Chew on this

[rockinlibrarian]

Yo. I have here from lady1297 a survey that asks you to state your stance on various controversial/philosophical questions. No, not "What do we know? What do we believe? What, therefore, should I do?" Although maybe I should add that one. ;)


1. Abortion- pro-life or pro-choice? I have been intellectually pro-life from the moment I was aware of the issue, although I have over the years gone from gung-ho March for Life Fight the Power to a more open Well passing a law to ban it at this point in time would be dangerous so the better plan is to act socially, change people’s MINDS instead of laws. But I tell you what, it wasn’t until I went through my own pregnancy, experienced the creation of human life first-hand, that it became more than an intellectual opinion. I truly cannot comprehend it anymore, how a person COULD do it, any more than I can comprehend the murder of an older child. It’s not a passing of judgement on my part, it’s I seriously Just. Can’t. Comprehend. It. I understand, but I don't comprehend, as River says slightly paraphrased in the last episode of Firefly, which was the next Great-TV-series-that-lasted-less-than-a-season that we got and just finished yesterday from Netflix, and renting Great-TV-series-that-last-less-than-a-season is what Netflix is truly all about for us, i'n't it.

2. War- How do you feel about it? Oh, lord, I LOVE war, doesn’t everybody? Seriously, nobody honestly wants war. Except some kinds of sociopaths. My military history buff husband and our friends who are enlisted men and women (woman, anyway), they don’t LIKE war either. It’s just there are certain instances when some people believe it is a necessary evil—and which instances those are vary from person to person. Myself, I believe in defensive war—if somebody’s trying to take you over, fight back. It would be great if there was no more war, ever, but it’s mixed in to human nature, that there will always be some jerks who believe they’re justified in fighting an offensive war – heck, they might even do it because they think they ARE fighting a defensive war. So be against war all you like, it won’t stop it happening.

3. Teen dating. At what age should your teen be able to go on a date? HAHAHAHAH okay I just have no basis for figuring this, having never been on a real date myself until after I could legally drink for half a year. I was already out of the house—well, at college—when my sister started going on Real Dates (though she had been “going out” with guys before that, though I don’t believe this involved any actual “going” or any “out”). And I was SO naïve when I was in high school—it’s probably BETTER I never dated anyone! I don’t know, I suppose this really all depends on the individual kid, how much responsibility they’ve shown, and if you’ve met their date before and trust them okay.

4.Same sex marriage? How do you feel about it? In my mind, same-sex marriage is a lot more moral than heterosexual sex out of wedlock. Think about it. Marriage is commitment, it is love and support, it is giving yourself completely to another. There is so much more to it than sex, and it means so much more than just sleeping with somebody. And I know from watching two good friends come out of the closet that neither would have made the choice to be gay if they had had a choice, so it doesn’t seem fair to deny them the opportunity to have that support, love, and commitment.

5. Co-sleeping? Should your child(ren) sleep in the same bed as you? “You” as in “me,” no. I have let Sammy sleep in the very middle of the bed while I do chores in the bedroom, or maybe one or the other of us was asleep, but unattended, the bed itself is SIDS-risk central—too soft, too many pillows, too tangled covers. Then there’s the issue of ME—I am not a gentle sleeper. I have done quite violent things to Jason in my sleep, usually because I’m dreaming about giant spiders or something—the other night I woke up convinced he was falling out of bed and therefore in terrible danger, and threw myself around him quite emphaticly, only to discover that not only was he not in terrible danger but he wasn’t anywhere near the edge of the bed—I would not want to risk my nocturnal flailings around someone so much smaller. Plus, face it, it's hard enough to find mommy-daddy time when the kid has his own ROOM even. Now, I suppose this does work for other people. I just wish the people on the internet who do wouldn’t go on about it so much about how much more of a loving person they think it makes them gads I HATE the granola-mom guilt-fests and am so almost ready to quit the baby communities were it not for the cute pictures…

6. Vaccinations? Should you have your child vaccinated as per schedule? Speaking of the granola-mom guilt-fests, I did not even realize this was an issue until I joined in the online mommy world. I thought it was just what had to be done. And I still think it’s just what has to be done! At least in the case of life-threatening diseases—I don’t agree with the chicken pox vaccine, I rather have fond memories of my bout with chicken pox even though it WAS during my sister’s funeral. Same with flu. Except in certain high risk cases. But in general, the benefits outweigh the risks, and I have so much more cause to be wary of the risks than half the people who go on about it do. But in this case, those folks don’t really make me feel guilty so much as exasperated. With them, not myself.

7. If you won the lottery, or received a large sum of money what would you do with it? Would you donate to charity, and which one? (Please answer all three questions) SOOOO pay everything off. House first. Then I would donate to the Canonsburg Public Library—they are already building a new, larger building, so I would earmark my donation for IMPROVING THE CHILDREN’S COLLECTION, thank you very much.

8.If you found out that your daughter/son was gay how would you react? Would you be supportive? Well, not supportive like “You go! Go have gay sex now!” Nor would I be all “Don’t have gay sex!” Like I said, from the experience of watching two of my best friends come out, I would focus on other things: how are YOU feeling? What are your thoughts, concerns? Have you talked about this with anyone else—what was their reaction? See where the kid’s at with this. At this point, they are probably not concerned with whether or not to engage in homosexual behavior, they’re just trying to figure out who they ARE. So I would just ask thoughtful questions and let them talk it out. Socratic method.

9. If your loved one (mom,dad,wife,husband,child) was on life support, and the doctors said they had no brain activity (vegative state) would you "pull the plug" and would you donate there organs? I don’t know if I could just “pull the plug”—I’d feel better if they’d never gotten plugged in to begin with. But I guess you can’t really know if they’re going to go brain dead on you all the time ahead of time. If there was absolutely no chance of survival and the life support was absolutely the only thing going, I might, if that was the person’s wishes. Organ donation, definitely, though.

10. If you just got a divorce, would you start dating right away? Or would you wait awhile? Hah hah. Harkening back to question #3…. Granted, I’m much less shy and certainly less naïve than I was as a teenager, but it took me a really long time to start dating, period; and if my heart’s just been broken—and face it, it would have been broken PRETTY BAD if I’d gotten a divorce—I’d rather not think about dating at all. My energy would go into my kids and my writing and I probably would be completely oblivious to the thought of dating. It would be more like, people I know would try to set me up with people, and that would be the only likelihood.

11. If you found marijuana(or other street drugs) in your pre teen or teenagers (son/daughters ) room or wherever how would you react? What would you say to them? Whip out the science on their butts. Had a great series of books in the S-R library on different drugs and what they actually do to your body. The genetic probability that our child would respond to that sort of evidence is pretty high. Assuming our kids DO turn out dorks like us. And then I’ll play them some early Barrett-era Floyd and then some Syd Barrett solo stuff to compare, and finish with, “See?” ;P

12. In todays world, How would you feel about your son/daughter joining the service and being deployed over seas, and not seeing them for over a year? Scared to death, but that goes without saying. With the movie collection we have in this house, it’s a good bet they know what they’re getting into if they make the choice to join up, so I’ll have to support their choice, but dang. I mean every time we watch “We Were Soldiers” I look at Jason about five times throughout and say “I’m glad you’re not in the army anymore.”

That's it. There really should be more. There are more deep questions that ought to be added, so I'll think of a few. How about:

13. Would you kill someone who was trying to kill you? Your loved ones? A stranger?
This is one that we have seriously discussed in our arsenal house, of course, when someone's got a concealed weapons permit for that very purpose. Jason's answer to all three questions is a firm Yes-- he could do it, he'd be likely one of the only people at the scene who could, so it wouldn't be right for him not to, to save the innocent lives. But when we discussed the idea of ME-- or anybody-- carrying a concealed weapon, Jason brought up a very good point-- if you have any doubts that you could kill a person if you had to, then you're probably safer WITHOUT a gun-- carry mace or some other subdual weapon instead. And I do have doubts. I don't think I COULD kill a person on purpose, even someone trying to kill me. Subdual would be my first thought. Try to knock 'im out. then let someone else deal with 'im. If I can't, then I just better hope Jason's there!

14. What's your stance on government programs for the poor (welfare, food stamps, etc)?
This is actually a funny one in our house now because we actually do get WIC checks (and Sammy's on Medicaid, but that's not funny so much as just necessary). It's so cheesy because sometimes they're just a pain in the butt, and I remind myself that beggars can't be choosers, but I have way more dried beans than I will ever use, and yesterday I made Jason give three dozen eggs to his parents because they were just going to go bad here, and even I can't use all the milk we're given in a month. No refunds, no exchanges! Still it's handy for the milk we CAN use.... I guess this sums up my feelings, that government programs are nice in theory but would be better and would probably better satisfy their detractors if they were more efficient and less beaurocratic! Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, this is also my stance on the public school system. Hey, that's one...

15. How do you feel about the current state of public education?
The schools do not get the credit they deserve. They are full of teachers who really care about their students, but when one teacher does something stupid, the media makes them ALL look bad, and when school's standardized test scores are low, the politicians blame the teachers. So you end up with parents who don't support the schools and governments who meddle too much in them. If teachers were allowed to teach the way they were taught in college, education would be a lot better, but instead they are forced to Make Everyone Happy instead. I just wish it wasn't so by-the-book. I'm not sure I would have wanted to continue teaching even if I WAS good at class management, once they took my standard (1.8: "Research") off the PSSA. Way to make a media specialist feel useful, guys.

Okay, I could add more I guess, but that's all I can come up with at the moment, besides core questions, which I don't feel like answering right now, mostly because I'm nursing which already makes typing complicated; and it's an even fifteen, so how about YOU add more. There's your challenge for the day. Go to it. Don't forget the "what, therefore, should I do?" part.

Comments

[vovat.livejournal.com]

No, not "What do we know? What do we believe? What, therefore, should I do?" Although maybe I should add that one.

That was actually the title that I gave a post containing a similar survey a few years ago, although I don't think anyone who would actually get the reference was on my friends list at the time. I always thought the Core questions seemed a little hokey, not because they weren't significant topics, but due to the way they were phrased. I assume the correct answer to "What, therefore, should I do?" part was always supposed to be, "Write a paper and do a presentation." {g}

I'm probably going to do this survey before I go to bed, although I'm not sure if I'll add anything. Answering the Core questions might not be a bad idea, but I can't remember that many of them.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I remember many of the basic themes more than the actual wording of the questions. I remember the second one was "Do we need art? [What, therefore, should I do?]" but everyone spent so much classtime just trying to DEFINE art that in subsequent years they changed the unit to "What IS art?" instead.

--that would definitely be another good question for the survey.

I think there was one like what does it mean to be human? and something about religion. I forget the rest-- I still haven't finished reading my portfolio. Oh, and individual liberties vs. social order. there should still be two more....

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I remember the second one was "Do we need art? [What, therefore, should I do?]" but everyone spent so much classtime just trying to DEFINE art that in subsequent years they changed the unit to "What IS art?" instead.

Heh, that's kind of funny. I think that unit was when I came to hate the term "copout," because the professors used it in response to about 90% of people's definitions of art, not to mention some of the other subjects we discussed. It sometimes seemed like Core stressed a One Right Answer way of thinking (which isn't to say that everyone had to agree, but rather that they were each supposed to have One INDIVIDUAL Right Answer), which wasn't really in line with how I thought either then or now. I guess that's part of why I've never been much for thesis writing.

I remember that the third Core question was about laws and morality, and the religion one was something like, "Do humans need God and spirituality?". The human one sounds kind of familiar, but I can't remember much beyond that. And I think there might have been one about language. I know that, after a while, they stopped adding the "What, therefore, should I do?", at least on the syllabi, although I guess it was still an unspoken question.