Rant: Identity – It’s Personal.

It’s been awhile since my last rant. I’ve got some pent-up passion to let flow, so here goes…

Association is an expression of identity. Depending on who we consider ourselves to be, we align with larger groups – whether they be nationalities, ethnicities, genders, professions, sexual orientations, religions, philosophies, or whatever. When asked to answer the question ‘Who are you?’ in only five words, I predict that most people would use their five words to make associations with a larger group: I’m a carpenter, I’m a woman, or I’m Portugese. Association is an expression of identity.

So it bothers me when people make generalizations about a particular group, and then follow it up with the casual modifier: ‘I don’t mean you, of course – nothing personal.’

I encounter this often with respect to gender: ‘Men are so messy! Not you though; I don’t mean you.’ Umm… pardon me? Either you don’t actually support the comment you’ve just made, or you’re implying that I’m somehow less than a man. Another example: ‘Nothing personal, but women are so contradicting.” The lame self-rescue attempt of “nothing personal” is completely bogus. Gender is personal! As a component of identity, nothing could be more personal!

The same is true for all other aspects of identity. If I make judgements about Dutch people, but excuse their applicability from every Dutchman that I personally encounter, then clearly my judgements are meaningless. Worse, they’re degrading. I’ve taken a person, and stripped them of their association. Perhaps I think that I’m doing them a generous favour by differentiating how it doesn’t apply to them, but the insult of lost identity is far worse.

The associations we choose to make (and the corresponding words that we use to identify ourselves with) are profoundly personal. When others partition us as somehow aberrant from the group, it robs from us a piece of our identity. That’s personal.

Rant: Treat your Burns!

This rant is dedicated to my father, whose unfortunate accident sparked the idea.

For some reason, people don’t treat their burns. They just don’t. Cuts and scrapes get all manner of over-attention, while burns get left to blister. Maybe people think that there’s nothing you can do. What’s done is done, what’s burned is burned. But there is something you can do. Responding quickly to a minor burn can save you lots of pain, and dramatically reduce the amount of time needed to heal.

Of course, I should clarify that I mean minor burns. The little ones that you get cooking in the kitchen or passing the iron. For third-degree burns (which are painless, and either charred black or dry and white)  or anything larger than a few inches don’t follow this advice, just call 911.

So here’s what you do: run the burn under cold water immediately! Water is a much better conductor of heat than air, and so you’ll be cooling the skin down considerably faster. Now, that may sound brutally obvious to you, but (and here’s where I’m ranting) people just don’t do it!! Or they don’t do it for long enough. The Mayo Clinic recommends at least five minutes or until the pain subsides. That’s a long time! Not just a quick dip under the tap, but until the pain is really gone. Get used to the idea: you’re gonna be standing there under the tap for awhile. But it will be worth it! Following this simple treatment reduces swelling, blistering, pain, and healing time. 

A few don’ts: Don’t use ice! Nobody wants to trade a burn for frostbite instead. Don’t use butter or ointments – they really don’t work, and could interfere with healing. Don’t break blisters. Let nature do her work.

So the next time that you find yourself with a minor burn, treat it!! If you’re thinking “well, I knew all that already”, then I say put your knowledge into practice. My experience is that most people don’t. They wave it off, saying it will heal on its own. Yes, but it will heal better if you treat it!

Reference: MayoClinic.com

Rant: ‘Lower Organisms’

This rant is dedicated to Diana, who knows better, but who still takes pleasure in provoking me.
Also note that I cannot take credit for any of the photos in this post.

As an insect lover, jellyfish groupie, and worm advocate, the term ‘lower organism’ sends a shiver down my spine. What a condescending, unkind, prejudicial label! Thankfully my invertebrate friends are spared the offense, as they have no appreciation for terminology, nor indeed any spines that shivers might be sent down. As such, they also cannot defend themselves, so I will try my best on their behalf.

There is no zoological basis for classifying invertebrates as ‘lower’. What does such a term even mean? If you think it indicates lower biological complexity, I point to the cephalopods (octopi and squid) who independently evolved sophisticated nervous systems including eyes that are more practically arranged than our own. As another counter-example, there is more anatomical variety among the animals we collectively refer to as ‘worms’ than in all vertebrates taken together.

If you think ‘lower’ refers to social complexity, I refer you to E. O. Wilson’s ‘The Ants‘, which documents the castes, hierarchies, and rich community life of this insect group. There is no feature, whether anatomical, or social, that has not first been explored by invertebrate animals long before the vertebrates even existed.

If ‘lower’ referred to evolutionary success, I’m afraid we would find ourselves with the lowest of the low. In geological time we are relative newcomers, and we seem poised to drive ourselves to extinction after a lightening-quick appearance of just a few million years. Contrast that to the insects, who have been on our planet almost 300 million years and have dominated every ecological niche available through vast swathes of natural history.

I suspect that most readers believe invertebrates to be ‘lower’ because “they do not have a brain.” In technical terms, the collection of nervous tissue towards one end of the body is called cephalization, and it is a hallmark in the development of vertebrates. But that’s an entirely arbitrary criterion on which to base a hierarchy of life!

In ‘The Ancestor’s Tale‘, Richard Dawkins points out that we use cephalization as a benchmark for evolutionary “progress” mostly because it puts our own species on top. He amusingly speculates that if elephants were to generate a similar hierarchy, perhaps they would base it on proboscity (length of nose), thus raising elephant seals and elephant shrews to newfound glory.

Our ego-boosting bullying of invertebrates because of their brainless-ness is just as ridiculous. So let’s put away our anthropocentric bias, and stop referring to the vastly more diverse, more numerous, and more successful animals of our planet with derogatory terms.