Preto de seis anos, os meus catro anos de idade, fillo e eu estabamos alí enriba asistir a unha Discovery Channel "shark attacks" especial (posiblemente esta). He was very young at the point and I was always worried what he might see on a show like this and how he might take it. I didn’t want him to develop, por exemplo, calquera medos especiais da auga ou tagarela algo impropio aos seus amigos e, finalmente, causar a súa rede de amigos bebé para derrubar.
Discovery handles these kinds of subjects very well. It’s not about creating a medo de algo, but rather to show how unusual it is for sharks to attack humans.
Así, we’re watching it and there is this one particularly scary attack involving a small girl. As Discovery is building the drama of the attack, meu fillo (que sempre foi moi axitado calquera maneira), is getting very excited. I make some noises about how unusual it is for sharks to attack people, and how bad the poor girl must feel. I’m trying to explain that people recover from these events and become stronger for it. Con todo, I had misinterpreted his excitement. He was not worried about the girl at all. Pola, mentres a aplaudir, el me di, "The sharks love it! It’s terrific. It’s wonderful. Its a DREAM COME TRUE!"
Eu pensaba que iso era Hilario, but also very disturbing. Por unha banda, Quedei contento — ata un pouco orgulloso — que podería ter fortes sentimentos de empatía, cross-species though they may be. As humans, we need to develop our "empathic muscles" para falar ou vai acabar como este cara 🙂 On the other hand, he was feeling cross-species empathy toward a species who was exhibiting behavior inimical to his own. I was really struggling with this when the narrator used the word "paradigm". My son picked up on that and asked me what that meant.
Isto non é unha palabra tan fácil de describir a un neno de catro anos, but I gave it a try. When I think of the word "paradigm", Thomas Kuhn is never far from my thoughts. I read A Estrutura das Revolucións Científicas
De calquera xeito, Estou tentando explicar a el unha definición kuhniana, that it’s "a historical movement of thought" and that it’s a "way of thinking with a number of built-in assumptions that are hard to escape for people living at that time." Por suposto, non se pode falar así dun neno de catro anos, so I’m trying to successively define it to smaller pieces and feeling rather proud of myself as I do so. (Eu só Sabía que alguén de fóra da facultade lle importaría que eu lera Kuhn!).
I’m just warming to the task when he interrupts me. Waving his hand na miña dirección xeral e nunca tirar os ollos doutro ataque de quenlla brutal, el só di, "Yeah, si, si. Blah, blah, blah.".
So much for that 🙂
Nese punto, Decidín fuxir, retoricamente fala, sentir-se, e divírtete asistir tiburóns atacan o ser humano co meu fillo.
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