grows up in the same environment will indeed learn from it and make it a lifelong endeavor to never, ever treat others that way. One learns. One mimics. Why that is so escapes me. I know there are countless people all claiming to have the answers to these little mysteries but with all due respect, I think they know nothing more about these things than do I, or my two puppies. It just makes them feel really good about themselves to think they do.
But what Americans are in denial about is the degree to which all those external factors come into play, you know, government, politics, public education, the churches, music, movies, peer pressure, and so forth. We've reached a sorry state of affairs when the mere institutions that have so much control and influence over our lives are beyond reproach and question in these matters. We're caught up in this frightening nationalistic pride that scoffs at the mere suggestion that any of these--anything external to the family--might, must might, have something to do with Johnny smoking, beating his wife and kids, and surfing porn on the internet.
Yes, let someone like me come along and start placing some of the blame for the decline of our civilization at the feet of corporate America, the very wealthy and powerful men, women, and institutions that turned employment into exploitation, who not only call us "human resources" but treat us the same--let me do that and I have to endure not only all the endless variations of the themes of "individual responsibility and accountability" but also every unoriginal and boringly repetitious justification of why the "rich" can do no wrong, why they are to be respected and obeyed and never challenged because they "took the risks" and "give" people the jobs, and so forth.
Ever notice the inherent contradiction in all this?
The rich, the powerful, those who are the "role models" for the rest of us get all the credit in the world for "creating" and "giving" us jobs. They get none of the blame, however, for all the wars, death, and destruction. Or why is it someone will ask "Ever work for a poor person?" but never "Ever hear of a poor person starting a war?"
That nebulous non-entity called "society" blames the parents. Parents, who find themselves locked in daily combat with endless external influences in their kids' lives often have no choice but to fight back by blaming anything and everything else. It's a blame-game carried to a logical extreme with all involved wanting to see who can one-up the other when it comes to being a "victim".
Who among us isn't familiar with the requirement teachers face regarding reporting possible "child abuse" at the sight of a bruise on a kid's arm? Yet if I go pee in a bottle to disprove the assumption that I enjoy recreational drug use and the test comes back that my blood is one-hundred percent cocaine, there's no requirement for the potential employer to "rat me out". Why is that? I know the answer but as I said, I'm finally too weary to care very much these days.
All I know is this: Children are not monkeys. Not all grow up to be "model" citizens. But let's face it: Just what kind of testimony is it about our nation when we have more people locked-up in prison than any other country on the planet? It's either a country and government run amuck and insane with power and control over our lives or Americans are, by nature, simply more evil than the rest of the world. I've made my mind on that, as well.
Besides, all this country really expects and demands from each of us is that we be "normal" and can and do "function". Have you taken a good, long look at "normal"? "Normal" gives us wars and greed and for lack of better way of saying the thing, "man's inhumanity to man". All the sufferings and evils of the world are accepted as being perfectly "normal". I've seen "normal". I want no part of it, thank you very much.
There's something wrong when we talk about "humane" treatment for our critters but nothing of the sort in our collective vocabulary for the two-leggeds.
I also know that not every person capable of breeding is fit to be a parent. That, too, is a given. If I had my way, I might very well rewire humans so that there is a direct link between functioning genitals and one's spiritual and emotional maturity and if that maturity was lacking, the genitals would fail to work as well. And yes, I deliberately left out "intellectual" because this country absolutely must stop worshipping the gods of reason and intellect. Both of these capacities of the human species are wonderful servants but hard-suck at being masters.
But since I can't do that, the legacy will continue that many folks who breed really aren't fit to be parents. But you know what? So what? Even they do the very best they can and maybe, just maybe, if we blamed them less even they could do better. But no, let's continue blaming them while praising all those external influences and the madness will just go on and on.
Yes, I think I can't hang on much longer. Truth? I don't want to hang on much longer.
This Article has been viewed 242 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Such erudition and wisdom in one so young is to be admired and respected- I do.And OMG can you write! I enjoyed this tremendously- Always- EllaHi, Ella...It's great meeting you, and Gregory. And I'm flattered more than you can imagine. (Pssst: I'll be 58 very soon...)
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.