Lawrence DeBivort wrote:
Assuming one has the means to raise children, why would one want as a matter
of priority to limit their entropic behavior?
I would have less reason (although no less
*desire*...) to do so if I had the "means", i.e.,
extended family or servants to clean up the mess, and
enough money that what they destroyed would not be
noticed in my budget. But I don't like to waste
anything even when I have more than enough money to
throw at the problem.
Before having a child, I never appreciated that servants can
perform a *social* as well as a technological function.
Since I believe that less is more and ornament is crime,
I am happy to focus my mind on eliminating from
my lifeworld most of the things that people spend time on
but that do not contribute to cultural formation and
self-formation (Bauen + Wohnen + Denken ++ Bildung, to
give Heidegger a little help...).
But one cannot technologically get rid of feces filled diapers,
and diapers, unlike the cats' litter box, do not
seem to me microcosms of Ryoanji (the latter thought
twice a day helps me deal with cleaning the cat litter box:
I think of it as Buddhist monk temple garden raking duty/prayer...).
Activities that some adults consider wasteful, such as destroying toys, are
part of a child's learning patterns. Better to encourage the child to learn
about the world (and entropy) while a child, than to postpone those lessons
to adulthood when the stakes will be much higher.
Did you miss the part where I said that such activities are
appropriately done at the day care center, where there
is staff, and presumably the space has been designed,
to deal with such things.
Do you really think that George W Bush's destructivity
is a result of him not having been allowed to
destroy toy oil well models as a child?
It takes a village to raise a child.
Previously I would have thought that was an interesting
sentence. Now I feel it viscerally.
And extended family: previously I just thought extended
family was a generically good idea that needed to
be just slightly modified to filter out relatives
being nosey and the p/matriarchs using the power of the
purse to jerk everybody else around. Now I see
the need for extended family (esp. if one cannot
have servants...) in every diaper full of fecal matter.
Maybe my problem is simply that I never did and today still do not
like to play with feces. (I am surely not
fully "analyzed"...)
\brad mccormick
Cheers,
Lawry
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Brad
McCormick, Ed.D.
Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2003 7:17 AM
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] Some Thoughts on brephotic entropy
(The Greek word for infant is: brephos)
Small children are powerfully entropic.
A goal is to limit the energy they dissipate
and the disorder they introduce into the system.
(1) In feeding them, only give them A LITTLE BIT.
That way, if they don't eat it less is wasted and
if they mess with it instead of eating it,
there is less mess to clean up.
(1a) But make them understand that if they eat the
little bit, they can ALWAYS have a little more.
This way they should not be frustrated by
having just a little.
"Take what you want; eat what you take." (Army mess hall poster)
(1b) If the child makes any mess, best for the
child to clean it up immediately, but second best
for me to clean it up immediately and for
the child to see that I am cleaning up the
mwess he made, and that he will get nothing
new until the existing mess is cleaned up
("keeping up with the problem").
(2) Anything messy, the child can do only in
day care, where there are other people paid to clean it up.
--
I am listening to New Agey radio (Ellen Cushner "Sound and Spirit"
on WNYC @ 07:00 Saturday AM). She cites JFK as saying
that we can always have courage, in any situation: We
don't have to wait for a special situation to be courageous.
We the unwilling, led by the unknowing,
Have done so much with so little for so long,
That now we are qualified to do everything with nothing.
(--The Computer Programmer's credo)
Waste not, want not. (Lemma of 2nd Law of Thermodynamics)
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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