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I'm mildly interested in her due to the overlap of Christian homeschooling, which my childhood was adjacent to, and the Bay Area Ratosphere, which I became interested in from Scott's writings. I want one of them to write a social novel, something like Tom Wolfe, about their culture. And there are several fine writers there, but as far as I know they're all bloggers, not novelists. (Unsung excepted, but it's philosophical fantasy more than social observation)
Adding:
Something that I find interesting about her stories is their ambiguity. It's unclear whether she was being publicly embarrassed (by her parents enrolling her in a class of much younger children), or if they were doing the normal thing, she would have worked her way out soon enough had she chosen to pursue it, and she just felt embarrassment due to social anxiety or something. I took it as the latter, because she related it to not liking to hit a piñata because the other kids would look at her, not to something most people would find humiliating. The freaking out, crying, begging her parents to let her leave, probably in front of the instructor, and trying to run away does sound very embarrassing, for both her and her parents.
That's what I took away from the anecdote; it just happened that the other kids were toddlers (it was a beginners' class after all) and she had the hyper-sensitivity that she describes as crying because other people looked at her at a party. So to put it in CBT terms she was catastrophizing - "if I'm in a toddler class, everyone will think I'm only as good as a toddler!" There's no indication there were other people there than the teacher of the class, maybe (but not for sure) other parents. She was convinced other people were thinking about her, paying attention to her, being critical of her - and that's all down to the lack of self-confidence that being made go to a class like that is addressing. Well, and from the home environment where her parents were constantly watching and being critical, but that's another matter.
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Ah I may as well simp to the end.
I don’t think that’s fair. Who doesn’t value being young and attractive? She merely wants to advertise and enjoy all the advantages and opportunities being young and attractive confers upon her, without being slowed down by old rules no one really understands, and the self-interest of less desirable rivals.
Why can’t you be valued for both, innate characteristics and accomplishments (innate consciousness, ha) ?
Sure.
I don't necessarily think that she's wrong. When four year olds are asked what they want to be, and the boys say firefighter, and the girls say princess, they aren't wrong, even if the boys could literally become firefighters whereas the girls could only metaphorically become princesses.
The karate story is weird. Plenty of parents would be upset and embarrassed if their seven year old walked into a trial karate lesson, saw that the other kids were smaller, and proceeded to throw a tantrum about it, then hide in the bathroom sobbing. That's significantly worse than the average public school kid who's parents spent way less effort instilling discipline into. It's more in line with the public school kids who have behavior action plans in place. It's not too surprising that her parents would be pretty shocked, they must have actually believed in the early obedience regime, or why go to so much trouble? It turns out they were wrong, and would have gotten better a psychological grounding by reading Notes From Underground.
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Confucian societies?
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