Snow is a great thing. Really truly.
I saw Milk today. Really good movie. If you haven't seen it, go see it. Seriously incredible.
I spent a solid portion of today reading the Comics Curmudgeon. There's a link in the previous post I think. Or before that.
Also talked to Isabella about school and whatnot. Figured out what I missed on thursday and friday (being at model congress and all).
We had a class meeting... we tend to do that when things get crazy. And evidently, things have been crazy. Isabella and I had a pretty interesting conversation about authority though.
My opinion:
People with redeeming qualities deserve respect. Most people are nice or smart or something, so I tend to assume this means everyone.
But no one deserves authority. People are inherently in charge of their own actions (and I'm having an existentialist moment-- this always happens on snow days for some reason. Was Sartre a snowman?). If someone tells you to do something and you do, it's still your decision. If they threaten you, you decide doing what they want you to do is better than like, being shot or whatever, to use an unnecessarily violent example.
Not even your parents/teachers. The reason we give parents authority is that as much as teenagers hate to admit it, they tend to be right about things. Not always, and I'm lucky to have pretty rational parents with usually pretty good advice, but in general they know what's going on. There are of course exceptions. And when my parents tell me to do something I think is stupid/pointless, I tend to ignore them. It just doesn't happen that often.
My decision.
And yes, sometimes they tell me to do things that would be a good idea and I ignore that too, out of laziness or contempt or whatever. I'm sixteen and am somewhat entitled to my idiocy.
Teachers too have our best interests in mind, generally. Obviously if you teach math you think math is super awesome and should be taught.
Occasionally, people in authority are wrong. At which point, that needs to be recognized and addressed.
Example: School administration responded poorly to unspecified event. Students display disapproval by means of black-wearing.
And as I've said before, teacher respect is totally a two way street. If we want to be treated like adults, we ought to act like them.
But I think it's completely rational for us to ask to be treated like adults, even if technically we can't vote and our brains have a little way to go before they're done. Although one day I know I will go back and read this and laugh at my naivete, I feel pretty mature and independent.
So I wasn't at this meeting, but that's probably what I'd have said if I had been there...
Or in the grand style of Clara-public-speaking, I would have said, "Okay, so there's respect-deserving, and then there's authority-having, and we need to differentiate, because we should be treated like adults too, but we're like, teenagers, so it's all kind of messy and... yeah"
At which point, Chanel would say "You and the talking..." and I would receive several looks saying "wait... what?"
Because I don't tend to make sense, especially under pressure.
Although I argued pretty coherently in favor of prostitution.
Love always,
Clara
