Pretending is ingrained in us from the very beginning. As a child, we would sit Calvin & Hobbes style in a box and blast off to space, or watch the Muppet Babies invent crazy worlds and adventures, or turn a sandbox into a Jurassic playground. Imagination is one of the very components which make us human. We have the ability to invent things in our heads and seemingly make them real.
However, while imagination should be encouraged, and is quite frankly important to all aspects of science, technology, advancement etc., it also can be overdone.
As a society, there are some things which we ‘pretend’ that actually change the way we live. This can have serious consequence. But what is worse is that we pretend things that don’t make sense, just like thinking a box is a space ship and four -inch dinosaurs can terrorize our backyard…
We pretend things like people don’t swear, smoke, drink, insult each other, fight or argue. We pretend that age has something to do with abilities. In Canada you can legally consent to sex at 16, but can’t purchase a tape to watch others have sex until 18. You’re old enough to vote for the leader of our country at 18, but not mature enough to consume alcohol until 19. You can choose to purchase potentially deadly cigarettes at 16, but can’t sign a do not resuscitate until 18. We pretend that people shouldn’t die, and that when accidents occur it is always someone’s fault. We pretend we can protect society by putting in place legislation to enforce laws against people who purposely break the laws already in place.
The Canadian Women’s Hockey team, who just took gold at the 2010 Olympics, were seen after the game sharing beer and cigars on the ice once the stadium had cleared of fans. They have since come under fire, because one of their stars was just 18 and, of course, everyone below 19 doesn’t drink, therefore they were setting a bad example. On top of that smoking in a public place!? You must be joking! That is illegal in British Columbia! The problem is that every law has a purpose. For example the “No Smoking” laws were put into place to stave off second hand smoke in people who choose not to smoke. If I am at a private party where all parties consent to smoking, then why does it matter that the place was public or private? In a room the size of a 20,000-person stadium the smoke from 15 cigars would be like placing a droplet of cyanide in the ocean and calling it poisonous water… And a member of a professional hockey team having a drink before she is ‘legally’ allowed to? I’m surprised she wasn’t doing a line of coke off the naked thigh of their goalie. Just 6 days before this event, John Montgomerie (gold medallist in skeleton) walked through Whistler with a pitcher of beer in his hand, and not only wasn’t chastised, but was celebrated on CTV as “an every Canadian man.” Last time I checked drinking in the streets was still illegal.
RDS recently had a commentator make a derogatory remark about openly gay skater Johnny Weir. A gay activist group immediately filed a complaint to the CRTC and demanded an apology from RDS. But Weir himself asked, “Why?” He fully acknowledged that this is a free country and people have their opinions. It doesn’t matter if your opinion is ignorant in a free society; you are still entitled to it. People will always fight, and have ungrounded opinions. Pretending otherwise is not only foolish, but detrimental. If no one has the right to disagree with anyone else then in what way are we free?
NBC repeatedly showed the Georgian Luger in his final grave moments, finding new people and things to blame and then issued an apology when their Shaun White’s coach used a curse word (which are in themselves arbitrarily chosen and changed on a regular basis) on live television. It’s fun to pretend when people fuck up they say ‘frak’ and ‘derrnit’, but all we are doing is further perpetuating the falsehoods that are turning everyone into whining, snivelling babies when anyone does anything they don’t like.
Pretending is fun. It really is. But hell, even the Bible says we are born to sin, so even the Christian right has to agreethat watching an 18 year old have a sip of booze is expected (assuming that is a sin and not some arbitrary human-made rule) and two guys kissing is just a spec in the eyes of their God to the other 6.5 billion humans out there with the potential to lust, murder, adulter, steal, etc. Let’s stop pretending people and society are perfect and start enjoying the fact we are different and can make our own decisions as long as they have no adverse effect on others.
The Great Pretender
Pretending is ingrained in us from the very beginning. As a child, we would sit Calvin & Hobbes style in a box and blast off to space, or watch the Muppet Babies invent crazy worlds and adventures, or turn a sandbox into a Jurassic playground. Imagination is one of the very components which make us human. We have the ability to invent things in our heads and seemingly make them real.
However, while imagination should be encouraged, and is quite frankly important to all aspects of science, technology, advancement etc., it also can be overdone.
As a society, there are some things which we ‘pretend’ that actually change the way we live. This can have serious consequence. But what is worse is that we pretend things that don’t make sense, just like thinking a box is a space ship and four -inch dinosaurs can terrorize our backyard…
We pretend things like people don’t swear, smoke, drink, insult each other, fight or argue. We pretend that age has something to do with abilities. In Canada you can legally consent to sex at 16, but can’t purchase a tape to watch others have sex until 18. You’re old enough to vote for the leader of our country at 18, but not mature enough to consume alcohol until 19. You can choose to purchase potentially deadly cigarettes at 16, but can’t sign a do not resuscitate until 18. We pretend that people shouldn’t die, and that when accidents occur it is always someone’s fault. We pretend we can protect society by putting in place legislation to enforce laws against people who purposely break the laws already in place.
The Canadian Women’s Hockey team, who just took gold at the 2010 Olympics, were seen after the game sharing beer and cigars on the ice once the stadium had cleared of fans. They have since come under fire, because one of their stars was just 18 and, of course, everyone below 19 doesn’t drink, therefore they were setting a bad example. On top of that smoking in a public place!? You must be joking! That is illegal in British Columbia! The problem is that every law has a purpose. For example the “No Smoking” laws were put into place to stave off second hand smoke in people who choose not to smoke. If I am at a private party where all parties consent to smoking, then why does it matter that the place was public or private? In a room the size of a 20,000-person stadium the smoke from 15 cigars would be like placing a droplet of cyanide in the ocean and calling it poisonous water… And a member of a professional hockey team having a drink before she is ‘legally’ allowed to? I’m surprised she wasn’t doing a line of coke off the naked thigh of their goalie. Just 6 days before this event, John Montgomerie (gold medallist in skeleton) walked through Whistler with a pitcher of beer in his hand, and not only wasn’t chastised, but was celebrated on CTV as “an every Canadian man.” Last time I checked drinking in the streets was still illegal.
RDS recently had a commentator make a derogatory remark about openly gay skater Johnny Weir. A gay activist group immediately filed a complaint to the CRTC and demanded an apology from RDS. But Weir himself asked, “Why?” He fully acknowledged that this is a free country and people have their opinions. It doesn’t matter if your opinion is ignorant in a free society; you are still entitled to it. People will always fight, and have ungrounded opinions. Pretending otherwise is not only foolish, but detrimental. If no one has the right to disagree with anyone else then in what way are we free?
NBC repeatedly showed the Georgian Luger in his final grave moments, finding new people and things to blame and then issued an apology when their Shaun White’s coach used a curse word (which are in themselves arbitrarily chosen and changed on a regular basis) on live television. It’s fun to pretend when people fuck up they say ‘frak’ and ‘derrnit’, but all we are doing is further perpetuating the falsehoods that are turning everyone into whining, snivelling babies when anyone does anything they don’t like.
Pretending is fun. It really is. But hell, even the Bible says we are born to sin, so even the Christian right has to agreethat watching an 18 year old have a sip of booze is expected (assuming that is a sin and not some arbitrary human-made rule) and two guys kissing is just a spec in the eyes of their God to the other 6.5 billion humans out there with the potential to lust, murder, adulter, steal, etc. Let’s stop pretending people and society are perfect and start enjoying the fact we are different and can make our own decisions as long as they have no adverse effect on others.