endsthegame (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
endsthegame) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2013-08-05 02:11 pm
endsthegame) wrote in fandomhigh2013-08-05 02:11 pm
Entry tags:
Practical Philosophy, Monday
Another nice day, another class outside. Ender had brought two pitchers of lemonade and some cups to go along with the sandwiches - he was thirsty, and he assumed the students might tend towards the same, even if it had cooled off a little bit in comparison to last week.
"I hope none of you were hurt during the shark attacks yesterday," he said, settling down on his end of the circle. "For all that it does to twist our minds and bodies, sometimes Fandom likes to settle for more old-fashioned terrors."
He pulled up his legs. "Some of us are used to this," he said. "I don't mean here, but out in our home dimensions. I'm not, but my boyfriend is. We react to these events accordingly. My first instinct is to stay indoors and minimize the risk I might be running by going outside. His is to fight and protect. Neither of these approaches is wrong, even if his is more dangerous than mine. They're determined by the way we've been conditioned to respond to danger."
"Most people have probably heard of fight or flight responses," he added. "When confronted with danger, the average human will choose to either stand his ground and fight, or run away so he can fight another day. Part of the choice are rational concerns: is this danger likely to come back and trouble me again if I leave? How high are the chances of me surviving this fight? Mostly, though, it's an instinctive choice."
"I was raised in a military school. While there were threats from my peers occasionally, most of our trouble was psychological. You had a reasonable expectation that you wouldn't be physically harmed, and you were not expected to have to physically harm anyone to get out of a dangerous situation." Except for Ender, at times, but they didn't need to know that. "What aggression we did have was channeled into competitive games. Ben, on the other hand, was raised in the full expectation that he would have to go out and fight, and his enemies would not care too greatly about his personal well-being. He was taken out into the world to find and confront those enemies. His instincts are active: he seeks out conflict so he can fight it head-on and rid himself of it. Mine are passive: I won't fight until I'm actively forced into a fight-or-flight situation."
His mouth quirked briefly. You had to know him pretty well to detect it wasn't a happy smile. "I would have fought, if I'd gone out into that shark rain," he said. "So it's not a perfect example. But my instincts told me to stay inside, to minimize the risk that I had to fight. At the same time, I learned at my school that you can't flee from your peers - that if a danger was actively posed, there was no way to out-flee it, so the best choice was to minimize the chance it popped up. What were your instincts? Why do you have them?"
"I hope none of you were hurt during the shark attacks yesterday," he said, settling down on his end of the circle. "For all that it does to twist our minds and bodies, sometimes Fandom likes to settle for more old-fashioned terrors."
He pulled up his legs. "Some of us are used to this," he said. "I don't mean here, but out in our home dimensions. I'm not, but my boyfriend is. We react to these events accordingly. My first instinct is to stay indoors and minimize the risk I might be running by going outside. His is to fight and protect. Neither of these approaches is wrong, even if his is more dangerous than mine. They're determined by the way we've been conditioned to respond to danger."
"Most people have probably heard of fight or flight responses," he added. "When confronted with danger, the average human will choose to either stand his ground and fight, or run away so he can fight another day. Part of the choice are rational concerns: is this danger likely to come back and trouble me again if I leave? How high are the chances of me surviving this fight? Mostly, though, it's an instinctive choice."
"I was raised in a military school. While there were threats from my peers occasionally, most of our trouble was psychological. You had a reasonable expectation that you wouldn't be physically harmed, and you were not expected to have to physically harm anyone to get out of a dangerous situation." Except for Ender, at times, but they didn't need to know that. "What aggression we did have was channeled into competitive games. Ben, on the other hand, was raised in the full expectation that he would have to go out and fight, and his enemies would not care too greatly about his personal well-being. He was taken out into the world to find and confront those enemies. His instincts are active: he seeks out conflict so he can fight it head-on and rid himself of it. Mine are passive: I won't fight until I'm actively forced into a fight-or-flight situation."
His mouth quirked briefly. You had to know him pretty well to detect it wasn't a happy smile. "I would have fought, if I'd gone out into that shark rain," he said. "So it's not a perfect example. But my instincts told me to stay inside, to minimize the risk that I had to fight. At the same time, I learned at my school that you can't flee from your peers - that if a danger was actively posed, there was no way to out-flee it, so the best choice was to minimize the chance it popped up. What were your instincts? Why do you have them?"
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