Lookin' for someone to blame
My fighting girlfriend is fighting with me and poetry isn't doing the trick. I think this time it might be bickering. Bickering is what you do when you're bored and irritable. You fight over dumb shit. We've both got secure jobs, the kids are fine, the rent is paid and there's plenty of food. She's a fighter, god bless her, and like any way of being, it's got pros and cons.
There's a school of thought that humans got smart because large tribes split up, and then the smarter sub-tribes killed off the dumber tribes. Which is to say, us-and-them is at the very core of what it means to be human. According to this model, the most obvious and easiest tool to backburner the petty stuff is a common enemy.
My brother and I invented an idea for world peace. We suggest armies of totally rad sword bots. These awe inspiring machines of terror will attack cities and towns all over the world. But they're swinging swords, so you can just shoot them. Every now and then some dumbass will get eviscerated. We'll make sure to get it on film. Then mass media, vultures that they are, will give grave faced warnings about disturbing content before they show it over and over again in slow motion. We'll all recoil in horror and cling a little tighter to each other. We'll wring our hands over the dozens (dozens!) of lives lost to this global horror. Politicians will make promises. Grandmothers will give warnings. Gun nuts will be heroes. Punk rockers will get sword bots. Everybody wins.
My philosophy is, humans are sly and determined creatures. You can try to deny them what they want, but then they'll just sneak around and get it a different, probably worse way. I mean, welcome to prohibition. Your best bet is typically to give them what they want in a safe, intentional way.
More realistically than sword bots, this is probably the point of sports. It's a nonviolent way to get all tribal. It creates constructive enemies. My fighting girlfriend is a Packers fan. Maybe I need to jump on that bandwagon and we can get angry at the Vikings together or something. Or maybe I can just wait around for some other inevitable fight to show up at her door.
There's a school of thought that humans got smart because large tribes split up, and then the smarter sub-tribes killed off the dumber tribes. Which is to say, us-and-them is at the very core of what it means to be human. According to this model, the most obvious and easiest tool to backburner the petty stuff is a common enemy.
My brother and I invented an idea for world peace. We suggest armies of totally rad sword bots. These awe inspiring machines of terror will attack cities and towns all over the world. But they're swinging swords, so you can just shoot them. Every now and then some dumbass will get eviscerated. We'll make sure to get it on film. Then mass media, vultures that they are, will give grave faced warnings about disturbing content before they show it over and over again in slow motion. We'll all recoil in horror and cling a little tighter to each other. We'll wring our hands over the dozens (dozens!) of lives lost to this global horror. Politicians will make promises. Grandmothers will give warnings. Gun nuts will be heroes. Punk rockers will get sword bots. Everybody wins.
My philosophy is, humans are sly and determined creatures. You can try to deny them what they want, but then they'll just sneak around and get it a different, probably worse way. I mean, welcome to prohibition. Your best bet is typically to give them what they want in a safe, intentional way.
More realistically than sword bots, this is probably the point of sports. It's a nonviolent way to get all tribal. It creates constructive enemies. My fighting girlfriend is a Packers fan. Maybe I need to jump on that bandwagon and we can get angry at the Vikings together or something. Or maybe I can just wait around for some other inevitable fight to show up at her door.
Comments
Post a Comment