"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Tuesday 20 August 2013

History of Science

I watched History of Science last night on PBS.  I scribbled down a couple of statements:

"Humans are creatures of rational thought and emotional turmoil "

I thought....they've got that right.

'Language. literature and now computers  are the difference between ourselves and animals'

That's right too.

Now that we have social media ,people are recording thoughts in a way never  before possible.

I quoted my first-born grand-daughter's use of a "bad word" a couple of days ago.  She used it as a form of expression to describe a person  who made a  negative comment  about her grandmother

Another person responded that she  is a "rude  little girl who should wash her mouth  out with soap. "

Hard on the heels came another comment  that  I refuse to change no matter what.

I thought the comments were interesting in what they revealed.

The first person assumed my grand-daughter is a child because she  is a grand-daughter.

It is not so. My first-born grand=daughter is of a parental geneation. Her younger  sister has  a

child of eleven. years..my first-born great -grand- daughter.

My first-born grand-daughter is a  Facebook generation.

My Ottawa artist grandson, Patrick, confessed recently to being embarassed to realise that I  read  vocabulary he uses on Facebook. 

He doesn't use it in conversation with myself.   It's obviously common parlance with his friends. 

So what should I make of that.?

Should I attempt to change  my grandchildren's  reality with my idea of   permissible language?

Or  should I go with the flow? 

Do I have  a choice? 

Am I a partcipant?  Or an observer?

A creature of rational thought and emotional turmoil ?

Or different to all the rest?

I doubt I am different.   Except that I have lived longer than most of the rest. 

I have been where they are and know about that. 

I am where they have not yet been  and know stuff they don't. 

Does that call for me to apologise  ?  I don't think so. 

But I o think, seeing our thoughts in writing

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Every day there are new horror stories about people getting bitten on the butt by things they put up on Facebook or twitted to a few hundred ' close friends '.

Anonymous said...

" Australia tourism bosses cause outrage by censoring ' full frontal ' kangaroo Facebook pic "