I am calling, in fact, for a society with the integrity and the honesty to include itself in its criticism, and one which confronts the fact that its central narratives are pleasant fictions. Your father's hard work played a major role in his life. Again and again, that hard work was subject to pure chance, random accidents, crass casualty. And they, more than anything else, are responsible for the final content of his life, like they are for anyone else. That's not comfortable, but it is true, and since it's true, we should work to craft a society that doesn't praise itself for its justice and equality while it punishes those who have the misfortune of having been born in the wrong time and place. That's judgment, for you, real judgment, the kind that's less interested in narrative and more interested in reality.
If you think that Paris Hilton has really not enjoyed a life entirely the product of the accident of her birth, I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you.
2009-02-09 02:12:23
There’re winners and there’re losers, and the category in which you end up is largely in your own hands.
I'm sorry, Phil, but that's just utterly at odds with real life, and believing it disqualifies you from the ranks of the thoughtful.
2009-02-09 01:57:25
Struck a nerve, I see.
2009-02-09 01:38:49
My point exactly: Philip Primeau does not know of what he speaks.
It's easy for everyone who's not in it and hard for everyone who is. Funny about that.
2009-02-07 20:49:08
Freddie I know it is your gut reaction to phrase the challenges faced here by hyperghetto residents
too true, too true, bah.
The commenter archive features may be temporarily disabled at times.
I think you're overreacting, Phil.
I am calling, in fact, for a society with the integrity and the honesty to include itself in its criticism, and one which confronts the fact that its central narratives are pleasant fictions. Your father's hard work played a major role in his life. Again and again, that hard work was subject to pure chance, random accidents, crass casualty. And they, more than anything else, are responsible for the final content of his life, like they are for anyone else. That's not comfortable, but it is true, and since it's true, we should work to craft a society that doesn't praise itself for its justice and equality while it punishes those who have the misfortune of having been born in the wrong time and place. That's judgment, for you, real judgment, the kind that's less interested in narrative and more interested in reality.
If you think that Paris Hilton has really not enjoyed a life entirely the product of the accident of her birth, I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you.
There’re winners and there’re losers, and the category in which you end up is largely in your own hands.
I'm sorry, Phil, but that's just utterly at odds with real life, and believing it disqualifies you from the ranks of the thoughtful.
Struck a nerve, I see.
My point exactly: Philip Primeau does not know of what he speaks.
It's easy for everyone who's not in it and hard for everyone who is. Funny about that.
Freddie I know it is your gut reaction to phrase the challenges faced here by hyperghetto residents
too true, too true, bah.