Thought on the way home from the beach.

[spazzychic]

Pride and Hate are two sides of the same coin.

When you hate, it says, "You are not human."

With pride, it is, "I am superhuman."

Amber

Comments

[postrophe.livejournal.com]

"Me Heap Big!" is just good old self-aggrandizement and chest-beating, old as any of us monkey tribes who have been doing it since time immoral...
A similar variation, "WE heap big!", is just as common, and very commercially available, e.g: any monday night during football season.

Yes, I recall Fritters expressing worry about a local radio station's "La Raza!" ad campaign, as if it was a reverse racism; and Thudpucker made the apropos "If some white males tried this, they'd get SO bashed on!" observation.
I had to explain that nowadays "La Raza" means as much about racial identity around L.A. as "Rebel Roy's Used Cars" does down south.... (Notice, white males DID do it this way, and successfuly, too.)

I think it depends on how it's done.
You can put yourself/your tribe up without putting everyone else down. Self esteem does NOT have to automatically diminish those around you, and I feel sick about those poor jerks of junior-high mentality who once noticed that when they won, some other guy lost -- and worked it into a "whenever somebody else loses, that means I win!" life strategy. (I work with one of these. He loves laughing when someone - anyone - goes down.)

I notice, though, how insidious this mentality is. How many people out there are so stuck on a zero-sum game that they "KNOW" somebody else has to go down so that they can rise. My pride "means" you're screwed; it HAS to.

And to me, the worst part is people who see someone rising and "KNOW" that his empowerment "means" they're in trouble...
What does this say about us all?

"If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk
above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents
were jealous else. What made those holes and rents
in the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk
all hope of greenness? 'Tis a brute must walk
pashing their life out, with a brute's intents."

Eliot may be right. Mankind may yet be too young for the concept of power without price.

'/


[