My brain is forcing its way out through my nostrils

But what of that. Here are my thoughts for the day.

One: Birds.
Two: Some typical thoughts on the myth of assumed knowledge aquirement, or 'common knowledge.'
Three: I need sleep.

Two is probably the only one worth reading. Anyway.

One: Birds. Angry birds. What exactly do birds look like when they're angry? This thought struck me last night. I have this image in my head of a bird with a big pointy beak and eyes slanted in a very human expression of rage. But do birds really have the facial muscles to display emotion in this way? Even if they do, why should they bother? It seems to me that I have very likely been lied to somewhere down the line, but I'm not sure where. I know that a lot of birds are angry, like geese for example, who I'm pretty sure are absolutely furious about everything all of the time. But even though I have plenty of (unrepressed) childhood memories of being chased by angry geese along the banks of the Potomac, I can't recall what their faces looked like at the time. I don't think they had slanty eyebrows. I think anger is more expressed through the sharp, open beak. Still, it's just another example of how the popular imagination, fueled by childish notions of art spawned mainly by comics and other non-representative media, skews one's very perception of reality.

I remember once-- must have been 3rd or 4th grade-- in an art class in elementary school. The teacher was trying to emphasize drawing from life, which was hard, because Barney the Dinosaur had taught us all that what mattered was our imaginations. So anyway, we were trying to draw pictures from magazines or something, and this friend of mine, he just didn't get it. He was trying to draw this sort of Asian-looking kid who was hanging upside down (I think it was from an ad for something) and he couldn't do it. The teacher would tell him, "Don't draw what you think you see, draw what you see." But he kept drawing a circle for the head, two circles for eyes, a distended ovaloid for the mouth, and a bunch of spiky lines for hair. If I remember correctly, he ended up completely frustrated by the whole thing. Which makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, when he looked at that picture he actually saw a horribly cartoonish parody of the human form, and what it would imply about his character and life in general if such were the case.

Okay, so that's one.

Two: Some typical thoughts on the myth of assumed knowledge aquirement, or 'common knowledge.' This comes up a lot with me recently, mainly because I live with quite a few guys who are either very smart or feel that it is very important that they be perceived that way. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but it does lead to the perception that knowledge which is basic to them should be basic to all human beings living in the western hemisphere. This means that any time a situation presents itself where such is proven false, they are baffled and conclude that any individual lacking such knowledge is a moron.

So, for instance, they are appalled at someone who would use a metal instrument on a Teflon pan. Or someone who doesn't know how to clean and defrag their computers hard drive. Or any number of other things. And these are in fact very simple pieces of what are essentially common sense (note that I cleverly used two examples which are both things that I do know, in order to project the appearance that I am as intelligent as the people I reference here) but what is really so common about them anyway?

Many things, like using a smoke hood while cooking, are logically deducible by the presence of a) smoke and b) a smoke detector. Other skills and knowledge sets are not. For instance, how should I go about getting a job? No one has ever bothered to tell me, and yet it's assumed that this is a basic skill which everyone knows how to do. I mean, I can figure out the basics-- ask for an application, turn it in, send in a resume, etc. etc., but then what? What do I do when they get back to me? What do I do if they don't get back to me? This is something that I have never done before.

Now, this is an example which is rather easy to figure out, and I expect to do so with little difficulty. But where the real fun begins, and where the real social ramifications come into play, is where we deal with social skills.

Every interaction we have with our fellow man, with very few exceptions, is more or less scripted. This can range from a very specific script, such as a formal exchange of greetings, to a very rough, reality-TV style script where people are improvising what they say but know their supposed role in the conversation and are more or less sticking to it. So long as everybody knows the script, everybody gets along just fine. However, as maturity develops and people begin to enter into social situations without guidance, individuals are forced to deal with the fact that they don't know what the scripts are anymore. Some of these individuals have models to follow, or, on the other hand, to not follow. This is the family/community-influenced path of development. Others simply blunder in courageously and come out with some set of scripts which, while not perhaps optimal, seem to obtain results. Many of these are horribly flawed, but even these are able to achieve success given that any script can work so long as the other party(s) buy it. This we may call the existential model for development, but it is just as convenient to think of it as a purely random model, since the results are essentially unknown. Finally, the third category of individual is one who, unsure of the appropriate scripts to use and unwilling to venture blindly ahead, seek a low-pressure environment where scripts are more easily found and can be developed slowly over extended periods. Now, many of these individuals react to individuals of the second type, catching to their wakes in a way analogous to followers of the first type. The difference is that the models for behavior are new, and not defined by existing standards. Others stay in isolation or seek the company of like individuals, and form small-scale social models of their own. In general, though, this can be thought of as the limited form of social development.

Now, this last one can be exaggerated to the point that even basic societal standards are simply unknown to the individual. This is unfortunate, but logical. Still, this is nothing more than outcast culture, of which there are many forms, none of which are any better than the cultures they claim to be outcast from. But kh-anyway.

The important point here is that new models are developed only by blundering about and getting people to buy your bullshit. Therefore, the majority of such models may be considered to be amoral or evil, since they bestow almost infinite social power on anyone willing to take a chance at it, and, as we know, power corrupts. Also, the sort of chance that is involved can only reasonably be motivated by a very real perceived reward, so most of the people that take such chances have very clear ideas about what they want and won't let other people's pesky moral models get in their way. Now, that isn't to say that all such models are amoral, but the Darwinian nature of societal models implies that a restrained, moral take on social interaction would likely attract few adherents at best, and thus have little extended influence.

So. The nature of new social models is to be amoral and chaotic. However, established social norms are well-ordered, and generally involve at least some moral overtone. Since these models must come from somewhere, we have to assume that they evolved from the primitive models and found that the best way to gain widespread acceptance was through stability, conflict resolution, and a sense of meaning. The models which best express these traits become more or less entrenched and remain that way. Further flaws are worn out of them by the passing of time-- for instance, feminism redefined the role of women in society and thus rewrote all the scripts at once, making them less discriminatory and restrictive.

So perhaps there is credence in the sayings from every period in history, that hold every generation becoming progressively amoral than the last-- because this is actually true. However, since an amoral culture would never survive, such models always resolve themselves, either by reconciliation with the current model, revolution back to a previous social model, or syncretism with a foreign model.

And all of this happens because no one tells their kids anything useful. This is why every child in America should be taken from their parents and raised by MacGyver. Not only would they learn everything there is to know about physics, they'd learn everything there is to know about relationships that typically last no longer than one hour and climax in a platonic kiss.

That was a longer one, but I hope you're still with me here.

Three: I need sleep. Obviously.