On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Miles Jackson wrote:
> Newborns cannot care for themselves; the act of conception requires at
> least some social interaction. How can anybody even seriously claim
> humans could exist as a species without social interactions?
Ideology is a remarkable thing. People will pound the table and tell you that the one truth they know for sure is that they were born alone and they'll die alone. And if you point out that actually, when they were born, their mother was there, in a hospital full of thousands, amidst a division of labor involving millions -- and that a hospital is also where they'll probably do most of their dying -- they'll act like you've used some kind of trick argument.
But then, people are always saying that the poor should pick themselves up by their bootstraps, even though, physically speaking, that's impossible, and as a metaphor is equivalent to saying the poor should go take a flying fuck at the moon. And yet people say it as if it should shame the poor and not themselves.
That thing Goebbels said about repetition inducing the feeling of truth? It's really true.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com