From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Tue Sep 03 2002 - 02:18:44 MDT
From: "Phil Osborn" <philosborn2001@yahoo.com>
> At my first high school, a rude, stupid, low-life,
> poor-white trash institution ...
It may be convenient (although not reasonable) to compartmentalize groups of
people - but it seems the law of diminishing returns kicks in on this
perceived efficiency when one resorts to calling people trash. I know I
brought this up before, and I know some people will dismiss this as "PCness"
... but I still think referring to (and thinking of) human beings as trash
(however figuratively) only serves to diminish us.
> a certain "Abbie," whose distinctions to my knowledge
> consisted of being truly abysmally physically
> unattractive and having the rep of school whore.
Doesn't it take two to ... whore? Interesting that even to this day being
"truly abysmally physically unattractive" and having sex for sex's sake
still seem to be the prerogative of males. Although - and I'm guessing
here - Phil's story is about high school culture of some long-gone decade,
it still seems as if many old sensibilities and mores are with us -
abundantly.
> Actually, Abbie seemed like a nice person, but anyone
> who dared to talk to her, or even smile at her was
> branded for life.
I realize you're exaggerating, but it still reminds me of how petty we tend
to be. What's in a name? What's in a face? Who's really free? What makes
for happiness? Who's keeping score?
Olga
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:39 MST