That’s true of reactions to almost any social or economic or political disequilibrium.
We have all three.

“One of the worst things one can do, however, is decide one is a victim. I find the current national cult of victimhood a great horror and a terrible sorrow. We haven’t even begun to pay the price on that.”

Agreed.

It’s gone so far that the inevitable reaction to it will likely go too far the other way.

I’ve spent much time pondering how people become what they become. I can’t say I have answers, but I do believe people can be quite resilient. Tapping into that is the trick and it requires work.

One of the worst things one can do, however, is decide one is a victim. I find the current national cult of victimhood a great horror and a terrible sorrow. We haven’t even begun to pay the price on that.

Classical music is ferociously competitive at the big city symphony level. (Dallas and San Francisco.) Typical musicians are practicing all the time. My stepfather held his own, while hanging out in jazz clubs at night and managing his second career as a heroin addict.

None of his daughters have shown any talent in the music department.

Glad to hear that some came out of it relatively unscathed.

Despite my genetic determinism predilection, childhood trauma is a very real cause of all kinds of evils. Also the death of the extended family. Not having grandparents present 24/7 in early childhood is probably another facet of the Great Filter. IMHO.

My stepfather had three daughters that I know of. They are all decent people. One is my half-sister, whom I love.

The other girls were only two and five years-old when he divorced their mom, so we figured they were lost to the vagaries of time and fate. However, they are very family-centric Armenian, so several years ago they actually got a private detective and he tracked down my half-sister and they were reunited. Since they are all in Massachusetts, as it happens, they now include my sister in their get-togethers, which is excellent for her.

Their mother never remarried after my stepfather. She continued her career as a classical violinist and became a pillar in her Christian community. She died in 2011. I don’t know her side of things. I’m not sure how much the daughters know about their father either.

I also don’t know how my stepfather became a monster. My mother intimated that Bad Things had happened to him as a child, but was never specific. All I know is he worked very hard on his music and as a teen he attracted the attention of the conductor, Leopold Stokowski, who punched his ticket. After that my stepfather was golden in the classical music world.

That said, I myself have no idea how this nonsensical sentence got by,

“I do not say that all members of what might taxonomically be classified information contained as “humans” are.”

” information” should not be there; and ” contained” only if a reference to an embracing category was there.

The idea is that I will grant you the freedom to sweep whoever and whatever you wish into a category labeled ” human being”

You, or better, “one”, might even be able to come up with a definition that makes some kind of practical if limited sense; while still ticking off all the anti-esentialist and Progressive Worldview™ boxes.

But the idea of fellowship, and moral reciprocity and interpersonal duty, is not quite so elastic.

Thus, if the term “Human being” is to carry more moral freight, and potentially, obligation too, than the terms “screwdriver”, or “great ape”, then that has to be argued or established. At least nowadays.

If man is not, for example, essentially, a rational animal with rationality representing the core of what it means to be fully human, then, what is man?

My view on rationality is that men are in fact distributively rational except in cases of organic damage. But, as with the case of the neglect of minimal civic duty we all discussed earlier, they make a choice, to indulge their willful irrationality, and thereby make themselves, less.

As with physical cowards or weaklings who refuse to build themselves into better when it is possible, one is entitled to say: to hell with them

*putting on dispassionate nature vs. nurture bicorn hat*

Did your unlamented stepfather have any offspring? If so, any idea how they turned out?

That part of the world was not lawless then. It is now. You’re the one displaying ignorance.

And the Rules of War are very clear. Had been since well before the Napoleonic Wars…

But your knowledge of Natal and the Boer Republics and the state of play for the average man right there ca. 1900… You got nothing. I got ancestry and anecdote. Can it.

Had Churchill done pulled the same stunt of being a ‘reporter’ with a revolver at Sedan, the Prussians would have rightly had him up against a wall. It was a foolish and stupid thing to do.

Well, my stepfather died when I was in 8th grade. I hated him as deeply as I have ever hated, so I’m grateful he wasn’t around when I was bigger.

It seems to me 80% of humanity doesn’t make your cut as truly human. It seems a more constructive approach is called for than “to Hell with them.”