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Post by Merkuri on Apr 13, 2004 14:50:51 GMT -5
I'm not trying to say that things were better back then or that our society should change, I just want to throw the idea out there that many segments of our morality (such as "kids shouldn't be exposed to sex") are products of our culture and don't represent any sort of absolute truth or absolute morality. Our views on these matters may be the best that we've found so far, but they might not be. I like to try and step back from our culture when I look at problems like this because I feel that if there is an absolute truth that we can't see it if we're looking through colored glasses, as the cliche goes. We need to take the glasses off first. Just swallow your gut reaction, because that's been crafted by society through the media, parents, and friends. I look at how other cultures or time periods have answered these questions to see how other folks think. Not to say that these cultures or periods are better than ours, but they just provide us with a different perspective. And I believe only good things can come of getting a new perspective every once and a while.
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Apr 13, 2004 22:57:35 GMT -5
Definetely. I've seen several perspectives firsthand, and I can vouch that this is a purely American thing. Italian adults will even flirt with middle schoolers innocently enough (though nothing comes of it). This is not even to mention the Japanese who think nothing of sexuality and consider homosexuality as natural as heterosexuality (though neither are talked about except with the closest of friends). Or Indian women who are expected to be pure until their families arrange their marriage.
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Post by Hussar on Apr 14, 2004 2:59:45 GMT -5
EK, I know you lived in Japan for a while, but, unless things were pretty different when you were here, homosexuality is definitely verboten here now. You don't see gay bars and my students are pretty shocked about the recent gay marriage things going on. I don't think the Japanese are quite THAT open minded. Now, as far as teen sexuality goes, now that's pretty open.
But, certainly, your point is taken. The North American (and I'm going to lump us Canadians in there too) are pretty prudish when it comes to sex. It's kinda sad when you can show someone being slowly torn in two in a movie, but you cannot show a penis. Really, which one is more natural?
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Apr 14, 2004 8:51:29 GMT -5
My mistake. Small phrasing error. I was referring to teen and young adult sexuality. Your students might feign surprise (they're quite good at that - its culturally inherent) to appear "normal" in front of the teacher, but what they really think and talk about with each other is another matter altogether.
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Post by khyron1144 on Apr 15, 2004 14:06:31 GMT -5
So no society is perfect; but an important question is which is better?
I'd be in favor of a society where puberty is considered the start of social adulthood. If you're basically a physical adult, why shouldn't you be fully treated as one and be able to vote, drink, and have sex [hopefully not all at once; those voting booths can get a bit cramped]?
In this country a teenager can borrow their parents' Blockbuster card and rent Nightmare on Elm Street but not a Play Boy video [never mind that as far as I know Blockbuster doesn't carry Play Boy videos]. I hear that in France and other European countries the situation is reversed and a young person can get the naked girls but not the violence. I also hear that these countries have much lower violence, rape, teen pregnancy, and other social ills that trouble our country and that right wing pundits claim will increase if our society shows any signs of becoming more liberal.
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Post by Merkuri on Apr 15, 2004 15:17:45 GMT -5
I'd be in favor of a society where puberty is considered the start of social adulthood. If you're basically a physical adult, why shouldn't you be fully treated as one and be able to vote, drink, and have sex [hopefully not all at once; those voting booths can get a bit cramped]? Because while you may be physically an adult, you can emotionally and intelecually still be a child. 14-15 year-olds, while physically adults are still capable of making the kind of errors in judgement you'd expect from an 11 or 12 year-old. They don't always think when they spend their money, they still don't know how to judge whether they can trust a person, they're quick to jump to conclusions, and they're still very very much influenced by peer pressure. Now, there are always exceptions. There are 11-year-olds who can immediately tell whether they can trust a stranger or not and there are 25-year-olds who still don't know how to keep more than $30 at a time in their checking accounts. But the usual case is that people don't emotionally/intellectually mature until their 20s. I don't remember where I heard this and I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I've been told that the voting age in America was set at 21 (at least, until WWII) because studies said that's when people stopped bending so much to peer pressure and started developing their own identities and ideas separate from their peer group. Theoretically, if you let teenagers vote they will be voting what's popular, regardless of what they might believe if they took the time to look at the facts. Like I said, I'm not sure how true this is, but it makes sense to me. Adults still feel peer pressure, but in general they're a lot more individualistic than a group of 15 year-olds.
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Post by khyron1144 on Apr 15, 2004 20:42:19 GMT -5
Because while you may be physically an adult, you can emotionally and intelecually still be a child. 14-15 year-olds, while physically adults are still capable of making the kind of errors in judgement you'd expect from an 11 or 12 year-old. I don't remember where I heard this and I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I've been told that the voting age in America was set at 21 (at least, until WWII) because studies said that's when people stopped bending so much to peer pressure and started developing their own identities and ideas separate from their peer group. Theoretically, if you let teenagers vote they will be voting what's popular, regardless of what they might believe if they took the time to look at the facts. Like I said, I'm not sure how true this is, but it makes sense to me. Adults still feel peer pressure, but in general they're a lot more individualistic than a group of 15 year-olds. I'm willing to accpet that this is basically true. I read somewhere that the brain doesn't stop maturing until the early twenties or so, and that the last areas to come in are the areas associated with what we would call maturity and sound judgment. I sitll think that most legal minimum ages are rather arbitrary numbers that could have been plucked from a hat for all the good they do. You want to know how to guess the winner of an election and be right at least 2/3 of the time? Bet on the taller man, unless the shorter man has much better hair.
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agamoto
Soldier
Greetings and salutations one and all!!
Posts: 239
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Post by agamoto on Apr 16, 2004 7:24:47 GMT -5
Because while you may be physically an adult, you can emotionally and intelecually still be a child. 14-15 year-olds, while physically adults are still capable of making the kind of errors in judgement you'd expect from an 11 or 12 year-old. They don't always think when they spend their money, they still don't know how to judge whether they can trust a person, they're quick to jump to conclusions, and they're still very very much influenced by peer pressure. Now, there are always exceptions. There are 11-year-olds who can immediately tell whether they can trust a stranger or not and there are 25-year-olds who still don't know how to keep more than $30 at a time in their checking accounts. But the usual case is that people don't emotionally/intellectually mature until their 20s. I believe the reason for this is that they are brought up that way. people are capable of maturing at the rate there culture maintains. for instance, in medaevel tims one was competent at a younger age because they were raised to be. I is a cultural thing and therefore there is no definitive set age at which a person becomes an adult. I could be 8 or maybe not till 30(yes I have met some 30 year olds who should not be allowed to be on there own).
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Post by Merkuri on Apr 16, 2004 8:30:13 GMT -5
You bring up an interesting point, Ag. Yes, emotional maturity came earlier in less advanced periods of history, but the question is why. Is it because the environment forced them to mature earlier than today, or just that the standards of maturity have changed between then and now? It's very possible that children in the middle ages matured at exactly the same rate as children do now, but they were just seen as more mature because the standards of maturity were lower. Remember that people were less educated back then and life was less complicated. Harder yes, but complicated no. It took more muscle and stamina to live back then than it did brains. In today's world it takes more brains. An exceptionally smart child who grew up in a peasant household would still be more valued for his ability to plow fields than his ability to think logically and maturely. The mind and the body mature at different rates, and since the body was more important back then a child was seen to be fully mature when his/her body was mature. Today the mind is more important (for the most part) and so a child is seen to be fully mature when his/her mind is mature. But there's really no way to know for sure. It's not like we can go back and talk to a 14-year-old from medieval europe to judge if she was more mature than a 14-year-old today. All we have is documents to go by, and those don't always give accurate representations. Though, judging by one exceptionally famous representation of a medieval 14-year-old who killed herself over a day-old love affair, I'd say they were just as emotionally mature as the 14-year-olds today.
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agamoto
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Greetings and salutations one and all!!
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Post by agamoto on Apr 16, 2004 8:44:56 GMT -5
Alright, when dealing with love we are in the relm of chemical imbalance and instability, anyone of any age may react just as violently as the 14 yearold.Chemical imbalances change the rules entirely.
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Post by khyron1144 on Apr 16, 2004 15:18:17 GMT -5
Alright, when dealing with love we are in the relm of chemical imbalance and instability, anyone of any age may react just as violently as the 14 yearold.Chemical imbalances change the rules entirely. So true. I think someone once said that love sets us free. It would be more accurate to say that love makes us stupid.
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Post by Merkuri on Apr 16, 2004 15:43:19 GMT -5
I think someone once said that love sets us free. It would be more accurate to say that love makes us stupid. So does anger, fear, pain, joy, and just about any other emotion you can imagine when felt strongly enough. Love just gets more attention, for some reason. One of the more common measures of mental maturity is being able to recognize impulses that come from strong emotion and deny them if the need be. Romeo and Juliet had puppy love. Not very often do you hear about thirty-year-olds falling head over heels in love after a short time like that. Why? Because it's something you grow out of. It might be one of the last things, but it happens to most people eventually. Note that I said "most" people. Everyone matures differently, and some folks don't mature at all. We're all different, though there are trends.
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Post by khyron1144 on Apr 16, 2004 22:50:13 GMT -5
So does anger, fear, pain, joy, and just about any other emotion you can imagine when felt strongly enough. Love just gets more attention, for some reason. Note that I said "most" people. Everyone matures differently, and some folks don't mature at all. We're all different, though there are trends. 1) Because love is more durable and predictable. If you've loved somebody for a week or more, your reaction to the end of that relationship is going to be more intense than the anger you get when someone suddenly cuts you off in traffic. If you have a gun on you at the time someone makes you angry, you might shoot someone in anger. You probably wouldn't shoot that same person a week after after you legally acquired a gun and went through that cooling off period. Ditto for fear. People rarely shoot themselves or others out of joy, although the suicidally depressed are often uncharacteristically happy right before the actual act because the decision is made and the conflict is over. 2) I totally agree. Maybe we should give people rights based on their actual capabilities. That might sound absurd, but consider the more absurd possibility: a U.S. president without the full intellectual capacity and emotional maturity of a normal thirty-five year old. Of course, I already think we got one, but I'm sure Galadon will tell me differently.
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Post by Merkuri on Apr 17, 2004 9:15:06 GMT -5
1) Because love is more durable and predictable. If you've loved somebody for a week or more, your reaction to the end of that relationship is going to be more intense than the anger you get when someone suddenly cuts you off in traffic. I'm sorry, I thought you just said love is predictable. I must have read it wrong. Love is the most unpredictable of emotions. You can't predict what a person will do for love or who they will fall in love with. And as for durable... tell that to somebody who's just gone through a hard breakup. Love can be a very fickle, short-lived thing. Of course, it can also be extremely long-lived when it wants to be, but the duration is by no means constant. True, but if someone makes you angry enough you may still desire to seek them out even after the week wait. Just like the duration of love, the durations of anger or fear are by no means constant. The intensity of the emotion generally dictates the duration. And different people experience emotions differently and to different extents. Like I said, a judge of maturity is the ability to recognize emotions and stop yourself from acting on them if neccesary. The desire to shoot somebody who makes you angry is an example of that. A very mature person wouldn't shoot no matter how angry he got (as long as his life wasn't in danger). But again, people mature differently and we hear about a lot of immature adults like this on the news. Yes, people rarely do suicidally stupid things out of joy, but they still can do stupid things. More than one wild celebration party has been regretted in the morning. Joy can be as intoxicating as anger or fear, just in a different way. A good idea in theory, but bad in practice. Judging the maturity of every single young person in a country (especially a country as large as the US) is impossible. Which is why it may be a better idea to leave such judgements to the parents who know their kids infinitely better than some government official ever will. However, lots of parents don't seem to know how to raise their kids properly anymore. Of course, I'm not a parent and I think my parents did an excelent job, so I probably shouldn't judge.
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agamoto
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Greetings and salutations one and all!!
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Post by agamoto on Apr 17, 2004 18:30:54 GMT -5
Quite frankly, all "emotions" are nothing more than chemical responces, and when we as a species(sp) can overcome and eliminate these responces, we will be much better for having done so.
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