Why do girls like black guys?

[Stormig]

what do you know about all these?

He has experience with his computers. Sip, you sure that with all those multiple partnerships you are safe?

[Stormig]

I could bring in so many factors, from history, culture, and language, to socio-economic backgrounds and ethno-religious diversity, to separate "North Dakota and South Dakota" from Armenia and her neighbors; unfortunately, the fact that you said something like that convinces me that, even if you did understand the vocabulary that I used, you wouldn't be able to grasp it's significance. People that are divided from a sense of history and culture get a very selfish view of life, in that it is only their lives that matter; partly why divorce rate is so high in the United States. The desire to satisfy the self comes before the desire to satisfy others, be they family, friends, or society; mothers and fathers need their "me time" from the children, and from eachother, because they are all too preoccupied with themselves to realize that there just might be something more.

 

The same people who argue "why can't love be color-blind" also, inevitably, argue things such as "why can't I have a life after marriage," "why can't I still be an individual after having children," "why can't I fall in love for the [2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.] time? Love doesn't keep track," and a host of similar questions. Consequences are situations such as when twelve year olds have sex and are only warned to "wear protection," or widows with grandchildren (and great-grandchildren, sometimes) start dating again, and talking with their children about having sex, and being shocked when the children don't want to hear.

 

Some things are more important than the individual; ideas that transcend the "me, myself, and I" and become the "we." Name me a single person remembered in history for doing only what he/she wanted to do, and never making any sort of sacrifice or gamble for what was felt as the greater good, even if they would profit from that greater good.

 

And alternately, let's see if this is actually responded with examples from history, or logical statements, instead of simply with turkish-style twists of my screenname and statements such as "YOU IDIOT I CAN DO WHAT I WANT LOLOL!!!!!"

I wouldn't dismiss that which you diss so easily.

 

 

The Folly of Parenthood

 

Sam Vaknin

 

 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The Folly of Parenthood

[4 September 2003]

 

 

The advent of cloning, surrogate motherhood, and the donation of gametes and

sperm have shaken the traditional biological definition of parenthood to its

foundations. The social roles of parents have similarly been recast by the

decline of the nuclear family and the surge of alternative household

formats. In this day and age why do people become parents in the first

place?

 

Raising children comprises equal measures of satisfaction and frustration.

Parents often employ a psychological defense mechanism, known as "cognitive

dissonance", to suppress the negative aspects of parenting and to deny the

unpalatable fact that raising children is time consuming, exhausting, and

strains otherwise pleasurable and tranquil relationships to their limits.

Not to mention the fact that the gestational mother experiences

"considerable discomfort, effort, and risk in the course of pregnancy and

childbirth" (Narayan, U., and J.J. Bartkowiak (1999) Having and Raising

Children: Unconventional Families, Hard Choices, and the Social Good

University Park, PA, The Pennsylvania State University Press, quoted in the

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

 

Parenting has become possibly an irrational vocation, but humanity keeps

breeding and procreating. It may well be the call of nature. All living

species reproduce and most of them parent. Is maternity (and paternity)

proof that, beneath the ephemeral veneer of civilization, we are still

merely a kind of beast, subject to the impulses and hard-wired behavior that

permeate the rest of the animal kingdom?

 

In his seminal tome, The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins suggested that we

copulate in order to preserve our genetic material by embedding it in the

future gene pool. Survival itself - whether in the form of DNA, or, on a

higher-level, as a species - determines our parenting instinct. Breeding and

nurturing the young are mere safe conduct mechanisms, handing the precious

cargo of genetics down generations of "organic containers".

 

Yet surely, to ignore the epistemological and emotional realities of

parenthood is misleadingly reductionistic. Moreover, Dawkins commits the

scientific faux-pas of teleology. Nature has no purpose "in mind", mainly

because it has no mind. Things simply are, period. That genes end up being

forwarded in time does not entail that Nature (or, for that matter, "God")

planned it this way. Arguments from design have long, and convincingly, been

refuted by countless philosophers. Still, human beings do act intentionally.

So we're back to square one: why bring children to the world and burden

ourselves with decades of commitment to perfect strangers?

 

First hypothesis: offspring allow us to "delay" death. Our progeny are the

medium through which our genetic material is propagated and immortalized.

Additionally, by remembering us, our children "keep us alive" after physical

death. These, of course, are self-delusional, self-serving, illusions. Our

genetic material gets diluted with time; while it constitutes 50% of the

first generation, it amounts to a measly 6% three generations later. If the

everlastingness of one's unadulterated DNA was the paramount concern, then

incest would have been the norm. As for one's enduring memory, well, do you

recall or can you name your maternal or paternal great great grandfather? Of

course you can't. So much for that. Intellectual feats or architectural

monuments are far more potent mementos than genetic inheritance.

 

Still, we have been so well-indoctrinated that this misconception - that

having children equals a sort of immortality - yields a baby boom in each

post war period. Having been existentially threatened, people multiply in

the vain belief that they thus best protect their genetic heritage and their

memory through procreation. Let's study another explanation.

 

The utilitarian view is that one's offspring are an asset: kind of pension

plan and insurance policy rolled into one. Children are still treated as a

yielding property in many parts of the world. They plough fields and do

menial jobs very effectively. People "hedge their bets" by bringing multiple

copies of themselves to the world. Indeed, as infant mortality plunges, at

least in the better-educated, higher income parts of the world, so does

fecundity.

 

In the Western world, though, children have long ceased to be a profitable

proposition. At present, they are more of an economic drag and a liability.

Many continue to live with their parents into their thirties and consume the

family's savings in college tuition, sumptuous weddings, expensive divorces,

and parasitic habits. Alternatively, increasing mobility breaks families

apart at an early stage. Either way, children are no longer the founts of

emotional sustenance and monetary support they allegedly used to be.

 

How about this one then: procreation serves to preserve the cohesiveness of

the family nucleus. It further bonds father to mother and strengthens the

ties between siblings. Or is it the other way around, and a cohesive and

warm family is conductive to reproduction? Both statements, alas, are false.

 

Stable and functional families sport far fewer children than abnormal or

dysfunctional ones. Between one-third and one-half of all children are born

in single parent or in other non-traditional, non-nuclear (typically poor

and under-educated) households. In such families children are mostly born

unwanted and unwelcome: they are the sad outcomes of accidents and mishaps,

wrong fertility planning, lust gone awry and misguided turns of events.

 

The more sexually active people are and the less safe their desirous

exploits, the more they are likely to end up with a "bundle of joy" (the

American saccharine expression for a newborn). Many children are the results

of sexual ignorance, bad timing, and a vigorous and undisciplined sexual

drive among teenagers, the poor, and the less educated.

 

Still, there is no denying that most people want their kids and love them.

They are attached to them and experience grief and bereavement when they

die, depart, or are sick. Most parents find parenthood emotionally

fulfilling, happiness-inducing, and highly satisfying. This pertains even to

unplanned and initially unwanted new arrivals. Could this be the missing

link? Do fatherhood and motherhood revolve around self-gratification? Does

it all boil down to the pleasure principle?

 

Childrearing may, indeed, be habit forming. Nine months of pregnancy and a

host of social positive reinforcements and expectations condition the

parents to do the job. Still, a living tot is nothing like the abstract

concept. Babies cry, soil themselves and their environment, stink, and

severely disrupt the lives of their parents. It seems that nothing is too

enticing, here.

 

Indeed, one's spawns are a risky venture. So many things can and do go

wrong. So few expectations, wishes, and dreams are realized. So much pain is

inflicted on the parents. And then the child runs off and his procreators

are left to face the "empty nest". The emotional "returns" on a child are

rarely commensurate with the magnitude of the investment.

 

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes; if you eliminate impossible explanations as

to why people multiply, what is left, however improbably, must be the truth.

People multiply because it provides them with narcissistic supply. A

narcissist is a person who projects a (false) image unto others and uses the

interest this generates to regulate a labile and grandiose sense of

self-worth. The reactions garnered by the narcissist - attention,

unconditional acceptance, adulation, admiration, affirmation - are

collectively known as "narcissistic supply". The narcissist objectifies

people and treats them as mere instruments of gratification.

 

Infants go through a phase of unbridled fantasy, tyrannical behavior, and

perceived omnipotence. An adult narcissist, in other words, is still stuck

in his "terrible twos" and is possessed with the emotional maturity of a

toddler. To some degree, we are all narcissists. Yet, as we grow, we learn

to empathize and to love ourselves and others. This edifice of maturity is

severely tested by newfound parenthood.

 

Babies evoke in the parent the most primordial drives, protective,

animalistic instincts, the desire to merge with the newborn and a sense of

terror generated by such a desire (a fear of vanishing and of being

assimilated). Neonates engender in their parents an emotional regression.

The parents find themselves revisiting their own childhood even as they are

caring for the newborn. The crumbling of decades and layers of personal

growth is accompanied by a resurgence of the aforementioned early infancy

narcissistic defenses. Parents, especially new ones, are gradually

transformed into narcissists by this encounter and find in their children

the perfect sources of narcissistic supply, euphemistically known as love.

Really it is a form of symbiotic codependence of both parties.

 

Even the most balanced, most mature, most psychodynamically stable of

parents finds such a flood of narcissistic supply irresistible and

addictive. It enhances his or her self-confidence, buttresses self-esteem,

regulates the sense of self-worth, and projects a complimentary image of the

parent to himself or herself. It fast becomes indispensable, especially in

the emotionally vulnerable position in which the parent finds herself, with

the reawakening and repetition of all the unresolved conflicts that she had

with her own parents.

 

If this theory is true, if breeding is merely about securing prime quality

narcissistic supply, then the higher the self-confidence, the self-esteem,

and the self-worth of the parent, the clearer and more realistic his

self-image, and the more abundant his other sources of narcissistic supply,

then the fewer children he will have. These predictions are borne out by

reality.

 

The higher the education and the income of adults - and, consequently, the

firmer their sense of self worth - the fewer children they have. Children

are perceived as counter-productive: not only is their output (narcissistic

supply) redundant, they hinder the parent's professional and pecuniary

progress. The more children people can economically afford, the fewer they

have. This gives the lie to the Selfish Gene hypothesis. The more educated

they are, the more they know about the world and about themselves, the less

they seek to procreate. The more advanced the civilization, the more efforts

it invests in preventing the birth of children. Contraceptives, family

planning, and abortions are typical of affluent, well-informed societies.

 

The more plentiful the narcissistic supply afforded by other sources, the

lesser the emphasis on breeding. Freud described the mechanism of

sublimation: the sex drive, the Eros (libido), can be "converted",

"sublimated" into other activities. All the sublimatory channels - politics

and art, for instance - are narcissistic and yield narcissistic supply. They

render children superfluous. Creative people have fewer children than the

average, or none at all. This is because they are narcissistically

self-sufficient.

 

The key to our determination to have children is our wish to experience the

same unconditional love that we received from our mothers; this intoxicating

feeling of being adored without caveats, for what we are, with no limits,

reservations, or calculations. This is the most powerful, crystallized form

of narcissistic supply. It nourishes our self-love, self-worth and

self-confidence. It infuses us with feelings of omnipotence and omniscience.

In these, and other respects, parenthood is a return to infancy.

[Stormig]

Welcome back Stormy. Long time no see.

And howdy to you. What's cookin'?

[Armat]

Everyone raised many great points.

I agree with Don that one should not necessarily merry outside of their race just to piss off their parents! Justme you seem like a nice person but I predict you are eighteen or seventeen and this black person is your first real boyfriend. Don’t rush anything major yet…He may be your true love but novelty does ware off.

Azat , they are lot of Armenians in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts who are true Armenians in soul and heart and whether they watch football or HBO that does not mean “assimilated” (loaded phrase)

What counts is ultimately how you feel inside. My son is born in the states and he is both fluent in English and Armenian but he feels Armenian inside and he tells his friends so. It can be done. If Iranian Armenians (I am one of them) can do it in Iran for three hundred years some can do it here in the states as well.

[Sip]

If Iranian Armenians (I am one of them) can do it in Iran for three hundred years some can do it here in the states as well.

Yah! Barska-hye in da house

 

There are some HUGE differences between Iran and the US. In Iran, if you lose your identity as an Armenian, it would imply that you gain an identity as an Iranian with the very strict set of rules, regulations, cultural stuff that goes with it.

 

The US on the other hand, is designed from the get go to be a melting pot of any and all type of people. Heck I was considered an "American" after a few months or so when I started speaking English fluently when we first came here. That doesn't happen anywhere else ...

[nairi]

So what do you guys think of mixing among Armenians, like a Parska Hay with a Fransa Hay, or a Hayastantsi with a Lebana Hay? Can and should we tolerate that?

 

Not much Storms. Same old crap.

[gamavor]

Stormy, you can't live without your scorpio sting, can you?

 

Congradulations for the new avatar

 

[Stormig]

Stormy, you can't live without your scorpio sting, can you?

 

Congradulations for the new avatar

 

Why thank you, Gams.

[justme]

armat, for your info i am not 17 or 18. when i was 18 , i had an armenian boyfriend who i thought was the best thing in my life...as u said...i was young and rushed into the whole idea of love and boys...it turned out that he was a fake, a very bad influence and a cheater too. although, i think he is still an asshole, i thank him for showing his colors early and from him over time i learned the importance of trust, love and passion, which he knew nothing about...my present boyfriend, yes hes black, is the most incredible person i have ever met. i have been with him for 3 years.not that i have to tell you all of my personal shit, but ppl shouldnt open their mouth if they dont know what they are talking about...everyone can say whatever they want about this topic, because they are merely opinons and everyone is intitled to them. but when u say something about another persons personal life like u know them , then u are stepping on toes......so just watch what u say......and no im not with him out of spite , im with him because of his genuine nature....and many more things.. botton line not because hes black.

[hyebruin]

"justme" pardon my 'ignorance' but may i ask you something? sometimes...don't you have guilt feelings about losing your armenian identity? (just a question!)..i mean, okay, the 1st b/f was an armo and an a**hole (and yes, men in general are a-holes, for the most part), but don't you feel like there might be a great armenian guy somewhere who is ready to love and to respect you?---i've had a few really cool black co-workers who were very intelligent and well-spoken (Ph.D. caliber), but...maybe it's just me, but i would feel like i'm cheating my children and myself out of their heritage..and no, it is hard to be biracial...i feel for the white folks in this country...they don't have a clue what they are...and this I HEARD FROM THEM...so it's not my 'assumption' or anything...so what about a biracial armenian/black kid? imo that's a double whamy because BOTH sides can be pretty racist!! that's just a fact! good luck

[Stormig]

no, it is hard to be biracial...i feel for the white folks in this country...they don't have a clue what they are...and this I HEARD FROM THEM...so it's not my 'assumption' or anything...so what about a biracial armenian/black kid? imo that's a double whamy because BOTH sides can be pretty racist!! that's just a fact! good luck

Obviously someone sometime has to/can break new ground. Miscegenation once you go south of the U.S. is pretty common, especially if you look at a country like Brazil. And new identities form from the kneading of others, moulding into one. The Armenians are one such. And I'm sure justme and her boyfriend deserve the trust that they can make up their minds for themselves without caving in to society's banal judgements.

 

I wonder, did the Mr. Fedkiw mentioned here:

 

http://armenians.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6403

 

http://graphics.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/

 

... regret his decisions? I don't think so. So what is the problem?

[Stormig]

To expand on the problems with the mindset...

 

Given that the Armenian community is “old school,” suspicious of and intolerant towards marriage with odars, etc., and families active or otherwise in the Armenian community pressure their children to “keep the blood thick,” it is unlikely that, because of the pressure (not because of marrying another Armenian), quite a few people are going to be unhappy with their marriages or, even if not, will not be the happiest they could be, not knowing what they were missing out on. What does this do to the health of the community?

On the other hand, provided the community wasn’t so racist, if Armenians married outside the community and drew them in (yes, it can be done, IFF the community isn’t racist and doesn’t turn people away and put them off), you would have your sympathizers, Armenophiles, increasing by the numbers, and perhaps even assimilation in the opposite direction. Yes, the last one CAN be done. Turks do it all the time. Anyone aware of the number of Helga’s and Olga’s and Herman’s and whatever else Turks in Germany have been taking home back to Turkey with them? This is enrichment and expansion, neither at the expense of the other. And I’d say that Turks have been smarter regarding their communities and populations all along, unlike Armenians who still try to keep to each other like people under persecution wouldn’t (Armenians outside Turkey and Azerbaijan are not persecuted, are they???). Consider that the Turks came to Anatolia in mere thousands. They not only conquered populations but they also assimilated them, and they continue the assimilation abroad by embracing people. What would have happened if they tried to keep to themselves when they came to Anatolia?

Obviously, the assimilation policies in the conquests used force and other unpleasant means (and conversions the other way weren't allowed). But what about today? Are they still pulling people by the hair to be sympathizers and Turcophiles and summer vacationers in Turkey? NO! Just like in the modern world marrying people by force is no longer practiced and you marry whom you like out of choice. It is all accomplished out of goodness. Yet this much is lacking on the side of the Armenian community to the detriment of the community’s health and well-being. Still babies born to Armenian parents are born into a “program,” like children in the past would be betrothed early on to discover later on in their lives that they had a marriage arranged for them already. The Armenian community ought to embrace and love everyone and anyone someone brings in like the best parents that love their kids no matter what and what choices they make and love what/who their kids love.

And what after that? Will all these mixed Armenian-odar families move to Armenia and help it prosper? I think it is of little relevance to discuss this point, because we see only a drop in the bucket moving in while half the country has moved out anyway. In the meantime it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a healthy Armenian community.

[nairi]

Stormy, we don't want odar blood in our veins. It's dirty. Oh! That could be another pledge of loyalty: odar blood is dirty.

 

Hyebruin can you research whether blood group A is indeed most popular among Armenians?

 

Pledge of loyalty 35: blood group A is the best.

[Don_Gogortiloz]

Edited December 30, 2003 by Don_Gogortiloz

[Accelerated]

....whats the half-Armo half-Black kid going to do when he is rejected by both communities? These days being a kid/teenager is hard enough, it doesnt need to get any more complicated....

 

....bruin and coco put it pretty well IMO.

[Stormig]

....whats the half-Armo half-Black kid going to do when he is rejected by both communities? These days being a kid/teenager is hard enough, it doesnt need to get any more complicated....

 

....bruin and coco put it pretty well IMO.

Too bad for the African Americans, Armenians should know better. Which brings me back to my point(s)...

[Don_Gogortiloz]

There's been a lot of talk this year that Australian filmmakers are failing the public. True, there have been some shockers this year, and I fear that the criticism is apt when it comes to comedies.

 

But Japanese Story is up there with the best of Australian drama like Soft Fruit, Lantana and Walking on Water. The two main actors are fantastic. The premise is not highly original (two people who hate each other stuck in the outback alone), but the script is clever and well executed.

Edited January 2, 2004 by Don_Gogortiloz

[Azat]

and yes, men in general are a-holes, for the most part

 

Granted, 95% of Armenian guys are fakes. Just like 95% of Armenian women are whores

 

What the hell? Do you guys really believe this?

[MosJan]

What the hell? Do you guys really believe this?

Azat jan yerevi te irents AndznakaN portsits en xosum

[America-Hye]

Accelerated,

 

You say, "What will this kid so when he is rejected by both communities?" Well, he can grow up to be a famous movie producer, as the Hughes brothers are.

[Don_Gogortiloz]

The buttons of Victorian repression are sumptuously undone in Angels and Insects, a fascinating and downright sexy adaptation of A.S. Byatt's imaginative novella. When English explorer William Adamson (Mark Rylance) accepts an invitation to stay on at the country estate of his wealthy sponsor, he believes to be re-entering the civilized world after his travails in the wild Amazon jungles. What he encounters, however, is far more lurid and seamy than anything found in the rainforests. After marrying the nubile Eugenia (Patsy Kensit) -- a woman who takes him to bed with a ferocity that belies her shy, naive exterior -- William comes to realize that his new family has secrets and lies that no one dares to expose, or even speak of. Soon enough, his treatise on insect life -- illustrated by the family's poor cousin. Edited January 2, 2004 by Don_Gogortiloz

[Azat]

Accelerated,

 

You say, "What will this kid so when he is rejected by both communities?" Well, he can grow up to be a famous movie producer, as the Hughes brothers are.

Thank you Hagarag. I was searching Google to find their names, but you as always knew it before I.

[MosJan]

Only criticizing and yelling will never do any good / yell all you like

 

If we can’t find the correct way to approach our problems just yelling and criticizing will never do enough… We need to find some solutions… and soon

[Armat]

Justme Sorry you took it bad way. I apologize for my opinions. Sharing your personal relationship partner choice on the open forum is already beyond private affair. I am not in any position to advise. You are correct I don’t know you at all…

[America-Hye]

MosJan,

 

The solution has already been tried and gave theTurks quite a scare. In 2000, Armenians put aside thier differences and worked together to get a Genocide Resolution passed in the US Congress. The Turks had to get Peres to give Clinton a desperate phone call in the middle of the night to deflect the efforts of the Armenian-Americans. Given that the Israelis did not get to that point before that day, one can only wonder what the Turks threatened the Jews with. Joining a Muslim alliance with Israel's enemies? Who knows?

 

My mother's sole Tashnag friends were better to her in her last dying days than all her so-called Ramgavar friends. Cut the bullshit and join with ALL your fellow Armenians toward working for common goals. You don't have to bury your differences, just transcend them.