Dunno

Go and do the dishes!!

I live with my brother and some days, with my dad and it is not easy to live with two boys. Many times I´ve been mad because they ask me what´s for dinner, how come they cannot go into the kitchen and discover if there´s something, and if there´s not, at least cook ? This is my mother´s fault. 

I always say that she raised us (me, my sister, brothers and even my dad) in a very chauvinist manner and that can have its consequences. Matthew C. Gutmann describes in his essay The meanings of macho, how men started to have hometasks and how women became a source of money for the house. He relates that 50 years ago a man would have never gone to the supermarket though nowadays is a common task between boys and girls. 

The essay relates the necessity of a country where women were the only possible source of making money and men had to stay at home and do cleaning, cook and take care of the children. This is not only a women´s achievement but also a reborn of men´s consciousness in front of a hard task. 

Sherry B. Ortner, an anthropologist realized about these changes and explained in his essay Theory in Anthropology since the sixties, how postmodernism created a pattern for these changes. Postmodernism is concerned with changes in time and place and that is exactly what happens in Mexico. A grandfather wouldn´t be able to understand that his grandson is

in this case it is perfectly situated. Men and women are almost equally when talking about task that can keep a family safe. Of  course there will be some cases where the men´s strength or the women´s kindness will be needed but this is different. 

Today, after living during 3 years with my brother I can say that he goes to the supermarket, irons his clothes, makes the dishes and even sweeps. We left the sixties away but now there´s one more problem. Men and women are becoming so equally that they are confusing their natural ways of being. 

Ta.

A few days ago, a friend of mine showed me a video on youtube. It was about a pair of twins that tried to communicate to each other just by saying: “ta ta tatata ta “. It was not that funny but amazing that they seemed to actually understand to each other, though they have not acquired a language yet. At the next morning, the same video was everywhere, in the tv, the newspapers and in every web site on the internet. 

The twins used their hands and facial expressions to communicate. The first on doing it, pointed with his finger the other twin´s feet to show him that one of his socks was missing. The other twin laughed about it and answered to what his brother was saying. 

The amazing about it, is the fact that we as humans, get impressed by this as we have en entire way of communicating. Besides the language we use, there are the physical expressions and the consciousness of what we are saying. This last point is something that we acquire through our lives: the capacity of coherence of discourse according to the situation we are living. The twins in this case cannot participate in a coherent conversation but still they communicate things in their own manner. 

The twins laughed, smiled, talked to each other and made physical movements to give emphasis and communicate something that they were not able to communicate as we do, by language. They will grow up and will learn how to combine the communicative processes in order to communicate with the world, meanwhile they will do it this way, hopefully without feeling frustration by not being able to express what they really want. 

(Source: youtube.com)

Anything but extravagant, honey.

More than a hundred years separate me (us) from corn-pone opinions by Mark Twain (1901) yet I´m quite sure that if he had written that nowadays, it would be a perfect description of our society as well.

What he argues is that all opinions regarding topics such as politics, moral and religion (or even fashion), are part of a collective thought. What might start as a new, unique and extravagant thought, action or behaviour, becomes in a short period of time a new common idea for all those who need to feel accepted within a group. So, the person who wants to separate himself from the other trying to do something “new” finally gets unifying everybody under his/her innovation.

In every place we go, there´s always a leader who commands the group and even if there´s no group, he would create one. When this happens, there´s always people who will die for following the leader’s orders, so in this way they could be part of something. I actually don´t know who is more afraid of being out of the common acceptance and I really think that it is the leader who has a huge need not only for being part of something but also of feeling special within that group. And as Twain wrote in 1901 “The outside influences are always pouring upon us, and we are always obeying their orders and accepting their verdicts”.

The author described his own society and it´s unbelievable to think that more than a century after that, things still work that way. The main difference is that people at the beginning of the 20^th century tried to imitate social rules that will categorize them as educated people and the thoughts they shared were more about the topics mentioned before, such as morals, politics and religion. It has always called my attention that people in past years always tried to be part of the educated and illustrated group and I even believe that it is kind of acceptable to imitate the good manners. Nevertheless, nowadays people imitate anything and as we can see in every part of our lives and experience ourselves, we almost imitate only the bad things and not the most appropriate things.

Mark Twain died 101 years ago, and as he wrote in corn-pope about the fifteen years old boy who carefully listened to his gay-black friend, I carefully read now this article, that with no exception is an amazing description of how things were at the beginning of the past century and to realize how little society has changed in the most essential topics during years. 

what time is it?