The Competition

I spent this weekend at two large parties (one is Baltimore and one is DC) that involved a number of my friends and their significant others. Needless-to-say, there was “drama.” People talked, people bitched and people fought. For any individual, friends tend to not like mates and vise versa. I have come to understand quite clearly why.

I believe there are two types of love- conditional and unconditional. Unconditional love is what one feel towards one’s family. They can wrong one over and over and one still loves them because they are kin and basically extensions of one’s self. It is clearly possible to not like one’s family, but still love one’s family. Other love, romantic or between friends, is conditional. One participates in it because there is gain. Friends and significant others provide company, support, sympathy, entertainment, advice and economic benefit. It is unusual to earnestly dislike one’s friends or mate. If they wrong one enough to outweigh the gain they provide, one usually dump them and or stop speaking to them.

So, it is not surprising that the friends and the mate of an individual do not get along. Each of them is vying for the time and attention of an individual. Time and attentions lead to all of the benefits that friendship and partnership provide (company, support, sympathy, entertainment, advice and economic benefit).

Of course, most people are aware of this competition. It is rather famous and overly apparent in entertainment (i.e. Chasing Amy, Hootie and Blowfish songs, sitcom premises). So, in an attempt not to be selfish and petty, people lie to themselves and claim that the reason they dislike the other party is because of love. Only because they love an individual do they hate the freeloading and abusive other party. The old I-only-hate-because-I-love argument. Please. We’re selfish beings.

Think you, your friends or your significant other are immune to these feelings of jealousy and competition? Think again. It is no coincidence that significant other s that “hang out” are preferred over ones that don’t. It is no coincidence that significant others like friends that you rarely see over your good or local ones.

Man, I must have heard these lines each a dozen times this weekend (without the blah blahs):

Blah blah is crappy because s/he’s ignoring blah blah.
Blah blah doesn’t appreciate blah blah.
Blah blah spends all of blah blah’s money.
Blah blah is whipped by blah blah.
Blah blah is secretly gay and wants to be with blah blah.
I never see blah blah anymore because of blah blah.

Now, of course, there truly are some bad friends and mates for an individual, but recognition by the other party of them tends to be rare. The individual enters into relationships and continues them because of gain and enters by his or her own free will. It is unlikely that the relationship would not be to their advantage. If it were, it would end. People then bring up brainwashing, insecurity, people being pushovers and other fantastic theories. In the end the “wisdom” of the mate or friend is not very credible as they have interests. Its like Ford telling you that Chevy’s are bad trucks or vise versa.

Sadly, what complicates things is there is little one can do to make a situation better. Even if one chooses to not to be jealous or hate someone, the other party may still choose to be jealous and hate. People tend not to like people that do not like them, so hate spreads. Additionally, individuals are swayed by the words of their friends and mates. One can lose a friends or mate because others have conspired against you.

Sadly, only in a situation where all three people (the friend, the individual and the mate) are big people who are aware of their actions and feeling is there a possibility for harmony. Good luck.

The Future Song of the South

When I was very young, I remember being taken to see several Disney films in the theater. No one had videos back then. Instead, like many kids, we had a few Disney vinyl records to entertain us. Along with Bambi, Robin Hood and other memorable movies, there was a classic movie called Song of the South. Don’t remember it? It’s the one with Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear. You know, there’s that Tar Baby. It was also famous for “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Ah, now it’s coming back.

But why is it only coming back now? There’s no forgetting Snow White, Cinderella or all the other Disney movies and songs. Why haven’t they re-released Song of the South in the theater? Why isn’t it on video? Why no Song of South ride? Why no Song of the South 2: Uncle Remus’ Christmas? Well, basically, the movie, by modern standards is considered racially insensative. Disney pretends the movie doesn’t exist.

The movie stars Uncle Remus, a carefree, heavily accented southern black man. He tells old southern black folk tales. The costumes, the accents and the attitudes of the characters weren’t meant to be demeaning, but today they come off that way. It’s all very similar to the way something seems very wrong with Aunt Jamima or the Cream of Wheat man. In 1946, when the movie came out, it was not seen as very offensive. Times changed, of course.

It all makes me wonder which movies will be forgotten tomorrow because of their insensitivity. In Weird Science, the word “fag” is thrown around like it only means “jerk.” In Sixteen Candles, there is the famous Long Duck Dong. In Revenge of Nerds, a girl is raped, likes it and starts dating the rapist. Re-watching these movies causes me to cringe. New movies would never try these antics (which is perhaps why they have moved to gross-out humor).

Will Gangster Rap, 50 Cent or even Lazy Sunday be considered insensitive and erased? Only time will tell.

Growing old is so odd in that nostalgia is selective. Like a time machine, there is an attempt to change the past in order to change the present.

Easter Island Paradigm

Many consider the fate of Easter Island a warning for the Earth. If a society consumes natural resources recklessly, that society will fail. Certainly, an environmental lesson can be drawn from the island, but other social phenomena occurred over the course of the Easter Island civilization that tell us much about humanity as well.

Polynesian colonists arrived at Easter Island as early as 500 AD. The island is famously very isolated and comes up from the water quickly. For this reason, it lacks coral reefs to produce much seafood. A thousand miles from any other island, trade was extremely limited. Unlike the rest of Polynesia, the population had to rely on what was solely on the island and little else. Luckily, in the beginning, the island was heavily forested with a number of animal species.

The Easter Island people, at first, thrived and their numbers grew to over 20,000 by some estimates. After the deforestation of the island and the extinction of the wildlife, the population fell. Boats could no longer be built, thus, trapping the population there. By the time it was discovered by Europeans throughout the 1700’s, the population had fallen to around 1,200 and they were described as a thin, meek people. The environmental lesson is obvious.

But there was a long social history as well. Cultural changes followed economic changes.

As Easter Island’s society grew, their monuments grew. The first mammoth heads were built around 1100 AD and the last were built around 1600 AD. Competing tribes, to outdo each other, would build larger and larger heads. Then, corresponding with their ecological disaster, they stopped. Rather than build, which didn’t have the manpower and food to do, tribes would outdo each other by knocking statues down. That practice eventually stopped as resources continued to dwindle.

As the society and environment collapsed, the people of Easter Island began to eat fewer domesticated livestock. They began hunting wild birds driving them to extinction before switching to rats. They eventually fell into cannibalism. The society recovered slightly after the sharp population drop and cannibalism stopped in the Eastern Island community by the time the Europeans had arrived. The society still mentioned cannibalism in its euphemisms, though.

The Easter Island people went from construction during good times to destruction during bad times. Eventually, though, with no hope to compete and only a desire to survive, cultural apathy took hold. I wonder if humans in their personal life follow this same trend. We all seem to go through waves of construction, destruction and apathy as well. Are they simply in response to gain and loss?

It took a long period of time for cultural practices to form and a long time for them to be erased. They followed economic trends, but there was a lag period. Cultural practices are able to take hold with time when there is an economic incentive to (i.e. women working, emigration/immigration, driving smaller cars) and they takes some time for them to go away when economic barriers are removed (low divorce rates, eating chitlins). Is all culture simply economic induced practices and lags?

In retrospect, Easter Island shouldn’t have consumed so quickly and carelessly, but if they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have built those heads and fallen into cannibalism. Those ups and downs made them interesting and remembered. Of course, they were remembered as a being stupid.