Shameless Self-Promotion, Part Deux

In my continuing effort to conquer the internets, I did some more guest blogging for those misogynists over at Rules to Date Girls By. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out!

Violence, Aggression, Soccer, and Genetics

I'm not typically a physically aggressive person (verbally aggressive, sure, but most of my verbal threats are quite hollow). However, when I play soccer I become highly aggressive. In my mind, the soccer field is a field of battle and honor, and no victories will be won by the enemy that have not been hard fought and well earned. On the soccer field I put aside mercy, compassion, and kindness in the name of battle, power, and wrath. And my soccer playing makes me wonder just how determined I am by my ancestral heritage.

For, you see, my ancestors were German. Germans have a long history of being a proud and noble warrior people, from holding their own on the battlefield against most of the rest of the world not only once, but twice, all the way back to their barbarian roots fighting on the northern border of the Roman Empire against the Romans. And, while I am quite proud of my Germanic roots, I can't help but wonder how much of the aggression I feel on the soccer field is directly tied to the barbarian warrior blood that flows in my veins.

And, if genetic ties still linger from thousands of years and generations ago, this does not bode so well for free will. For, if my actions can be so heavily influenced by things that are so distant in my genetic history, it can be inferred that the things much more recent, such as the actions of my parents, have even more influence. Anyway, just thought I would share some off the cuff musings on the nature vs. nurture argument.

“The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness.”

"The Sum of Intelligence on the Planet is a Constant; the Population is Growing."

Sometimes I worry about the intelligence of future generations, specifically here in America. Children are increasingly becoming less and less required (or even encouraged) to read with the proliferation of video technology, and this coupled with the rapid growth in text messaging is leaving children unable to spell. With all the ways we communicate with each other electronically, face to face human interaction is becoming less and less prevalent. In a grand irony, our very need to constantly stay connected to one another may just be the thing that tears us apart.

Just imagine a world where we are "chained" to our cellphones, unable to pull ourselves away from them for even a moment for the fear that we will "miss something", while the world around us passes us by. We avoid one-on-one face-to-face human contact, and even when we are in such situations our lack of basic language skills that should be learned from reading leave us incapable of being able to express ourselves in an articulate and coherent manner.

If you ever get a chance to read the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, I highly recommend you do so. Bradbury's book is about a world in the not so distant future where society has become entirely hedonistic and anti-intellectual. Children roam the streets at night seeking violence and mayhem to distract themselves from the adults who are too busy watching wall-sized televisions and imagining the programs which they view to be real social interactions to take care of their children. In this world, books have been outlawed due to the ways in which they threaten the common man and make him feel insignificant and unintelligent. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman and, since house are now fire-proof, the job of the firemen is to find and burn any and all books.

The most jarring thing about Fahrenheit 451 is not that the world has gone to hell in a hand basket. There were plenty of similar dystopian books written about the same time. What makes this book stand out to me above other classics such as Brave New World and 1984 is that there is no outside force that sought to remove books from our homes. There is no Big Brother or drug that makes sure we stay placated and unintelligent. We did it to ourselves. The majority of people stopped caring about knowledge, and the intelligent minority threatened the happiness of the masses by making them feel like they weren't good enough. We wanted books gone, and the government gave us what we wanted.

So, please, I'm begging you: put down your cellphone for an hour and have an honest-to-goodness real life conversation with someone. Or pick up a book and read something that will expand your mind and make you more intelligent. The world doesn't have to be like this. We are in charge of our own destiny, and it's up to us to make sure that we as human beings don't devolve into glorified monkeys. It's not too late.

“The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness.”