What If Chimps Are Granted Human Status?

I just found out about a court case that would be important on many fronts. The primatologists who brought up the case may be primarily concerned with the biological resemblance between humans and apes. However, if this chimp is granted human rights, it will shift our perspective on humanity on quite a few fronts. Religion will be affected, cause many religions (most prominently, christianity) hold that humans have a special place within the Kingdom of God. But if only it were just this – that humans would be considered “just another animal in the forest”! Peter Singer, who is a well-known philosopher and Princeton professor, already holds this view. However, the picture is much wider: if this chimpanzee is granted human status, it requires us to define “humanity” all over again, which so far is being defined as “belonging to the species homo sapiens”. More precisely, we would have to find non-biological characteristics that make up the essence of humanness. The people who brought up this case, already use several of these: the fact that Hiasl recognizes himself in a mirror, enjoys painting, giggles when tickled, etc. You see where this is going already? Yes, these are all abilities that not all beings that belong to the species homo sapiens have. As a result, we would have to draw the line somewhere, and thereby, we run the risk of excluding certain beings belonging to our species from the realm of humanity. Peter Singer likely has no problem with this, but most people do not support his views on the worth of disabled children – or at least, I’m still naive enough to hope that they don’t. So we would have to draw the line somewhere where all beings belonging to the species homo sapiens, would be included. Possibly that means some beings belonging to other species will not, while others belonging to that species will. Will we get humans to stand up for these beings who, after all, belong to the same species as those who do have human rights? So where does it end? Will we eventually draw a biological line different from the current one – ie. those belonging to our species and such and such other species -, or will we draw a philosophical line? I’m afraid a judge cannot make this decision on her own.

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Long, Philosophical Musings about Multiplicity

Yesterday evening, I decided to read a philosophical article on multiplicity written by Daniel C. Dennett and Nicholas Humphrey – because I like philosophy and I am still interested in the concept of multiplicity. Finally, I seem to have found an article I philosophically agree with – even though it’s not wholly about my own experience – and that also makes a lot of sense in describing my own situation.

I like the “Head of Mind” analogy used to describe the development of what is generally called the self. Agreeing with the idea that a self is not some definite thing and yet also realizing that we’re at least socially expected to have some consistent sense of self, I’ve often used the “representative” model to describe my own situation, because it is utterly impossible for me to integrate all different aspects of myself into one “self” – and this theory claims this goes for everyone.

However, as there are different ways in which a state can be organized, there are also different ways in which a mind can be. There is the “normal” situation, where the interal and external forces, like other people, the (internal) media, etc., construct an ideal self, to which the Head of Mind tries to conform in order to be “elected”. This can be compared to what would be called a stable, indirect democracy in the political analogy: while not everyone agrees with the government (as everyone does not always act “like himself”), there is a general consensus that there is this Head of Mind who will give a relatively consistent voice to the mind and take an active interest in all of its memories, feelings and qualities, even if the Head of Mind is not the “thing” that actually feels or remembers or acts, as the Dutch queen doesn’t play soccer, sit in the court or go to war, uhm sorry, set out on a peace mission, to Uruzgan.

But, as a relatively stable, indirect democracy like the Netherlands or the United States is not the only form of government of a state, so is a single self not the only possible form of government of a mind – though it may generally be seen as the most desirable form. Healthy, functional multiples could be compared to more direct democracies, I think. Some say it doesn’t work, but apparently, it does, if the members of a system trust each other enough to work collectively for the good of all. This is not often supported by political philosophers, but there can be processes in a mind that wouldn’t work in a society.

My own mind has a more dysfunctional government, as has likely become clear already in the past several years. It’s more like a rather unstable system – not even a democracy at all – with constantly changing Heads of Mind. Not the whole structure of the mind is changed when another Head of Mind takes over – ie. when one of the insiders comes onto the front. It happens with most multiples described in the article, who seemingly change everything about themselves when they switch – to the point of having completely different reactions to drugs and having different allergies depending on who is out front. Dennett and Humphrey consider this pretty universal, but I now know it isn’t – I know no multiples who have these dramatic bodily changes described in the article -, cause multiplicity is on a continuum, with me being in the mid-continuum at most.

How far does the stability of my mind-state, ie. my “self” go? At the very least, it includes all somatic processes, like my appearance and my physiological responses to substances. It also, to a certain degree, includes those processes which are partly somatic but influenced by mental processes, like language – and I even wonder whether there’s a real difference of skills amongst the insiders here or just differring preferences among them. The only thing I’m certain about differs is what is called identity, which is a completely psychological process even if it’s influenced by physical and environmental processes.

Dennett and Humphrey wonder whether real multiplicity exists and contend that “real” multiplicity would mean that each different self can convincingly present itself as the authentic Head of Mind, not only to the mind, but also to others. I agree that this is the most extreme form of multiple personality, but it is not the only form, and it is not insurmountably different from the multiplicity observed in most current DID patients, in myself, or even in those who participate in psychotherapies grounded on a theory of multiple selves, such as Voice Dialogue or Psychosynthesis. There are gradual and even some substantial differences – as there are different degrees of democracy and different forms of government -, but no form of government and no form of government of a mind is “unreal”.

The authors also discuss the possibility of MPD being created in therapy and, in my opinion correctly, assert that whether the structure of multiple selves is created in therapy or has been invented by the dissociator herself, with or without help of abusers, doesn’t matter. I do not believe in Allisonian distinctions between multiple personalities and dissociated identities because, in my opinion, an identity problem arises when a person has no established sense of personality in situations where she feels (or it is expected) that she needs one. Whether there is an actual difference between personality and identity, is impossible to tell, because it’s impossible to judge who has or have the power to decide which part of a person’s mental structure is personality and which is “just” identity.

Like Dennett and Humphrey say, a person may, because of dissociation or for other reasons, be in a constant state of confusion about one’s self, and hence, be incipient to multiplicity. I, however, never believed that multiplicity, even in the extreme cases of MPD, is a structure that evolves “just like that” as a child dissociates. A child may dissociate and, while dissociating, “pretend” that the abuse or trauma she endures happens to someone else, but it would require some rational understanding in order to craft a personality, a name, etc. for that “someone else”. Who says that it is any less real if that way of looking at one’s internal experience is developed in therapy or anywhere else instead of during the dissociated experience. Some children do get nicknames or attributes from their abusers (like the example of the woman being abused during games of Nazis and Jews), which may aid in the process of structuring the multiple system, and some, I’m sure, make them up on their own while trying to detach, but some do not, or not at that time. Is multiplicity or dissociation any less real if the insider doesn’t have a name or hasn’t been clearly defined (never mind that no-one has been defined fully at birth) at the time of her creation? I don’t think so.

My own experience, though it does not conform to the standard paradigms of multiplicity or dissociation, is quite illustrative: some insiders were named and defined at least basically when they were first created – these are Elena in 1998, Carol and Jane in 2001 and Brenda in 2002 (though Carol, Jane and Brenda bore different names when they were first created) -, but many were not. These may’ve been named in storywriting about their “birth experience” (Eline in 1999 and Kirsten in early 2004), or they may’ve been named in a rather deliberate attempt at naming them (Clarissa and Morgan). This is not the same as deliberately creating them – I did not, and I don’t even know when exactly I created Morgan (about Clarissa I’m sure because her history signifies it) -, but I’ll freely admit that I deliberately chose their names myself in fitting them into my already existent structure of mind (which had long been established by the summer of 2004). The only one I’m not sure about, is Milou, but that may be cause her name just doesn’t sound like a name I’d make up in 2004.

However, does realizing that I named Clarissa and Morgan (and possibly Milou) in 2004 to fit into an existing mid-continuum plural system, take away any of Clarissa’s governance over the mind – that is sometimes stronger than my own on non-basic issues -, for example? It doesn’t, in my opinion and experience. Fact remains I still cannot take over Clarissa’s governance when she’s in charge and I still cannot own some experiences of 1998 (I remember them and know that they’re mine at an intellectual level, but cannot emotionally grasp it) and callign me a malingerer (if I even cared about the psychiatric model) will not change that.

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Musings on Identity and Purpose

If we create and maintain our identities and self-images because of a need to provide our lives with a sense of unity and purpose… why do we have such a need in the first place?

This is a difficult subject for me. Why would one need an identity, a self-image, in the first place? Why is one looking for unity or purpose? These two are not the same, I think, but they’re related: if one has a particular purpose in life, or a goal to work to (whether that be something materialistic or practical or something spiritual, along the lines of “pleasing God”), one knows what to direct one’s actions to and hence will have a more united sense of self. However, unity in oneself is also significant at much more basic levels: a “purpose in life” sounds so vague while goals or attitudes are more tangible. They also need to represent some unity. I have enough experience with complete confusion on these issues to know that, and yet I would not know why one in fact needs this unity.

I’m not sure that everyone needs one particular purpose in life. I mean, you could define the purpose of life along the lines of “self-actualization”, “pleasing God” or some other vague term, but I don’t see why it would help anyone to know that they live to actualize themselves, or to please God, or whatever. Well, where religion comes in, it does play a significant role of course, as in religion it’s believed that the “good life” gets rewarded and the “bad life” gets punished. But if you don’t believe in an afterlife, like me, I don’t see why it’d help you to know that you live for some philosophically or spiritually vague reason like self-actualization or “happiness”. Maybe I’m too young to wonder about these issues on a more personal level than in philosophy class, but that would only prove that one doesn’t need a particular purpose in this sense.

With regard to more basic kinds of purposes, like goals, it is easier to see why we need them. If you have absolutely no goals in your life, I’m sure you’re getting pretty depressed. Of course, the goal could be something along th elines of “having fun”, but it has to be something. Like, if I did not plan on going to college next year, why would I go to rehab now? Why would I do anything at all except for just sit in my room and surf the Internet? Why would I sit in my room and surf the Internet anyway? Because it’s fun. Then I’m still having the reason of “fun” to do the things I do.

Identity is related to goals and purposes. It is our qualities that shape our goals. It is also others’ perceptios or expectations about us that shape these goals, but they have a strange interconnectedness with our qualities in that humans have the ability to interpret actions and reactions of others. This is what I’ve had great difficulty with over the past couple of years: the interconnectedness between others’ perceptions and expectations of me (or the way I perceived them), my qualities (or what I thought were my qualities) and the goals I’d set for myself, or that I’d thought others had set for me. There has not been any sort of unity in these, and the unity still isn’t complete, and I know that I want this unity. When hanging around in multiple communities, I never make a secret of the fact that I want to “integrate” – I don’t consider that to be the correct wording, since I’m not truly multiple, only have a very inconsistent sense of self (and even wonder if mine is more inconsistent than that of the average adolescent or if it’s jsut that I can’t cope with the inconsistency). I at times obscure that statement by saying that I want the “insiders” to better cooperate and I suspect they’ll merge once they learn to cooperate. That was what happened in 2002, I thought, but it wasn’t really: I decided I knew what was “right” to work on, ie. I defined my goals, and this sense of setting consistent goals influenced my sense of my qualities that related to them. It is happening to an extent now, too.

That still doesn’t explain why we actually need this unity. I know we do – I get completely confused and screwed-up when I feel very “divided” -, but I don’t really understand why it is actually necessary to have a unity in oneself. Healthy multiples, I guess, would also prove this theory wrong, cause they often have very inconsistent identities. Yet they do have a unity in their purpose or goals, otherwise they wouldn’t take collective responsibility and wouldn’t be healthy multiples. I think, indeed, that it’s more about having some goals than about being able to describe oneself with perfect consistency.

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Does Morality Come from God?

I am seeing some extremist Christians claim that all morals come from God, and specifically their God, or Jesus. They say that morals have to come from somewhere, since otherwise there would be no Absolute Truth and if there weren’t, nothing would be good or evil. Agreed, there have to be some universal values that all people in their right minds would subscribe to. Relativism is a difficult issue for philosophers today to deal with. I try to call on people’s conscience and their moral values to see that things like killing are wrong. Don’t we all hold a framework of values, though heavily influenced by our education and experience?

If morality came from God, then each and every Christian (or Muslim or whatever) would be perfectly moral and each and every non-believer would be a total sinner. Not just because non-belief is a sin, but because he or she couldn’t possibly know any morals. Then, I’d conclude that all non-believers are killers, thieves, sexual offenders, and everything else considered immoral. As a non-believer – well, I’m an Idealist philosophically and virtually all Idealists believe in some Absolute Spirit, but not as in one particular religion -, I tend to disagree.

If ethics originated from God, and only those that claim allegiance to this God are truly moral, further, how can one know that this is true? There are so many religions in the world, so how do we know which one has the right morals? A conservative Christian I’ve been debating with, comes up with the reasoning that Jesus is worshipped by 1.9 billion people, that the Bible is the bestseller of the world, and that our calendar is based on Christianity. However, this is only because Christians were successful at missionary work, bringing their religion over the entire world. Furthermore, it is only *now*, in the last few centuries of the second millennium and the early years of the third millennium accoridng to the Common Era, that Christianity is the most common religion and the religion held by the most developed countries in the world (which is not to say that all underdeveloped countries are non-Christian). In the eight centuries before the Common Era and the first four centuries in the Common Era, the Roman Empire was considered the centre of the world, and, ironically, it collapsed shortly after it had universally adopted Christianity. I’m not saying that Christianity is wrong, I’m just saying that it’s chance that this religion is the most common one in the world at this moment.

Religion has always been an important part of culture, and hence, has influenced morality everywhere and throughout the ages. That is not the same as to say that morality comes from God, let alone this particular God.

Jerry Billings, in his article Ethics Without God, Or God Without Ethics, points out perfectly well how it is impossible to say that ethics come from God, cause firstly, many atheists and agnostics are also moral, and don’t need a God for that, and secondly, if morals came from God, one couldn’t judge without God that this God is the right God, so a non-religious person could never judge whether the Christian God, or any other deity, were a good God. That points out why it’s just chance that Christianity is viewed to be the good religion in large parts of the world, while it may just as well be any other religion or no religion at all.

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Thoughts on a Theory of Multiple Selves

I found this article. It’s quite cool. It makes clear how all of us “wear different hats” as we encounter different situations. Everyone has several different roles and, if you liked, you could see them all as different Selves, as the writers of this article are doing. I learnt about the structurialist protrayal of mankind in philosophy class, and I think this pretty much makes sense in this context. It’s making clear how, as we move about in life, we acquire different qualities that are important in different situations. We all like to please others, and you could see a Pleaser personality in that. We all also need to endure stressful situations at times, so a Pusher may come in handy. This is not the usual structuralist viewpoint, that just says that we’re different persons sort of when we’re at school versus doing a summer job, etc., but it makes clear how each of us has different qualities and viewpoints that are not always compatible. I mean, a Vulnerable Child (the concept of an Inner Child is very widespread) wouldn’t be quite compatible with a Pusher, would she? But everyone has the experience where different “parts” of themselves have different interests. Like, I may want to watch TV but need to do homework. If one were always the same, it would be quite boring, wouldn’t it?

Of course, this theory is yet another rigid theory of personality, especially the ideas of how each of our personalities develops. It is no more accurate or inaccurate, in my view, than any other theory of personality – they all have some good parts and some bad parts. In this particular case, as I see it, a person can have unlimited selves, cause what’s the different between a trait and a self? I like, however, their idea that a person isn’t a solid, stereotyped collection of characteristics that are all fully compatible, but may in fact have quite contradictory traits. As a “lover” of contradictions and a person who has named numerous aspects of herself (although none are as stereotypical as being simple traits), I like their viewpoint of a multi-focal self.

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Peter Singer on Animal Rights

I was just reading the article All Animals Are Equal by Peter Singer. In this article, the Australian-born philosopher and professor at Princeton argues for equality between humans and nonhuman animals. He argues that the capacity to suffer and enjoy should be the only requirement for consideration of one’s interests (which is what counts in utilitarian ethics), because some being who can’t suffer or enjoy, can’t have interests. “Sentience” is the word Singer contends to use. If a being is sentient, it means it has interests. That is a more plausible requirement than reason, or moral capacity, or any other characteristic, for it is what is at the core of the idea of considering interests: if a being can’t suffer or enjoy, that means intrinsically that it has no interest. On the other hand, however mentally defective or morally incapable a being may be, if it can still suffer or enjoy, it has an interest, for it will be affected by what happens to it. In this case, mental capacity or moral ability is equally arbitrary to, for instance, skin colour. Therefore, this is the defining characteristic of whose interests should be considered, and according to these standards, nonhuman animals should be given equal consideration to humans.

Throughout the article, I remained suspicious, for I know Singer for being quite prejudiced against a particular group of human beings: the disabled. I kept wondering why he does argue for equal rights of animals, but still advocates infanticide on the profoundly retarded. Singer however does mention the retarded, although in this article he uses the argument that we wouldn’t do experiments on the retarded to state that we shouldn’t do the same on animals, either.

Still, I seem to have to take it that Singer thinks that, apparently, profoundly retarded people have no sentience. He does not discuss this in this article, but he does say that reason, apparently, is not needed for sentience, since we suspect that some animals do not have reason (or, traditionally, that no animals have reason). Having said that, I still feel a little puzzled, for it is determined by some other standard whether someone has sentience.

Cause how does one determine whether someone has sentience? I heard sometime that fish could feel pain. That didn’t surprise me, but it makes me wonder how they found out, especially since a philosopher who argues for animal rights as well as infanticide on the retarded, now is using sentience as an argument for the former. It is generally by getting some sort of reaction that it is found out that someone is sentient. And, even though no conventional communication may be needed to indicate that one has feeling, the being’s reactions (if any) must be interpreted as indicating that it can feel. This is even a controversial issue with people who are in a coma, so how controversial it must be with animals! Is there any reliable means of measuring whether a being is sentient? Aren’t we biassed by our own standards? I am afraid we are.

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Philosophical Thoughts on Natural Multiplicity

I always used to be very interested in what separates what is called the “self” from the “other”. As a child, I used to imagine what it would be like if I had someone else’s mind, like my sister’s or cab driver’s, or what it would feel like to be something I wasn’t, like male or sighted. I used to be surprised that you can say of yourself that you’re a “me”, and that you cannot call someone else “me”, for that’s “you”. I still find this fascinating, and it’s an interesting philosophical thing.

Lately, I’ve become aware of a phenomenon called “natural multiplicity”. People/systems like Astraea and Amorpha discuss this thing. It’s nothing like my “system” – mine isn’t natural and it is by far not as formed as theirs are -, but it’s a very interesting phenomenon. Cause why should people be allowed only one person per body? If we say so, we say that appearance (ie. whether there is a different body) is the borderline between one person and another, while the experience of different people is essentially mental. You can’t say so without having a differentiation between the self and the other, for if you did not make this distinction, what value does the idea of different people have?

Is it an idea? I’d say not. I cannot feel that my sister is “me”, and yet I can feel that I am “me”, and, if you get into plurality anyway, I can feel that the “ladies” are “me”, to an extent (in that their qualities and perspectives should be mine). Some people contend that “the self” is only a linguistic principle, for most verbs require a defined subject, but would you ask who is raining if it rains? I wouldn’t. So I don’t think it’s merely linguistic, even though one can become very detached from oneself when one dissociates.

That still only validates the claim that what we call “self” is a mental experience, not something empirical. And even if it were empirical, that would not mean that it’d be by the existence of a body that personhood is defined. I don’t know how natural multiplicity would be accounted for in the physiological or neurological sense, but we don’t know if homosexuals have any neurological or physiological difference, either.

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Thoughts on Existentialism

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

From the time I learnt what existentialism meant, I’ve hated it and yet been fond of it. But isn’t that what existentialism is for? For no-one would want to be thrown into this world, condemned to make of his life what he wants. All folks like to discard their responsibilities to others: their friends, their parents, the state, God. None of these beings are in existence solely to hand human beings’ responsibilities to. They’re not only there to make choices for people. They’re, indeed, at times in existence to hold expectations for people – such as laws in the state or a religion’s doctrine.

Still, you may say that one can choose not to follow the law, his creed, or the expectations set for him by family and friends. We had a discussion on that in French class a while back, and one student said that it’s expected of those who graduate from a high level high school like mine that they go to university, and that therefore we have little choice but to do that. Of course, it’s flawed logic, but of course one’s circumstances influence the choices one makes. Like, a poor person in Africa is not likely to become a millionaire. In that respect, we cannot totally shape our lives. And, on the more personal level, when you’re a child you will not make all your decisions – yur parents will – and these will most likely influence you. Cause, even though I for example like my current high school, it was my parents’ choice, not mine, that I would go to this high level school. As an adult, you will have to make decisions, given the circumstances you’re in. “You have to live with your choices and the choices made for you,” my father once said. And that is true: we may be able to make choices to an extent, but we do live with others, and we do live in certain circumstances. For instance, I might want to become a brain surgeon, but I’d never become one cause I’m blind.

British Idealists settled the issue, on determining that a person’s circumstances and character on the one hand and his will (chosen desire) on the other hand are united and cannot exist independently of each other. That’s understandable, for a person’s possibilities in willing and choosing are limited by a person’s circumstances. For instance, if I desired to have both a book and a CD, but I didn’t have the money to afford both, I’d have to decide which to buy. By deciding either, I made that my will. Yet on the other hand, what one chooses and wills also influences what one will become. Like, when I go to university in September to study English, that’ll influence what I’ll become – although with a degree in English or American studies you can still work in quite a few professions, you’re unlikely to become a physics teacher, for then you’d have to have studied physics. I like the British Idealist idea about freedom, will etc. much better than the existentialist idea, cause it includes how our circumstances and character influence our choices to a point that goes beyond: “We’re just thrown into this world and condemned to be free.”

Astrid

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Hobbes on Religion and Evolution Theory

Hobbes says in his Leviathan that people believe in God because they want to explain things and cause they have fear for the future. In the nature state, people have to fear everyone else (hence the war of all against all). They have a God to project their fears upon. Hobbes is seen as an atheist, although roughly half his Leviathan discusses religion and especially christianity. I haven’t read that part for my philo project, but am going to do it sometime. I would not fully agree with Hobbes’ initial thoughts about christianity, cause they’re pretty outdated: now that we can explain many things scientifically, there are still many christians and other religious people. And well, many contradict science, but there must be some that don’t. And as for the fear? In the 17th century God wasn’t really the caring, loving Someone (at least, with all the religious wars, one’d say not), so why would people turn to Him cause they fear other humans? It’s weird. Should God automatically contradict science? Genesis does contradict the big bang and evolution theory. But yeah, in the time the Bible was written, there was no big bang theory and Darwin hadn’t been born for more than 1,500 years. I wonder if really all christians contradict evolution theory. If so, they would all contradict things like genetics, too. But I think they do not necessarily contradict – couldn’t there be a God involved in evolution. Darwin states that “by chance” there’s one mutant born who can survive better than the others of his kind and then on with the “survival of the fittest” theory. Why “by chance”? Couldn’t there be a God involved there? Then, still, evolution would contradict the literal meaning of Genesis. “God created all the animals.” Well, not all, as some evolve from others. But couldn’t that be the time being – as I said, Darwin wasn’t born for another one and a half milenniums? Oh by the way, I learnt in general sciences class that creation science believes that Earth wasn’t created before 10,000 years ago? I wonder why and what those folks think of animals like dinosaurs and so on? And by the way humans have also lived for at least two million years. Hm, I don’t know how to fully compromise Genesis with evolution theory.

Astrid

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Project on British Idealism

I suddenly realise how stupid it is that I passed this year! Now I’ll have to work my entire summer holiday. That f*cking final project on British Idealism, you know? September 1st will be discussion of the “research phase”. Well, it won’t be cause P. doesn’t do a f*ck of it except when I remind him six times. I hate it!!! I THOUGHT I could relax during my holiday, but just because I’m too stupid to find primary sources and P. forgot about it when he’d replied that he would try to help me another time (why am I not allowed to just forget the things I find too difficult? Not even now that I have moved up to 12th and can have summer holiday?). Dad suggested I look for things in university libraries. I don’t know how… I’m too stupid… He says I could’ve asked Postma (other philo teacher) or Van R. (multimedia centre person), but it’s now too late (although he also suggested I E-mail them and still now ask if they can help me)… It all sucks. I hope I can forget this entire stupid thing and not care about it till September 1st… Hate it!!!!!!! I can understand folks don’t help if you don’t ask for it and don’t remind you of things (some teachers did with the students whose projects they guide, but one in 11th should be able to plan herself), but I did come up with my questions and I did remind P. and it’s all sooo complicated and I’m going to fail on the entire thing and well I don’t care. Of course I do care. Well, then I don’t care that I do care. I’m such a stupid girl who can’t even do her academics (well, two nines, three eights, six sevens and two sixes, but who cares?)! Why don’t we get the info we need (I don’t even know the requirements for that “research phase” thing and there are about three things which you have to do otherwise you can start over)… Apparently students are supposed to have such rreat responsibility that they can do anything by themselves and teachers are only supposed to judge whether they did it correctly! Well, go away all thete southgs. I don’t want to think of British Idealism or the whole stupid project the entire holiday. I want to forget about tit till September, and then get really stressed, not now. I want to have holiday!!! No, I do want to work on that f*cked up thing, only if I know what to do, where to go. Anyway, if it appears the thole stupid project fails etc. etc., I’ll never choose another subject thich the teacher hadn’t heard of, and I certainly won’t have somebody guide it who loves challenging assignments, only if, as it comes across to me, they aren’t his own. Anyway, it’s only June 24. It won’t be September 1, let alone February 25 (when the f*cked thing has to be finished) for another long, long while and let’s pretend, like apparently everyone does, that I’ve never heard of the stupid thing. It’s sooo frustrating… I know it’s all my responsibility, but apparently we aren’t allowed to need help (or, if we ask for it, the teachers won’t do anything to help us). Will this of me reminding P. that we have to discuss some topic, then he forgetting it, then I reminding him again and we having a quick nonsense discussion with no outcome continue until Feebruary 25.
I’m afraid it will. Well, at least then I’ll have a possibility to stay on high school for another year despite getting too high grades in 11th to repeat it.

Astrid

ps – Mum reminded me that one ain’t allowed to do one’s final exam if one doesn’t have one’s project finished. As if that’ll suddenly make me understand the horrible thing and be able to do it.

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