Jenny’s Pennies

What are you going be when you grow up? Who hasn’t been asked that question. As young children, we answer that we want to be fire-fighters, rock stars, football players, ballet dancers, fighter pilots (that was me). And that answer is seen as cute and filled with innocent hopes and dreams. It may even be encouraged, with ballet lessons, soccer practice, and a child sized fire-fighter costume for playing dress-up.

Then we enter the school system. Here, we are expected to sit down and be quiet, until it’s time for P.E. class, when we are instead expected to jump and cartwheel on command. We are supposed to be children, to be innocent and playful and curious. “Kids are growing up too fast these days” complain the adults and point to 12 year old girls in short skirts and eye shadow. “What are their parents thinking, they look like sluts!”, they say, while bemoaning that the 12 year old girls are being called “bitch” by their class mates. No, we are not supposed to grow up too fast. Not when it comes to clothes and make up and sex and drinking. But at 15, we are expected to make choices that, say the adults with very serious voices, are determinant for our future. And you need to know long division to pass this course, if you don’t pass it that is going in your grades, and your future employer will want to look at those grades, so you better learn long division, otherwise you may be doomed, doomed I tell you!

Now, when being asked what we are going to be when we grow up, answering football player or rock star or ballet dancer isn’t cute and innocently hopeful any longer. By now we need to have realized that life isn’t fair and that those were just silly dreams (not having realized this is usually the fault of lax parenting and a school system that puts to much time into drawing and singing and talking about feelings instead of teaching life-necessary skills such as long division and sitting down and shutting up).

The “perfect girls” in this age are now dreaming of becoming lawyers and doctors and international aid workers. They are striving for perfection, for getting those good grades that everyone tells them are so important, and they know that it’s never too early to have a good CV and make yourself employable, so they do volunteer work and start projects and write blogs. (I say girls, because it largely seems to be girls who are striving for this kind of perfection). But somehow that is wrong too, they are being told. Don’t they realize that perfection is impossible? Don’t they realize that there is more to life than getting a high status “exciting” job? Don’t they realize that you need time to relax and “just be”?

When we’re out of school, we are given some leeway. When you’re 20, it’s kind of okay to work in a café, save money and then go off to Laos for three months. Sitting around playing guitar hoping to land a record contract is frowned upon, but can be looked by if it is “only a phase”. But then you pretty much have two choices - either get a job and then it’s pretty much expected that you “settle down” (oh how I loathe that phrase!) and start a family, or you go to university and further your education, thereby putting off the “settling down” thing a few years (but not too many!). And then you really need to think about what you are going to be when you grow up (because even if you have moved away from home, travelled alone in Turkmenistan, held 10 different jobs and live with your long time partner, you still haven’t “grown up”).

(Here, I diverge from the story a little to dwell on the fact that today in society, we lack rites of passage of becoming an adult. Before, you we’re an adult when you had gone through confirmation in church. At a certain age, you we’re expected to lay off your children’s clothes and were given the superficial attributes of adulthood - a woman’s coat and gloves, a man’s costume and hat. Nowadays, we have nothing like that, and transferring into adulthood is a process which takes years. I’m 28, married, have two university degrees, have worked a number of jobs, have all kinds of life experiences, but according to some people I’m still not really an adult, since I have no children or a permanent job - the ultimate signs of having “settled down” and thus being a true, productive member of society - an adult.)

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I read this old post over at The Republic of T, and it really got me thinking. It’s called A question on dailogue and T writes:

When I first came to D.C. to work in politics, and to work specifically on gay rights issues, I was told and came to understand that people fall into three categories when you’re working for social change:

1. The people who are on your side.
2. The people who aren’t on your side, but could be if they’re persuaded.
3. The people who are not on your side and never will be.

The first group you need to talk to in order to keep them informed and motivated. The second group you need to talk to in order to make your case and move them to your side. Talking to the third group is a waste of time and energy better spent shoring up support in the first group and winning support in the second group.

There are some interesting thoughts in the comments section. I have been thinking a lot about this ever since reading it a few days ago. Is there any point in talking to people from the third group?

I have a morbid fascination for reading letters to the editor and reader’s comments to newspaper articles. I also read a lot of blog comments. And very very rarely have I come across anyone who has said, after being faced with arguments from “the other side”: you know what, you’re right. I’ve changed my mind.

Of course, it is possible that we can “plants seeds” of thought in their heads by exposing them to our arguments. But then on the other hand, I can’t see myself changing my mind on issues like the death penalty, sexual and reproductive rights, or GLBT rights, however many opinions and articles on these issues I read from people with views opposite of mine. So why should we have any more luck with them?

Another view is that we have the responsibility to at least try to educate the people from group three. But as a commenter over a T:s said, there is the old saying about never trying to teach a pig to sing. It will only waste your time and annoy the pig.

There is always the argument that you shouldn’t let people speak unopposed, but call out their logical fallacies, their propaganda, false use of statistics, straw-men arguments and other dirty tricks (I touched upon that here).

I wholeheartedly agree with that, but I think it is much more efficient to use the counter-argumentation to solidify the support of group one and sway over people from group two. I think it’s more efficient to say “look what x said about gay rights - here’s why x is wrong” instead of addressing x directly (given that x isn’t someone you personally relate to, like a family member, or that x is actually interested in open, honest discussion).

As T writes:

So I start to wonder, given all the above, why they’d want to waste their time in a dialogue where both parties are immovable. It’s then that I wonder if, for the third group, engaging in dialogue or at least pretending to is a tactic because if you’re talking to them you’re not talking to the people in the first and second group. And if you’re not talking to the people in the first and second group, spending your energy arguing with the third, then you aren’t making any progress on your goals.

This is a tough issue, and I really don’t know where to come down on it.