Skip to main content

The Source of All Discord


Few people enjoy the sound of silverware scraping porcelain. It is worse even than the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard because you are often enjoying food when it occurs, which interrupts the pleasure of food and family. It may not, in fact, be all-too shocking to hear that eliminating this horrid sound will, according to my calculations, end all human warfare and usher in an era of peace.

 Here is why: all conflicts start because individuals are not raised in peace-loving homes. A child accidentally scrapes his porcelain plate with a knife, which causes the elder sister to wince. Noticing this response, the child laughs and, wanting to reproduce his pleasure, scrapes again. The sister then sucks in her breath sharply and tells the little one to stop. Mother and father, having also been raised in porcelain-scraping homes, begin to laugh, encouraging the child to scrape even more profusely.

 Incensed, said sister-- at a loss now as to how to counteract her brother's wayward behavior-- grabs hold of him and begins to shake his shoulders as a firm warning against continuing. Not to be outdone, the brother responds in kind, grasping his sister by the shoulders and shaking vigorously. The two, now throttling one another, wrestle until both are exhausted and until their parents banish them to their rooms.

 The problem of porcelain-scraping does not end here, however, for said brother has now learned a valuable lesson that he eagerly takes into adulthood. The lesson is this: you can agitate any passer-by, and thus have your way, with nothing more than a simple fork and plate. Thus, the conflicts he learned in childhood as a result of his porcelain-scraping, he now employs in the public arena, and thus produces all the rivalry, discord, and warfare we all perceive to be a ubiquitous part of our existence.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...
Post a Comment
Read more

Comparison

Psychologists and others have studied ways in which we compare ourselves to each other. One man named Leon Festinger argued that we tend to compare ourselves to other people when we don’t know how good or bad we are at something (like football or playing the guitar). One way we do this is when we compare ourselves to those who are not as good as we are, to protect our self-esteem (called “downward social comparison;” example: we’re playing basketball and miss most of our shots, but we feel okay because a teammate wasn’t even given the ball). Another comparison we make is when we compare ourselves to others who are doing much better than we are (called “upward social comparison”). When we see others who appear to be doing better than we are, we can respond by trying to improve ourselves, or by trying to protect ourselves by telling ourselves it’s not that important. There was a study published in 1953 by Solomon Asch, who asked students to take part in a “vision test.” The par...
Post a Comment
Read more

Noise

I started writing this on Friday. It's far from perfect, and I might change things around, but it's done for now. It's a narrative poem whose main character loses hope, hears a familiar sound from heaven, and finds himself alive again. It's a spin off of a poem I wrote on as part of another post in January. In any case, I hope you like it. Noise Silent songs stop playing Through chambers cupped and curved Through insides of once softened space Through dreams once less deserved Familiar sound pours forth past gates Past sentries long in dream Reaching ears that long went deaf To roar its endless theme Piercing past the sound of noise Through whispers breathed for free Booming, distant, fast-felt sky Makes its quiet mark on me On again, and up to play Songs come from deep below May not be played for list’ning ears Still thunder soft and slow Mirroring their master’s tune With awkward tarnished rings Played through doubt on hopeful frets Play sile...
Post a Comment
Read more