Israel flattened Beirut in 1982.
No Hamas. No Hezbollah. No October 7 to point to then.
Just 17,000 dead Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.
Even US president then Ronald Reagan, who armed Israel, called Begin furious after seeing a photo of a 7-month-old baby with its arms blown off and said “It is a holocaust”.
They killed so many innocent people that the survivors had no choice but to pick up weapons.
Then Israel had the audacity to keep using “Self-Defense” excuse every decade.
Israel didn’t stumble into endless war. Israel built it. Brick by brick.
Own it.
Unironically, this was my mother’s stance. She did not put my crappy drawings up on the fridge. I grew up perfectly aware of my weaknesses. When she gave me praise (which she did!), I knew it meant something. No participation trophies in my house. I think it was grounding & I felt like she respected me by having actual standards for me, despite my age!
Unfortunately, my classmates were getting gassed up at home, and *perceptions* dictate confidence more than talent. By middle school it was hard to deny that I was among the smartest kids in my grade, but on a somatic level I wasn’t particularly sure of myself. My mom was fairly casual about my straight 97s while other kids earned $120 for getting all A’s and B’s. She knew that doing well hadn’t been difficult for me so she didn’t harp on it; this meant I didn’t internalize it as a source of confidence; I was meeting an expectation rather than [accomplishing something that I should feel proud of]. If all parents had been like her this would have been fine, but my parents were *so* measured and reasonable about their praise that I got **wayyyyyy** less encouragement than a lot of my peers did. Turns out that this does matter, even if it’s not reflected immediately in your academic/ extracurricular outcomes.
So. I’d say don’t lie to your kids. Don’t gas them up about dumb shit & make them incapable of hearing they have flaws. But also maybe praise them more vehemently, more readily than you think is necessary, when they’re genuinely good at something. Being aware of your weaknesses is good; being sure of your strengths is even better. Humility is a virtue that complements confidence, but it cannot replace it, or you’ll suffer in a competitive world like this one.
Somewhere in a war-torn country, there is a boy smarter than me, more disciplined, resilient, and with more potential than I have. My burnout is a luxury he cannot afford; his only goal is to make it through another day. The only difference between us is geographical luck.
I saw a post on Reddit that said that “The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.” And I don’t think I’ve ever seen AI described so incisively.
Slavery was so long ago and we’re supposed to be over it until you want to have an image of the resistance of enslaved people, then it’s too political. They will never forgive Haiti for winning their freedom. They made Haiti pay France reparations for 150 years and still salty.