Borges on flattery

[Graham Barnett]

"The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing."

Jorge Luis Borges

[stimmung79]

Why is the flattery of posterity worth anything?  To ask the question ab it different - why should we care about what posterity thinks?  i've been thinking about this question for a long time now and nobody has ever given me a good answer to this question.  Why should we care about the future of the human race when we'll all be dead in 100 years?

[Gord Barentsen]

That's a good question.  I used to think  (albeit many moons ago)  that we were instinctively predilected to  care about future generations.  As I get older though I'm less and less sure of that.

I don't know if we even have a meaningful  conception of "posterity" snymore when so many of us live in this hyperreal present where everything seems to be more reaction than action.

[stimmung79]

I think we ARE hardwired, but to care for a "family" of 7+ billion people, 99.9999% of whom we don't even know?  Where's the logic in that - evolutionary or otherwise?

[Graham Barnett]

On 6/25/2017 at 6:01 PM, stimmung79 said:

I think we ARE hardwired, but to care for a "family" of 7+ billion people, 99.9999% of whom we don't even know?  Where's the logic in that - evolutionary or otherwise?

@stimmung79 good question.  maybe with the current meanness in the political atmosphere things are beginning to swing the other way?

[chacheng]

but isb't it instinct for us to bind ourselves to future gens. through love and protection?  isn;t that an antidote to this cynicism (which i dont agree with)?

[Graham Barnett]

On 7/6/2017 at 10:29 AM, chacheng said:

but isb't it instinct for us to bind ourselves to future gens. through love and protection?  isn;t that an antidote to this cynicism (which i dont agree with)?

I;m not so sure about instinct, since there are plenty of abusive and exploitative parents out there among the countries in the world.

[stimmung79]

but i suppose there's also the instinct for self-preservation or self-gratification, which for some parents (and others) overrides an instinct for child protection?

[NotWithoutMyOntic]

On 7/6/2017 at 10:29 AM, chacheng said:

but isb't it instinct for us to bind ourselves to future gens. through love and protection?  isn;t that an antidote to this cynicism (which i dont agree with)?

maybe to a limited extent. but i can't think of a single organism that numbers in the billions that survived by treating each and every one of its units with "love."

I also read somewhere that in terms of the history of organisms on the planet, it's typically the simpler organisms (bacteria, amoebas, etc) that survive the longest.  We complex organisms are historically screwed. 

[Gord Barentsen]

On 7/12/2017 at 2:43 AM, stimmung79 said:

but i suppose there's also the instinct for self-preservation or self-gratification, which for some parents (and others) overrides an instinct for child protection?

Yeah, I wonder if child protection isn't a projected form of self-gratification sometimes....(yeah yeah, I've never had children but still...the way some parents talk about their children.. )

On 7/12/2017 at 6:43 PM, NotWithoutMyOntic said:

I also read somewhere that in terms of the history of organisms on the planet, it's typically the simpler organisms (bacteria, amoebas, etc) that survive the longest.  We complex organisms are historically screwed. 

Fewer moving parts, simpler needs...makes sense to me.

[stimmung79]

On 9/5/2017 at 9:19 PM, Gord Barentsen said:

Yeah, I wonder if child protection isn't a projected form of self-gratification sometimes....(yeah yeah, I've never had children but still...the way some parents talk about their children.. )

do not get me started....self-entitled parents are among the lowest forms of life!!  i remember being with friends trying to find a place to play baseball in a Toronto park many years ago...we found a diamond and were getting set up to play when a horde of parents and their spawn showed up....one father walked right up to us and blurted out something to the extent that they had a permit to play some Little League game or something and we had to get out....

...and you know, it was all about the way this asshat went about it.  Not "could you please leave because we've arranged to play here?" bit more like "you are hereby interfering in my need to project my childhood failures on to my children....now get out!"

Self-entitled parents - the ones who think you have to work around their need to sow their seed - are the worst.