“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Saturday, December 8, 2012

British Parents

I read that British parents are better, in the Huffington Post, because Brits don't tolerate bullies and know the value of discipline.

Whenever I hear "I don't tolerate bullies" I expect the speaker to be a bully... Bullying is rampant in UK schools.

You have to know generosity before you learn to discipline. The Brits skipped a step there.

Show me a Brit who comes to your door with a tray of cookies when you have just moved in.

There's a reason why generosity is the first Buddhist virtue, and discipline comes second.

When I return to the UK I see behavior in supermarkets that would get you arrested over here--behavior to small children. Shouting, smacking, threatening. Constantly.

I recently figured out that I liked my friend Sam (who died) in large part because of his protectiveness to small people.

I would now gladly go back in time and beat seven shades of unholy crap out of the people who molested my five year old dad.

I take this to mean that I am now American...happily...

2 comments:

Paul Reid-Bowen said...

Of course, it may be a passive aggressive tray of cookies that are brought to your door.

Timothy Morton said...

...but it's delicious passive aggression!