It pisses me off

[ChristianC]

I recently got into a discussion with a friend of mine over IMs.

He's complaining about how society expects you to conform to a model of life, and how it was better way back when you didn't feel this anxiety over fulfilling these expectations, longing after meaningless material things and being a slave of a large, faceless mass of people.

He further went on to complain about how we've developed cures for ADD that makes kids addicted and have effects later in life because we want them to behave like everyone else and conform to the societal norm we expect them to do.

And that we're so obsessed with getting something, we suffer as soon as we want it, and that it would be better if we never had anything to strive for, because then we would be at peace with ourselves.

--

As someone who's studying to become a teacher, I take this very, very personally. I'm spending years to learn the best ways to educate children while at the same time opening the world for them. To guide them and help them fulfill themselves and be happy with their lives. I've got gender-studies to help me identify problems, battle them and bring the students closer together, promote acceptance and diversity.

To give every student a fair chance!

But in an instant he puts everything the educational system is, everything our society is, what it is developing into and what we're striving for into the big lump of negative bullshit that's ruining our species. Never mind that these ADD cures came out of an attempt to give these children a fair chance to be what they want to be, on the same level as the other kids. Sure, it's a society that promotes homogeneity in behaviour, but at the same time we're some of the safest, most well-off people in all of history. And society is a working process! It's not some big stagnant engine!

Hell, the idea of adolescence and the search for identity has been around for only a little over a hundred years! For crying out loud, being a homosexual was a friggin' sin punisheable by stoning!

It burns my ass that somone can act so damn high and mighty and say the system we're in is shit. In comparison to some fantasy paradise when everyone is happy (read Ideology), then sure, but when we have generations of people working to make things better for their children, then it means something!

People fought, cried and fucking bled for the rights we have today, don't shit on that!



WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE!

[BrainWalker]

Your friend is either an anarchist slacker retard, or a Zen Buddhist.

The whole "it would be better if we never had anything to strive for" thing has me leaning towards the former.

The world may be fucked up, but sitting on your ass and bitching about it isn't going to change anything. I should know, I'm quite adept at sitting around on my ass.

[Capntastic]

His perspective is all wrong. You can act however you want, just don't expect people at large to reward you if you act in ways that they don't approve of. Expecting to be loved unconditionally no matter how you act is childish.

With regards to the ADD medication example, some people have a legitimate need for the medicine. Yeah, it's not for everyone, but it can benefit some people. No adult is forced to take ADD medication against their will, that I know of, and in the case of minors, it is their parent's decision.

At my work, a customer that comes in about two times a week is very obviously schizophrenic. He'll go from wholly fine to shouting abusively about moving calendars and other half-real stuff. He's sort of scary to be around, and dealing with him adds an extra step of caution to my job. When he's on his medication, he's much nicer.


As for his attitude sustaining low achievement, why does he feel the need to waste his one life not trying to be the best person he can be?


Your friend's an angsty baby.

[pd Rydia]

You are completely right to get pissed off by the BS he's spouting, for all the reasons you state.

I do think you should consider the idea that this guy isn't saying this stuff because he legitimately believes it so much as he really, really wants to believe it because it's more pleasant than facing reality. Sounds to me like he's got--at the least--depressive issues, and is desperately afraid to come to terms with it and a possible need for psychotropics. It is incredibly common for people to react to this fear* by trying to rationalize away the legitimacy of the whole of psychology and psychiatry.

*(And there's a lot to be afraid of--from the very real and often unpleasant side effects and cost of medication to social ostracization. And, of course, having to rework your definition of self, wondering what your personality will be like after medication, accepting your "weakness," etc.)

[ChristianC]

Yeah, things have cooled down a bit, and it helps that we get into arguments a lot, we're still buds, and we apologized.

First, yeah, he's expressed interest in Zen Buddhism recently, and I'd assume that's where he get these arguments from, and although I'm glad for him that he's found something to believe in, I have a hard time when someone isn't good at defending those arguments with their own words (mainly because I used to jump between ideologies and ideas at the drop of a hat, and get angry whenever someone disproved me, and obviously I still tend to do that).

This guy has had it a bit rough to be sure, and for a while his life wasn't looking that great, smoking weed, not really doing anything with his life. He is now though, which I think is a great improvement, but that's also one of the reasons this whole thing ticked me off. The arguments he used were too much like his old way of thinking and got me worried (I should point out, as well, I still found the arguments in themselves annoying regardless), so to hear him spout this depressed anti-society dogma made me worry he's considering going back to the way things used to be.

I think the main reason for why I got so angry was because it was a punch against exactly the kind of stuff I'm doing, and will be doing in the future. Right now I spend hours every day reading, debating and thinking about these issues, and for someone to come spout biased, unfounded and misguided ideas about it made me really, really angry.

I should get out more.

Thanks for the support guys, although I admit that I don't really feel like this is something that should've, or could've been won. I just wanted to vent my frustration.

We do figure-studies together on Mondays, so I'll speak with him face-to-face about it.

[pd Rydia]

It's cool you're studying to be a teacher, btw. What age-level?

[ChristianC]

Ages 13-19, so basically the last three years of grade school(?) and then High school. It's a little bit different over here in Sweden.

I've already taken my bachelor's in English (it's three semesters of your chosen subject, then three semesters of a subject approved by the department of your 'major') with Japanese as a 'minor', and I will be graduating my pedagogical studies, with my teacher's degree/permit (hopefully) by the end of next spring. I'm aiming to go to Japan during that summer to apply for work there as an English teacher to improve my Japanese to a respectable level so I can teach it over here without feeling like a jackass (1½ year of Uni studies in a language will HARDLY make you fluent) and then I'm hoping to get a job over here once I've done a few over in the land of the Rising Sun.

No wants to stick around over there at the moment, but that might change.

So that's the unabridged version of it!

I'm hoping this recent trend of "japanese comics", or the colloquial "manga films" is a trend that will stick around for a few years, but I doubt they'll outlive the 2010s. </sarcasm>

I'm so thankful for Japanese popculture being so strong here in the West, they're the only reason I might get a job as a Japanese teacher over here.

[Besyanteo]

Ages 13-19, so basically the last three years of grade school(?) and then High school. It's a little bit different over here in Sweden.

Over here that's Middle school (11/12-13/14) and High School (13/14-17/18), plus 18/19, at which point lots of folks head off to college. Either way, woo teens.

[Shinigori V2]

A couple things I should point out here.

Unless something's changed in the last few years, there's no "Cure" for ADD/ADHD. There's medicine to control it, but that's doesn't mean it's a cure. And it's not given out to make kids act 'normal', it's prescribed because ADD, true AD(H)D is DISRUPTIVE AS FUCK.

From my standpoint, it sounds like your friend is disappointed at the world for not being handed everything he wants and is purposely trying to be non-conformist and sound deeper than he really is.

[pd Rydia]

But as we all know, Shini, ADD/ADHD and depression and bipolar and schizophrenia are just terms lazy parents use when their children don't act the way they want to! They're cover-up terms for unique and beautiful PERSONALITY TRAITS and good parents shouldn't turn to dangerous, mind-altering drugs or money-grubbing doctors to try to drug away these perfectly healthy PERSONALITY TRAITS into submission.

Which is the one and only reason anyone ever seeks medication for mental illness, ever.

[la_chibi]

I laugh through tears. Thank you (I think) Mama Dia.

[pd Rydia]

I laugh through tears. Thank you (I think) Mama Dia.

You are welcome! Remember, tears make you stronger! (So long as they are manly anime tears and/or no else sees them.)

[Kai]

He's complaining about how society expects you to conform to a model of life, and how it was better way back when you didn't feel this anxiety over fulfilling these expectations, longing after meaningless material things and being a slave of a large, faceless mass of people.

And when was THAT ever the case? People have made some awesome points in this thread and your friend is having a serious Buddhism!Fail right now, but I just keep looking at this assertion and boggling. At what point in our history have we not been materialistic? Is he seriously yearning for our hunter-gatherer days (which, granted, were lazier and easier aside from things like diseases and animal attacks and childbirth) and whatever?

[ChristianC]

Wow, yeah, this kinda spun on. I haven't talked to him about this since we had our discussion, but I agree with most of you people that he hasn't really thought through this entirely, or hadn't... but he actually apologizes for smack-talking teachers, and frankly he might've not been able to express everything in words and stuff. And yeah.