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Iflyfish
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Lee,
I appreciate your perspective and in some ways share some of your attitudes. We all are however all a product of our culture. We view the world
through the bone in our nose. That makes it hard to be clear sometimes. It also feels better to take the “moral high ground” and denounce
bullfighting, c-ckfighting, football, boxing, and other blood sports. I personally consider skiing a blood sport as I inevitably have hurt myself
doing it.
My point is that these activities must serve some real human need as like religion, they keep emerging in nearly every culture.
Is it possible that humans are BY NATURE genocidal. I could cite examples throughout history to support this hypothesis. It goes on and on in the
history of humankind. I am not advocating genocide, though I might make an exception for aggressive drivers when I become King. I am pointing out that
it exists throughout history. We participate in it. They gave Geronimo a Cadillac to calm our own guilt. Adios Indios, we need to fulfill our Manifest
Destiny. How many Mexican cultures are dying as we speak? Mexico has had fifty-six distinct language groups, second only to India with fifty-nine.
Where are they now?
If this is true, that human are genocidal, then we might thank our lucky stars that there are “legitimate” contexts for the acting out of this
aggression. It might even be dangerous to do away with this sort of activity.
I appreciate those who are taking the time to add to this very important and I hope interesting dialogue.
Iflyfish
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DENNIS
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I'm not sure what "collective agression" is. I cant help but feel that mans agressive nature is as unique and personal as his need for acceptance
and nurturing.
I also have trouble considering "agression" as a normal psychological function such as "fight or flight", especially the agression related to blood
sports.
Speaking of blood IFF, if your circumcision is still oozing after all these years, you may want to take what's left of everything to a Jewish doctor.
They know all about these things.
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Iflyfish
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DanO,
Exactly, the sole purpose of boxing is to produce brain damage. Knocking someone out creates a hemorrhage in the brain. That is why people fall down.
Getting knocked out is the product of brain trauma. Ditto for "getting your lights put out,” "your bell chimed" and all the other euphemisms used in
sports to describe this phenomenon.
Slapstick humor is often based on someone falling, being hit with a falling object etc. We laugh at it, but if you examine it closely it is the
appreciation of SOMEONE ELSE experiencing pain.
Why do we slow down at a car wreck?
I had the privilege of spending some time with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D. She wrote some of the seminal work on Death and Dying. She grew up in
Switzerland, close to the German border. She visited Auschwitz and saw the atrocities perpetrated on the Jews at the concentration camps. She was
aghast, horrified by what she saw. This experience stirred in her a life long passion for helping people who were facing death. She said to me “we all
have a Hitler in us,” “it is important that we all acknowledge that there is a killer in each one of us”, “the issue is how we want to deal with that
Hitler.” What she meant was that we all have the capacity to kill. It is in all of us. If we deny this in ourselves then it comes out in some very
terrible ways. I have read estimates that up to six hundred thousand innocent people, men, women, and children have died in Iraq. We justify this
death and destruction in the name of taking care of “evil doers”, “spreading democracy” and slogans like this. This is exactly the behavior
Kubler-Ross was talking about. Is this war and example of the collective aggression of the USofA manifest on the world stage. All cultures justify
their aggressive acts with slogans of self-righteousness. God seems to be on all sides at once.
I am not wanting to discuss politics, nor to support this discussion deteriorating into a debate about Iraq. That is not the purpose of this post. The
purpose of this post is to acknowledge that we share the “blood thirsty” traits of those we condemn who watch bullfights, c-ckfights, boxing matches,
football games. I just think it is important to “own” these traits in ourselves. We are less likely if we do own these traits to try to “stomp out”
those behaviors or traits in others. In the act of “stomping out” the behaviors of others, we often show our own naked aggression.
Iflyfishwhennotnursingmywounds
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Iflyfish
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Dennis,
Great idea on the doc. Maybe she will know what to do with it.
By the way, where do I find the Debutant Ball and Quinceañera, now that sounds like my style.
Ilfyfish
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DanO
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IFF, I'd steer clear of the underage girls if I were you. Especially with that little problem of yours Dennis referred to.
\"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.\" -- Frank Zappa
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Lee
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Iflyfish
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D. She wrote some of the seminal work on Death and Dying. She grew up in Switzerland, close to the German border. She
visited Auschwitz and saw the atrocities perpetrated on the Jews at the concentration camps. She was aghast, horrified by what she saw. This
experience stirred in her a life long passion for helping people who were facing death. She said to me “we all have a Hitler in us,” “it is important
that we all acknowledge that there is a killer in each one of us”, “the issue is how we want to deal with that Hitler.”
Iflyfishwhennotnursingmywounds |
As much as I respect the opinions of Kubler-Ross, I think she's wrong in the above. I think we have the ''potential'' for having a Hitler in us, but
we do not have Hitler in us.
We all have a light and dark side to us. Those focusing on the dark side attract more darkness.
There are cultures who haven't ''gotten it'' yet, and that's what I speak to.
I'm reducing it to the ridiculous: we can make the world a better place. It's a choice.
The unenlightened to not know they have a choice.
I'm convinced that there are people who are seduced by darkness, and even think it's cool.
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DENNIS
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Wow. You want to read about aggression?
Lencho up there has a quote from a Cormac McCarthy book, "All The Pretty Horses".
McCarthy wrote another heavy seller called "Blood Meridian".
I'm not suggesting this book as anybodys Christmas present. I had a hard time reading it. It takes cruel aggression to new levels, high or low, take
your pick.
Oh well, I couldn't finish "Call Of The Wild" because of the cruelty involved.
IFF ... I agree, this is a good thread, healthy discourse. I enjoy philisophical conversations. All questions---------no answers.
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Iflyfish
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Dennis wrote
"I'm not sure what "collective agression" is. I cant help but feel that mans agressive nature is as unique and personal as his need for acceptance
and nurturing.”
Are you saying that you don't think that each of us has all emotions and all of the potentials for human behavior? I would agree that there are some
individuals who through constitution have limited capacity for certain human emotions and behaviors i.e. people who suffer from Autism certainly
experience the world in a different way than most of us. I however believe that aside from the exceptions like that mentioned above that we all
experience the full range of emotions and motivations, all of the seven deadliest sins included. If we deny them, then we act them out someway. Add
my aggressive impulses and feelings with yours and everyone else’s and we have “collective aggression”.
Dennis wrote
I also have trouble considering "agression" as a normal psychological function such as "fight or flight", especially the agression related to blood
sports."
Most of us do not want to “own” that we have negative feelings and motivations. Most of us do not want to admit that we feel greed, avarice, sloth,
lust etc. It simply is not “cool” to admit this about ourselves, let alone our culture.
I notice you used the term “fight.” Where did that come from? You state that “flight and fight” are normal psychological functions. These functions
comes from the natural impulses of organisms to engage in fight or flight when faced with a threat. Isn’t then that fight inherent to our organism? I
think so. Do we have to learn how to modify our impulses to aggress against others? I hope so. If we have to learn to channel it, it is then normal
and in all of us. We have to teach children not to hit. Why do they want to hit “aggress”? They want to hit because they are not getting what they
want and are using force to get what they want. This is not learned. What is learned is how to sublimate this feeling and behavior into more
culturally accepted behavior. “Take it out on the field” I was told. “Big boys don’t cry”, what do they do? Act angry of course and try to find some
wrong to right.
I appreciate your posts Dennis.
Iflyfish
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fdt
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There is a post right now from iclarke asking if 300 will pay for 3 weeks in Baja. Do you think that someone like him that has never visited a country
or a certain area of that country should also ask about the culture and customs. maybe he already has researched it and knows about bullfights,
c-ckfights, turtle soup, monkey brains and other to some repulsive habits, but maybe the beautiful beaches, good foods, music, nightlife, nature,
etc., outweigh the negative. I must confess that I love to eat turtle soup, so there  , but I certainly hope I don't loose a friendship because of it, I love bullfights, when I was young I jumped at the Tijuana bullring as
an espontaneo and I dressed in lights at a bullfight in La Paz back in 74 at the estadio. So I guess that specialy if I was to move to a new country
or state and I knew what theire traditions were, I would just shut up, specialy if it's not my country. At age 15 I went to live in La Paz by myself
to study tourism and beeing from Tijuana I would of course miss some of the things from home that back then La Paz didn't have, maybe it was some sort
of homesickness I'm not sure but I must have sounded like a complaining p..che gringo and someone very wise told me "Pero bien que estas aqui verdad"
and "Si no te gusta nomas vete"
A well informed Baja California traveler is a smart Baja California traveler!
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Cypress
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Would advise not eating any of those dead birds from rooster fights. Some folks give 'em arsenic, makes the blood clot and keeps 'em from bleeding
out.
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DENNIS
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How much cultural interchange can one fit into a three week vacation when he is chaseing the Baja Mystique...... the natural history and unique beauty
of the land and sea? I used to stay in Mazatlan for six months on 150 dollars and, although I absorbed a lot of the culture, it wasn't the purpose
for my trips.
I was young .... what did I know?
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fdt
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Lee
There are cultures who haven't ''gotten it'' yet, and that's what I speak to.
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And who would be the authority or culture to tell what cultures have or have not gotten it?
How would we have those cultures get it?
peacefuly? And what if they still don't get it? By example? and if they still don't get it? Diplomacy? And then let's just say they still don't get
it, what then?
A well informed Baja California traveler is a smart Baja California traveler!
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fdt
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and what is it they don't get anyway?
A well informed Baja California traveler is a smart Baja California traveler!
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DENNIS
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IFF -----------
Yes. I believe we have all the emotions and all potentials for human behavior but, not All human behavior for All people. To believe that is to say
we actually have no control over ourselves. Do you think Mother Theresa could have run the ovens in Auschwitz? Not on her worst day and she
wouldn't have had to control any impulse to the contrary. Strong moral conviction trumps basic capability. We grow out of that stage hopefully at a
young age, our age of reason.
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DENNIS
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fdt -----------
You might pose these questions to the U.S. administration.
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DENNIS
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Sorry ............. No politics.
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Iflyfish
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ftd
I have had the good luck to have helped a family unload their boat of turtles in San Felipe many years ago. This of course led to a wonerful dinner of
soup and steaks. Delicious. I am glad that there is now focus on saving these creatures. Maybe one day we can have a bowl again.
I am not certain what your response to iclarke is about? Does he appear to be rude askiing these questions before learning some things? Does he appear
forward in asking these things? I will go look for the post. I am interested in what he has said that generates your questions. There may be some
cultural differences there or maybe something else?
Do you think there is a cultural difference between NorteAmericanos who feel free to exress their thoughts and feelings about customs and traditions
without having relationships to do this in? I have heard native Mexicans say that they experience NorteAmericanos as loud, brash, opinionated,
judgemental and pushy. Does iclarke's post strike you in that way?
You said "I must have sounded like a complaining p..che gringo and someone very wise told me "Pero bien que estas aqui verdad" and "Si no te gusta
nomas vete"
I thank you for your honest sharing with us this experience. It is very rich with meaning to me. You moved from a big city to one being taken over by
NorteAmericanos and that must have been a major adjustment for you. So much to get used to and to learn about! At such a young age. How fortunate you
had a wiser person to share with you "Pero bien que estas aqui verdad" and "Si no te gusta nomas vete"
I am sorry that my Spanis is so poor that I cannot translate this so don't understand what was said to you. I wonder if you or someone would translate
so I can understand this. I want to know what advice was given that helped you to be more tolerant and understanding. Sometimes I think there is too
little of this in the world.
Thanks again for posting.
Iflyfish
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Iflyfish
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Lee
"We all have a light and dark side to us."
Exactly what I am saying. You say it more clearly than I. I just think it is important to "own" our dark side. We are less likely to act it out if we
do.
I am not advocating the development of this side, there has already been too much of that in our history.
I think it behooves us to acknowledge and remove our own mote before trying to remove the others sliver.
Thanks Lee.
Iflyfish
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Iflyfish
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DanO,
Thanks for the advice. I'm a phishophile not a pedophile.
Iflyfishwhennotremovinghooksfrommyhide
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Iflyfish
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fdt
You wrote
"And who would be the authority or culture to tell what cultures have or have not gotten it?
How would we have those cultures get it?
peacefuly? And what if they still don't get it? By example? and if they still don't get it? Diplomacy? And then let's just say they still don't get
it, what then?"
Cultural Imperialism anyone?
Their are Moslem Clerics who have an idea or two for us NorteAmericanos about our "getting it".
Well said ftd, well said.
Ilfyfish
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