4 ms·
From the original post: > One of the most profound memories I have from that school is of Ms. Susan teaching us to say "thank you" to the plants when we took a
by shagie 4y ago
From the original post:
> One of the most profound memories I have from that school is of Ms. Susan teaching us to say "thank you" to the plants when we took a few of their leaves for the tea. We'd look at the plant, find some good leaves, pluck 'em off, and then say "thank you" and move to the next one
And the response:
> It's messed up for a school to get children to verbally apologize to plants. It implies that plants have feelings.
The followup to that is about the confusion/"these are the same things" for thanking something being the same as apologizing for that same thing - that gratitude is the same as remorse.
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The difference is:
> Thank you for the leaf that I will use for tea
vs
> I'm sorry that I'm picking your leaf for my own enjoyment
The first example here is thanking (a plant) and the second example is apologizing for taking action implying feeling sorry for the harm caused to the plant.
- lukas099 4y agoThea person you are responding to understood that; what they didn’t understand was what the person they were responding to had come to understand about part of the population from the person they were responding to conflating thanking with understanding. And, I think that was the hardest to understand thing I’ve ever said.
- mejutoco 4y agoThe person read thanking and registered apologizing. My hypothesis is because they see both as more or less equivalent, or a form of weakness.
- tfourb 4y agoAnd if I may expand on this, if someone conflates thanking and apologizing and/or associates both with weakness, it has profound implications for how that person will behave within a society. It may (at least partly) explain why there is so little "instinctive" kindness towards other people, especially when these people are not part of your social circle or they are "abstract" (i.e. when they are featured in the media).