Do you like to put the "Shxxhxle" (Axxxxle) in a gentle perspective? Yes, I do...
When the us leader condescended on some countries with a vulgar word of “Sxxxhxle”, the gentle and kind scenarios toward this nothing-"surprising"-event may look like these:
Perspective#1
This person intentionally reinforces his base and the non-base with his “non-political innocence”, or “straight-forwardness” which is the non-existent attribute or character of the most career politicians, so both his supporters and dissidents may not fuss up a non-professional business-politician’s cute conducts. Thus, the American people will be saturated with these types of self-claimed genius-acts and loosen up the alert of the continuous narcissistic behaviors. Finally, everyone might as well just drop the potential Impeachments.
You don’t prosecute a mentally disturbed person, even so genuinely faked, do you?
Meanwhile, could you image if the other presidential candidate had won the game, how boring, and disappointed it might have been to the mushrooming media mouth-pieces, including the high time of all sorts of comedians, the booming political junkies and analysts, as well as the hype of Wall Street speculators ?
Furthermore, how the global politic-economic games might have lost its "dynamics", if not the highly demanded the "lime-lights" on the playfulness of the running bull in the china shop?
Perspective#2
It manifests the limitation of the individual life experiences, such as, the ability to put oneself into others’ shoes. As a short story goes that a 2nd grader tells his/her teacher who discusses the concept of life styles between the rich and poor families. The kid raised his/her hand to express ideas, “I think my family is very poor, because our housemaids always wear the same old clothing, my tutors bring in lunch bags without fruits, and my father’s chauffeur’s shoes are so worn out… I think my father does not have money to hire people who are not so poor. My poor daddy.... My family is really poor! ” Social class experiences are unique to each stratum.
Insiders have hard time to comprehend the outsiders’ situations. The empathetic simulations might only capture a glimpse of different life styles and conditions. Between Us and Them, there exists an invisible chasm unable to be crossed over. A good example is this: there was one of the brat emperors in the history when he heard the officials reporting the death tolls of people in a severe famine, “Your Majesty, the mass has no rice, wheat, nor corns to eat. They are starving to death…We need to work out a disastrous famine relief Act as soon as possible...” The emperor, then, absent-mindlessly raised his voice, “Why are you guys so stupid?! If they don’t have rice or wheat, why not just eat meat to stop the hunger?” (朱門酒肉臭, 野有餓死骨). There is a Taiwanese saying, “He who eats rice readily made every day, does not know how much costs a kilo of rice” (吃米不知米價). People taking many things for granted is a part of the habituated outcomes of conditioning.
Perspective#3
Ask these questions and answer honestly - who and which generation truly work hard, if not work smart for the America? Who are those truly representing the US spirit - the land of the Free and the home of the Brave? Who are those living off the social programs, particularly, with their very own decadent downward social mobility, seeking rewards with the least efforts, exploiting those who have hard time to climb up the social ladder?
How does it look like in the US, if you cut off the immigrants of the high-end foreign "voluntary self-enslaving, intelligent labor forces” and the low-end INVOLUNTARY cheap-slaving laborers? What does the middle-end of mediocrity seek, if not comfort, easy life, without getting finger dirty, then what else? A proverb says that the lazy dogs in the manger, complain and force the hard-working, hard-hatted cats away from competing the food sources.
If you recall the history of immigrants, you might encounter the fact that the ONLY people in the US, who don’t take things for granted, are, the First-Generation Immigrants, and in the past, they were probably, your grand-grand-grand… mothers and fathers. They had/have to fight and work hard for everything with vitality infusing into the aging, deteriorating society with new blood. From the shamed native language and learning the new one, struggling and competing for jobs (not with the black, yellow or brown yet), protecting belongings, adapting the new living environment which, sometimes, could relate to life and death. In short, they needed to adapt, adjust, and relearn the new whole cultural package (even within the Caucasian Ethnic groups). But after the successful adaptation, the upgraded status separates them from the new comers. The story repeats itself from the day one of the Mayflower till today in the countries of immigrants, including, such as, Australia, Canada etc. white immigrated nations (WIN), ( those of which are not WIN in the Southeast Asia have different stories). Then, much later, the story was added with different colored classes into this competitive arena.
Perspective#4
Is he qualified to be a typical Social Darwinist baby? The phrase “survival of the fittest” is best understood as "Survival of the form that will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations". Though the notion was originated from the Darwinism, in fact, Herbert Spencer was the first person who coined these words.
Spencer after reading
On the Origin of Species of Charles Darwin, published in 1859, he used this phrase - “Survival of the fittest” in his Principles of Biology, published in 1864. He drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones: "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life". This juxtaposed phenomenon of social and natural sciences might have presumed that human species has the similar evolutionary process to that of the non-human living organisms – those who are “stronger” are on the top of the human totem.
Nevertheless, the questions are, how people are or become stronger, and stronger in what sense? Yes, we do see people like Shaquille O'neal growing up to the 7’1”, 325 lbs., or Michael Jordan being able to jump higher than the basketball hoop, or actress Audrey Hepburn, born with the natural beauty. These are biologically based or naturally endowed strength by human values, as in the animal kingdom, lions with stronger muscles, bigger claws and tougher fangs, will dominate the pride. These values are biologically pre-determined attributes (but determined by Whom, and what?) Nevertheless, if there were not the sport institutions, or the entertaining industries existing and demanding these biologically attractive attributes, then the supreme height, speed, and beauty might have not been discovered, cultivated, trained, or supplied. For example, there was a short story about a traveler who visited Africa. During the trip, he accidentally found a boy who played soccer with kids in a poor neighborhood. The excellent skills of this boy shocked the traveler who, in the long run helped recruit him to the Europe. Then, the story ended with the success, money, and fame bestowed to this used-to-be a mini poor boy. The similar stories can also be found from many baseball stars from Lain America in the US. Major Leagues. Individual talents might count for nothing, or being buried, if not cultivated in the interconnected social institutions or systems.
As a cliché goes that it takes many villages for a long period of time to let a genius flourishing. In sociological terms, it refers to the accumulated, both positive and/or negative national/cultural capitals, and the inter-generational social mobility that nurture or hinder the individual's naturally endowed potentials, or given defects (i.e., the Ascribed Statuses, as mentioned in the previous article of life chance vs. life opportunity).
A familiar setting of the writer’s: in the classroom, she observes that most students tend to agree to the notion of meritocracy. Most of them believe in those who are on the top of social ladder are smarter, work harder, and deserve the “merits” they earn/deserve “individually”. Even more interesting phenomenon is that students also reflect they earned every bit of their own “success” (most of them come from the working-class background). The playing field is leveled or not, which is not important, for oftentimes, it is not visible or out of thoughts, but how much efforts one puts into that counts. In fact, this mixed blessing individualism is quite inspiring that people need to believe in self-reliance to ask what oneself can do for the country, not the other way around confidently. Furthermore, most people believe opportunities (what kind of opportunity is not questioned) are available to everyone, “equally”, particularly, in the US. A good scenario in the classroom looks like this when the topic is focused on the social mobility:
John, “There are tons of job opportunities available. Some people are just lazy who don’t want to pull themselves up and prefer to stay home living off well-fare programs, or just beg for money, instead of sending their job application forms to the hiring companies. Today, on the way driving to the school, I saw both McDonald and Walmart are hiring people…” Jenny continues,” Ya, one of my neighbors, getting government checks monthly, purchases everything they want, and I, have to work my butt off…”. Finally, Jamie says, “O. K., this is my family thing. My sister got pregnant at the age of 17 and dropped out of school. Now she gets everything, from food stamps, to housing subsidy… Then I have to earn every penny to pay my tuition (in fact, 56% of it is from the local tax payers) and the rest of bills…” As an instructor, in this situation, you cannot deny that there are the diligent, lazy and people between these two spectra with different dispositions from various social strata. People with bootstraps to pull themselves up might not understand some, who might not have boots, nor bootstraps. You also think of Nickle and Dimed regarding how, some people are deeply trapped in the culture of poverty INVOLUNTARILY, unhealthy living conditions, lack of basic job-seeking capacities (e.g., the ability to pay the rent, get a car, and the rest of cost associated with it: the car insurance policy, gas, parking spot/fees, maintenance, and the rest of utility bills), just to name a few. Then, the lucky ones, believe in the just-world-phenomenon (you-get-what-you-deserve), regardless the deeply intertwined social forces imposing on every individual with no exception, which, unfortunately, are invisible to the most people.Yes, god helps those who help themselves - the statement can get you and politicians no wrong.
Within a society, or between societies, there are different shoulders of giants, dwarfs, and the heights between them to stand on. These giants and dwarfs are part of the global stratification system derived from the historical conditions: culture diffusion, invention, discovery, geo-political formation, imperialism, neo/colonialism, and the rest man-made ideologies shackle human mind via various power structures.
Are there potential solutions available to ameliorate the aforementioned conditions? Which of the following institution do you still believe in making the potential transformation possible - government/politics, military, economy, religion, family, health care, media, or education?
