Saturday, June 19, 2004
reagan, vegetables, abortion.
this is a placeholder for a rant about how i feel about abortion today. been pondering a thread over at alas a blog.
all very clear in my head right now, but i might never get it written down.
why does killing fetuses matter? how is a fetus like ronald reagan, in his later stages of alzheimers?
who is an other, for the puposes of the kantian imperitive,
treat others as you would have them treat you?
the solipcists' convention: do other exist?
eli weisel, in "night", writes about a crazy guy, asort of holy man or village idiot, who had introduced young wesel to kabbala, jewish mysticism sort of like sufism or zen. then he goes away and comes back with stories of terror and holocaust, only he isn't believed, being the village idiot.
weisel's jouney from transylvania to auschwitz and buchenwald
has helped us understand, but we have no one to tell the stories of the millions of unborn babies turned into burnt offerings. should i care?
in jail, someone was asking why i couldn't eat the murdered animals they tried to serve us as if it were food.i told the story of the day i was 6 that i spent with my hand caught in a muskrat trap. i've known what it is to be a trapped animal.
jail was so unendurable for me exactly because it was like being 6 again, like being 4 again, in that photo where my father is trying to get me to hold still for the camera and i can see myself inwardly screaming 'let me go!'
i was 17 when i got away, and being in jail for three weeks brought so much of it back.
maybe i'm autistic. i don't like being restrained, or having my personal boundaries transgressed. other people don't seem to see why this would be a problem.
i have trouble making myself understood.
there's something about abortion that bothers me.
it might have something to do with treating a person as a thing. i have the same trouble with, say, hamburger. to the other guy, the hamburger is a thing. to me, it's the corpse of a person, and needs a decent burial so that its spirit doesn't haunt me, stalking me in the dreamtime.
i am, i guess, more attuned to the suffering of others, some others anyway, than some other people are.
my diagnosis is major depression.
i cope by avoiding stressful situations and activities.
i try to create a zone of safe space around me, a barrier to the outside world with its violence. not too effectively lately.
some, reading this, see only the ravings of a madvark. some might see the glimmer of where i'm coming from.
update: here's monique with an opposing viewpoint.
this is a placeholder for a rant about how i feel about abortion today. been pondering a thread over at alas a blog.
all very clear in my head right now, but i might never get it written down.
why does killing fetuses matter? how is a fetus like ronald reagan, in his later stages of alzheimers?
who is an other, for the puposes of the kantian imperitive,
treat others as you would have them treat you?
the solipcists' convention: do other exist?
eli weisel, in "night", writes about a crazy guy, asort of holy man or village idiot, who had introduced young wesel to kabbala, jewish mysticism sort of like sufism or zen. then he goes away and comes back with stories of terror and holocaust, only he isn't believed, being the village idiot.
weisel's jouney from transylvania to auschwitz and buchenwald
has helped us understand, but we have no one to tell the stories of the millions of unborn babies turned into burnt offerings. should i care?
in jail, someone was asking why i couldn't eat the murdered animals they tried to serve us as if it were food.i told the story of the day i was 6 that i spent with my hand caught in a muskrat trap. i've known what it is to be a trapped animal.
jail was so unendurable for me exactly because it was like being 6 again, like being 4 again, in that photo where my father is trying to get me to hold still for the camera and i can see myself inwardly screaming 'let me go!'
i was 17 when i got away, and being in jail for three weeks brought so much of it back.
maybe i'm autistic. i don't like being restrained, or having my personal boundaries transgressed. other people don't seem to see why this would be a problem.
i have trouble making myself understood.
there's something about abortion that bothers me.
it might have something to do with treating a person as a thing. i have the same trouble with, say, hamburger. to the other guy, the hamburger is a thing. to me, it's the corpse of a person, and needs a decent burial so that its spirit doesn't haunt me, stalking me in the dreamtime.
i am, i guess, more attuned to the suffering of others, some others anyway, than some other people are.
my diagnosis is major depression.
i cope by avoiding stressful situations and activities.
i try to create a zone of safe space around me, a barrier to the outside world with its violence. not too effectively lately.
some, reading this, see only the ravings of a madvark. some might see the glimmer of where i'm coming from.
update: here's monique with an opposing viewpoint.
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